After the Genocide in Rwanda: Testimonies of Violence, Change and Reconciliation 9781788313230, 9781788318280, 9781788319157, 9781786736697

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After the Genocide in Rwanda

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After the Genocide in Rwanda Testimonies of Violence, Change and Reconciliation Edited by Hannah Grayson, Nicki Hitchcott, Laura Blackie and Stephen Joseph

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I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Copyright © Hannah Grayson, Nicki Hitchcott, Laura Blackie and Stephen Joseph, 2019 Hannah Grayson, Nicki Hitchcott, Laura Blackie and Stephen Joseph have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Charlotte James Cover image: Witnesses of the Rwanda Genocide, 1994. (© Thomas Imo/Getty Images) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The editors and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN:

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Contents Acknowledgements Foreword Map of Rwanda

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Introduction We moved from there to here One wall cannot support a house We are all holding the same rope Let’s make bricks and build for them

Afterword Glossary Notes Bibliography

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1 27 67 107 137 177 183 185 195

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Acknowledgements Our heartfelt thanks go to all who have been involved in preparing and publishing this volume of testimonies. Thank you to our team of transcribers and translators – Viateur Musengamana, Deogratias Nshimiyimana, Leonie Karugahe, Placide Habineza and Grace Umwali – for your hard work, attention to detail and insights into the language at the heart of this book. To the entire archive team at the Genocide Archive of Rwanda, and especially Paul Rukesha, Aude Kamanzi and Claver Irakoze, thank you for all your help and collaboration over the life of our project. Thank you to our project partner, the Aegis Trust, which manages the Genocide Archive of Rwanda. Charlotte Wirth and our undergraduate research interns Ellen Bentley and Emily Elderfield provided invaluable assistance with the preparation of the manuscript. Glenn Palfrey at DP&L Travel, St Andrews, made all our travel as easy as possible. Thanks to Laura Pels Ferra and Kathleen Brown in the School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews for your patient administration of our research budget. Thank you to Sophie Rudland and the team at I. B. Tauris. We also acknowledge the generous support of the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council), UK, which funded our research (grant reference: AH/ M004155/2). Finally, and most importantly, we thank all the Rwandan people who shared the stories presented here: Murakoze cyane.

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Foreword Esther Mujawayo-Keiner

In 1994, after the genocide, the loss was total. It really was loss in every sense. We found ourselves thinking, ‘We survived. We’re here. We’re alive.’ But we didn’t jump up and down and say, ‘We’re lucky. We survived.’ We were rather thinking, ‘Now we are condemned to live.’ Because we were still living and everyone else was gone. Everyone had been killed. And here we were. Before the genocide, I had been working for Oxfam UK. I worked in the humanitarian sector, in refugee camps, etc. So, I knew that if we had to run, we could take some of our belongings with us. But, I was lucky because I also took some photographs when we had to leave our home. I knew that we would be given blankets, coats and other things, but nobody would give us memories of our people. Those pictures really were a treasure to me. The lack of pictures is a big problem for many survivors. There is a problem of identity among the young: the children who were very young during the genocide have no idea who they are. They don’t know what their mum looked like, or what their dad looked like. I have a photograph of my family. One of my uncles took the picture when he came to visit. In the picture is my father, Mfizi. In 1994, he was killed. Next to him is my aunt, Epiphanie. She was also killed. Next to her is my mum, Monika. She was also killed. Next to her is Stéphanie, my sister. She was also killed. She’s the one for whom I wrote the book La Fleur de Stéphanie. They killed her with her children and her husband. Everything was destroyed. There is nothing left of Stéphanie; only a small flower she planted before the genocide. Next to Stéphanie is my aunt, Immaculée. She was also killed, together with her husband, who took the picture. They are all gone. Only my little niece, Florence, survived. At the time of the genocide, she was not so little. She was at university, so fortunately not at our parents’ home. I have another picture of my husband’s side of the family. That picture was taken in 1988, when we had our first child, Anna. My husband was teaching. He was a French teacher. The picture was taken when we went to present baby vii

