Felin Gakwaya

But then I asked, but if I forgive you, what next when other criminals are in jail?

He explained he had been assigned to do Tij.

What is Tij?

Tij is a community service as an alternative punishment for prison for convicts.

Later, an NGO called Fondazioni came to teach us about reconciliation in Rerima.

So your forgiveness did not come from faith or religion, but from reconciliation commission call.

Yes.

It was possible thanks to the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission.

Not from church.

It was also from the military orders that I had learned.

And in prison, we had rules.

No prisoner should be harmed.

If anyone tried to escape, the rule was to shoot them in the leg, never to kill.

During my time, no one ever escaped.

Stephen is careful when he talks about forgiveness.

He does not turn it into a simple or mid-heartwarming story.

He says it began with orders, with prison rules, with the work of reconciliation.

But I wanted to know whether, after all that, it had become something deeper, something that now lived in him.

Did you later socialize together?

Were you neighbors in a way that you could meet and attend ceremonies together?