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Anna to the family. In this picture is my husband’s younger brother. His name was Ngabo. At the time of the genocide, he was married and had two children. He was killed with his wife and both children. Next to him is my father-in-law, Karera. He was also killed in 1994. Next to him is my mother-in-law, Cesaria. She was also killed during the genocide. Anna, the baby, thank God, survived. She is now grown up and living in Berlin. Next to Anna is me. And next to me is my husband, Innocent. He was also killed in 1994. The small boy sitting down, Cyemayire, was my husband’s brother. He was also killed in 1994. Next to him is a cousin, Nyamaswa. He was killed in 1994, together with his mum, my husband’s aunt and his brothers and sisters. Next to him is my husband’s sister Umutesi, my sister-in-law. She was also killed. Next to her is a cousin, Mugaragu. He was also killed. The stories of these pictures illustrate what is meant by total loss. For many families, this is how it was. For many families, there is not even a little niece who survived; there is not even an Esther and Anna. When we commemorate the genocide today, we have a special commemoration for those families where everyone was killed. Faced with such loss, you tell yourself as a survivor: ‘I am here, but I have nobody anymore. Who am I? How can I continue to live? I belong nowhere. I am not. I used to be the sister of, the daughter of, the wife of, the auntie of.’ It is horrific. It really drags you down if you try to visualize it or think about it. What matters is not only that they were killed, but also how they were killed: the atrocity, the brutality. Sometimes we survivors are quite cynical, we have humour. But sometimes our humour is black, cynical humour: We think, ‘Why did they have to kill us so badly?’ As if there was good or bad killing. I say this because many survivors are haunted by the images and the noises of the killings. We are haunted by the way it was done. It won’t leave us alone. Sometimes we tell ourselves that, if our loved ones had been shot straight away, they would not have suffered, and we would not be haunted by their agony. Survivors are haunted by the brutality of the genocide. Not only were people brutally killed, but also all their belongings and their homes were destroyed. The génocidaires destroyed everything. What upsets me so much is that they wanted to eradicate everything, to make it seem as if there had never been any life there. I remember when the genocide against the Tutsi was over, when I was feeling a bit more stable, I decided to go back to see my parents’ house. Fortunately, I was no longer a child because if I’d been a child, I

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would not have been able to find my parents’ house. Before the genocide, when you came onto the main street, our neighbour Rwakazungu’s house was on the left. In fact, Rwakazungu was a killer; he was one of the people who killed my family. Then we would turn right to go to our place. But after the genocide, where we used to turn right, there was nothing there anymore. Even the small road on the right that used to lead to our place had been farmed. So, they had killed everybody, destroyed everything – even the trees – and then started farming on the road to our place. Seeing this was such a shock for me. To know that you were meant to be eradicated; to know that people wanted to act as if you had never existed – not only to kill you, but also to finish you off and then erase your existence – this is the knowledge we have to live with as survivors. There was a British doctor who used to work for Médecins sans frontières. He was in Butare when the génocidaires arrived to kill his staff. They had a list of all the Tutsi to kill and they took them out and killed them. Then, they came back to take a nurse and the British doctor told them, ‘No, sorry. You’re not killing my nurse, she’s a Hutu.’ The génocidaires checked their list and said, ‘You’re right. She is a Hutu. But the baby inside her is a Tutsi.’ The génocidaires killed her because of her baby: because she was pregnant by a Tutsi man. It is a terrible feeling to know that you are hunted because of what you are. You have done nothing. You are not in a war. No one is shooting. But they come to seek you where you are hiding. They come to seek you even in your mother’s womb. What was also badly damaged by the genocide was Rwandan society and its values. To make a genocide possible, you first have to kill and suppress the values of a society. And this is what they did. Before the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, there was a lot of propaganda. There are so many similarities with the Holocaust – the genocide against the Jews in Germany.1 Propaganda can be so strong it can make people believe that they are not human beings. In our case, we were inyenzi (cockroaches). It can make you foreigners; you are believed to come from somewhere else. In our case, they said we came from Abyssinia, Ethiopia.2 They said we had to go back home via the Nyabarongo river.3 Cynically, this is how the génocidaires ‘sent people back home’: they killed them and threw them into the river. Propaganda can make people believe that others are dangerous. So, people start to become afraid, saying: ‘You never know with those people. If we don’t do something, they will.’ Such propaganda works very well. This is what happened in Rwanda many months

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before the genocide. There was a newspaper that published the Ten Commandments of the Hutu: ‘A good Hutu shall not marry a Tutsi. A good Hutu shall not give a job to a Tutsi . . .’4 Those words were terrible. They used the language of the Bible, but what was said was criminal, totally against the teachings of the Bible. What was so unacceptable was not only those who were carrying out the killings, but also those who did not react, the bystanders. When these newspapers used the language of the Church, the language of the Bible, there was no reaction. Nobody stood up and challenged it. There was also a song. It is still sung in Rwanda. It is a very nice, Christian song: ‘Iyi si nibirimo byose niby’Uwiteka’ (‘This world and all that is in it belongs to God. For all the beauty of this world, we give thanks to God’). They changed the words, replacing ‘God’ with ‘Hutu’, which suggested that the Hutu were all powerful. They were now like God. The values of Rwandan society had been eradicated: there was no mercy, no pity for anyone. There was no holy place. Before 1994, which was the final solution, there had already been many massacres against the Tutsi in 1959, 1963 and 1973. And we would run. As soon as we reached a church, we thought we would be safe because churches were holy places. But then the propaganda also attacked the holiness of the churches. Many people were killed in churches. After the genocide, you find yourself in a state of sociological emptiness: how can I go ahead, how can I live if I cannot trust anyone anymore? Before, you could trust your teacher. But teachers became killers. You could trust the priest and the pastor. But priests and pastors became killers. In Rwandan culture, we used to say that women and girls had the best hearts: ‘Umukobwa ni Nyampinga, Umukobwa ni umutima w’urugo.’ But during the genocide, we saw the terrible sight of women with babies on their backs and machetes in their hands, hunting other women. So, how can I trust if women were able to do such things? And children? There were horrific incidents when parents took their own children to the killings. They would kill the adults and they would leave the children to the children. So, there was a total loss of the values of our society. And now we have to start again. We have to rebuild society. We have to think carefully about how we can bring back our values. How can we heal? Not only heal the people. Not only heal the individuals. Not only heal the wounds, visible or invisible, but also how can we heal society?

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Something struck me after the genocide. In Rwandan culture, when you meet someone you haven’t seen in a long time, you give them a hug. You hug them and you make a wish. So, when I greeted young women, I would wish them a husband: ‘Gira umugabo? Ye.’ But now, I can’t do this anymore because so many young women are widows. Or I would wish people children: ‘Gira abana? Ye.’ I would wish children to women who could be mothers. But many of my friends saw all their children killed. I’m so lucky that my three daughters all survived, but I have many friends who saw all their children killed. Sometimes the killers were so cruel that they refused to kill the mothers, telling them, ‘Watch! You are going to go mad after this!’ And of course, that was what would happen. If I didn’t wish a husband, parents or children, I would wish someone cows: ‘Amashyo? Ye.’ Cows are very important in Rwandan society. I would wish someone lots of cows. But now, I cannot even wish someone cows, because I know that the cows were also killed and eaten during the genocide. All I can wish now is, for the Christians, ‘Yezakuzwe’ (Jesus be glorified). But in 1994, people were killed in front of Jesus in his Church. Imagine a society where making a greeting used to be something very banal. We would say these things automatically. But now, we have to think about what we can say and how to say it. Imagine the level of destruction across the whole society and of course the economic loss. Everything was destroyed. We really had to start from scratch. Everything was looted. Of course, for those who were still there, if they didn’t have physical wounds, they had psychological wounds. Many emerged from the piles of bodies; they were so badly wounded, but they survived. They had to physically heal. But the trauma was also huge. We had to heal psychologically too. The worst things happened to the women. The women were systematically raped. In 1994, the level of AIDS was already very high, which led to so many women and girls being infected with HIV. In the immediate aftermath of the genocide, there was no money to buy the necessary medicines. The medicines were there, but we did not have the money to treat the women. We tried hard, but in the beginning, it was very difficult. How could we rebuild after such destruction? Our families, our people, could not come back. They were dead. We had to live with that. But you cannot live alone. So, we started to create new families. We, the women who started AVEGA, in the beginning we were friends: Paulina, Sylvie, Chantal, Espérance and the others. We would meet and, finding each other still alive, we would

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start talking. We found it helpful to be able to talk to people who listened. It was good to be together, to cry together. At the time, we didn’t know much about trauma and healing. But it was our reality. So, we decided to make a family because we needed to make a family. You cannot live alone; you have to belong somewhere. Here in Rwanda, we don’t have family names so my relatives are not called Mujawayo like me. Everyone has their own name, and presents themselves as the sister of so-and-so, the daughter of so-and-so, etc. until you arrive at the oldest member of the clan. But after the genocide, there was no one left. This meant we had to make our own new family. Our family is called AVEGA and, as a family, we were really stubborn. This helped us a lot because in Rwandan culture – in fact, in many cultures – to be a widow is not a good thing. Widows have a very low status in society. They are thought to bring bad luck. In Rwanda, we have a very cynical proverb in Kinyarwanda: ‘Uwo wanga aragapfakara, ibisigaye atunge ibyo’ (The worst thing you can wish for your enemy is to become a widow, even if the widow keeps all her belongings). If you wish that, you are suggesting that someone is worthless. On coming together and finding ourselves as so many widows bringing bad luck, we decided to put that bad luck to good use. We used it to fight for our rights. I remember one incident that happened to one of our friends: somebody had squatted her house. Because she was a widow, she couldn’t get her house back. Luckily, the house had not been destroyed, but somebody was living in it and refused to give it back to her because, as a widow, she had no power. We women of AVEGA decided to show our power. Eight of us went to see the mayor, wearing our traditional dress. The secretary told him that eight ‘bad lucks’ were waiting to see him. What helped us was being together. We used our status to get our friend’s house back. And we continued to fight. For us, reconstructing a family gave us the strength to fight for our rights. AVEGA in French means Association des Veuves du Génocide d’Avril [Association of the Widows of the April Genocide]. In Kinyarwanda, we call it Agahozo. Agahozo is a very beautiful, gentle song that is sung to console someone who is crying, to dry their tears. We decided that this was our consolation. This was our family. This would dry our tears. When we started the organization in January 1995, we were fifty women. Now we are more than 20,000, all over the country. We decided to rebuild, to heal, in every sense. Making families again was really important for us. I am so happy that not only

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the widows did that, but also the young people, the children, the orphans. They also started making families. You can find families where the father is only a few years older than the youngest child, because they didn’t have anyone else. One of the major issues we faced at the time was rape and HIV. Women were dying. My first book, SurVivantes, is about the widows, our faith and our fight. I dedicated it to one of my young therapy clients, Dafroza.5 At sixteen, when her parents were killed, she was raped and infected with HIV. She died when she was nineteen. We were getting mad, thinking that we survived only to die slowly. It was so unfair, particularly as during the International Tribunal in Arusha (ICTR), men who had raped and infected women with HIV were being treated with anti-retroviral drugs. They were receiving treatment, but the women were not. We felt it was unfair that people were casting shame on us. It is unfair in all societies: when it comes to rape, usually the shame is on those who have been raped. You feel dirty, you feel ashamed, as if you are the guilty one. Because we were this big family of stubborn sisters, we decided that we had nothing more to lose, so we went out into the streets. We were fortunate that all the women’s organizations supported us to go out into the streets and to speak out about what had happened, to talk about the extent of the rapes. More than 80 per cent of the survivors had been raped, more than half of them were infected with HIV, and they were dying. When we asked the International Tribunal for medication for the women – at least for the women who were going to testify – they told us that the tribunal was not a hospital. We tried to say that we were asking for our rights; we were not asking for charity. We told them, ‘You say that you are doing justice, but you are treating one side and not the other. The witnesses are going to die. They are dying.’ It was a long story, but because of all the bureaucracy, there was no provision for us, for the victims. We had to find other ways to get treatment. Now we are proud. Those who did not die at the time have been campaigning with other organizations to make the treatment for AIDS available. Today in Rwanda, it is available to everyone, not only the women who have been raped. What we tried to do on a small scale – and we are proud of that – can now be seen on a large scale, across the whole society. As stubborn widows, we had no choice: we had to do what the men, our husbands, had been doing. In one of our meetings, a woman told us that she had started milking cows. She was lucky because she still had a cow but,

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according to Rwandan tradition, women cannot milk cows. So, she asked her neighbour, a man, to milk the cow for her. That man did it once, twice and the third time he said, ‘I’m not going to milk the cow alone,’ meaning he expected her to come to his bed. At this, the women responded. ‘No. We will not do that. We will milk the cows ourselves.’ Why didn’t women milk cows? We used to joke about it, but it was a reality. If a woman milked a cow wearing a dress, there was a risk that she might show some of her naked body. So, we realized that the solution was trousers. The same was true of building houses. Why couldn’t women climb ladders? Because they were wearing dresses. With trousers, we changed many things. Of course, you can put a dress over your trousers. So, we kept on fighting. We managed to get a national fund set up for survivors: the FARG (Fonds national d’Assistance aux Rescapés du Génocide et des massacres). We pushed the government to recognize that, as the genocide had been carried out by a previous government, it was up to the new government to make reparations. They agreed to put 5 per cent of the national budget into a fund to help survivors in need. It is not a compensation fund. It is for those in need. Priority is given to paying school fees for orphans. We were so lucky to have that fund for medical treatment, for schooling and for housing. Then we realized that the orphaned children were going to boarding school, but were getting bad grades. They were getting their school fees paid, but what else did they have? Who was supporting them? Who was coming to visit them? In boarding school in Rwanda, visitors come on one Sunday in every month. These children saw the other parents; they saw that the other children had parents who came to visit them. I remember children telling me that visiting day was the worst day for them. It was the day they hated because they realized they had nobody to visit them. So, the orphans organized themselves and the eldest would visit the others so that they no longer had no visitors. They now had somebody who would at least be angry about their grades, who would look at their school report. The children would laugh because before the genocide they were afraid that someone would be angry about their report whereas now they wished they had someone to be angry about their report. They had to create a system, a family, not only to have someone to be angry about their report, but also to be happy about their good grades. It is so exciting to see many of them today – the youngest of them are now twenty-one and over. From those families of those children, some are now having babies. They

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have children, they have cows. This is one of the things that makes me so happy when I go back home. All the greetings I used to say and stopped being able to say, now I can say them again. Now I can wish people children, I can wish them wives, I can wish them husbands. It has been a long process and, in this reconstruction, it has been so important to have a family, to have somewhere to belong, to have people to share the bad as well as the good. It is important not only to rebuild the lives of those of us who are here, who are still alive, but also to restore humanity to those we have lost. Our people were killed in such brutal ways: they were left on the streets; they were eaten by dogs. We want to change those bad memories. Or at least, we don’t want them to have the last word. So, we try. When I was talking about my family, I mentioned their names. They used to have a name. They were not statistics. They were not one-million Tutsi killed. They were called Ngabo. They were called Umudeli. Restoring the humanity of our people is very important and it can be done in many different ways. It can be done through writing books; through poetry; through archives and memorials. I think it is so important that there are memorials; that there are archives; and that people are not forgotten. The risk of forgetting is very big. On one hand, there are the perpetrators and the bystanders who want to forget. By bystanders, I mean the famous international community that failed to act, and countries like France that were even more involved. If we forget, then we feel comfortable. But we are stubborn and we don’t want people to be comfortable. I don’t want anyone to be comfortable, not because I am a bad person, but because I feel it is about prevention. If people feel comfortable after having seen what we have seen, after the worst genocide, then it will happen again and again. This is why it is important to always keep the memories alive. At the same time, it is important to do this in a respectful way. I was happy when the Aegis Trust came in and asked how we could preserve memories while also preserving dignity.6 It is still not clear what should or should not be done. We have some memorials like Murambi that are very hard to visit because they decided to keep the bodies just as they were. They are laid out on tables. You can immediately see if, for example, a woman was raped because she is still in that same position. We have big debates about this. Some people think that it is not acceptable to display bodies in that way. Others say that it shows the truth; it shows what happened. We are still dealing with that question.

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Justice is important, but really, I think justice is impossible. In the case of genocide, it is impossible to do justice. How are we going to do it? How can we judge all the people who were involved in the genocide? We can’t try them all. After the genocide, trials began through the normal jurisdiction process, but it was impossible. It became clear that it would take more than 200 years to prosecute everyone and that the perpetrators would die inside the prisons. The prisons were horrible; they were really overcrowded. Again, Rwanda had to find a solution. The government set up the Gacaca process, which used laypeople rather than professional judges in the trials.7 These lay judges had to be people of integrity. They were required to sit as judges even though they were not professional judges. Their role was to listen to the whole community while people told them what happened; who did what. They had to determine what the punishment should be and how to move forward. These trials took a very long time, but they have allowed us to move forward as a society. People have testified, some people have been punished, some have paid for their crimes. Today, we need to try to live together again. Rwandan society was a broken society. Now, this society has to be reconciled with itself. Our society must be stable if we want our children and the next generations to inherit something more positive than what we went through. The concept of post-traumatic growth tells us that if you have experienced such terrible things, then of course you have your stress and your trauma, but you can also grow. You can grow from that trauma.8 Before I discovered posttraumatic growth, I had already experienced it in my dealings with young people and with the women of AVEGA. It was almost our motto: let us be. We have suffered, but let us learn from it. If we don’t learn and we stay down on the ground, then we have suffered for nothing. Let us make something of it. This philosophy is encapsulated in a metaphor: in the morning, when the cows go out, we clean out the shed and collect the manure. There is a place behind the fence, ‘Icukiro’, where we put the manure. After a week, a month, that place is really stinking. It is not a good place to sit and chat. You don’t go there to chat with somebody. But if you grow a banana tree or a pumpkin near that stinking corner, you’ll produce a big one and a good one. So, let us use our stinking story, let us use our difficult past, at least to produce something. This is what we have been trying to do. And the bananas and pumpkins are big.

Map of Rwanda Places named in the testimonies

Source: Map created by Emily Elderfield.

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Introduction After the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, many Rwandan survivors had lost absolutely everything: their families, their homes, their belongings; their lives were totally destroyed. Many were left with severe physical and psychological wounds. In her Foreword to this volume, Esther Mujawayo-Keiner tells of her own loss in what is also a story of remarkable personal strength. Since experiencing the death of most of her family members, then building the AVEGA community, Esther has continued to touch the lives of many individuals in Rwanda and abroad, some of whom share their testimonies in this book. Like all survivors, Esther’s personal experience of the genocide is unique. Indeed, her current situation as an author and psychotherapist now living in Germany, may give her a different perspective on Rwanda from survivors still living there. But what Esther’s story shares with the other survivors whose stories are presented here, is a combination of unimaginable struggle and extraordinary resilience. In the chapters that follow, Rwandan people tell those stories of struggle and resilience in their own words. The aim of this book, designed for anybody with an interest in learning more about Rwanda, is to provide a range of perspectives on the genocide and its aftermath, with a particular focus on how Rwandan individuals have attempted to rebuild meaningful and purposeful lives. The book gathers previously unpublished testimonies from individuals who lived through the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; the voices of those who experienced one of the most horrific events of the twentieth century. The stories were selected from the collections of the Genocide Archive of Rwanda in Kigali as part of the research project ‘Rwandan Stories of Change’.1 The project’s aims were: to document and compare psychological and social adjustment in people who lived through the genocide against the Tutsi; to give ordinary Rwandan individuals the opportunity to express their own story; and to help contribute to post-conflict reconciliation 1

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and healing in Rwanda after 1994. These stories do not simply paint a picture of lives left destroyed and damaged, but also of healing relationships, reconciliation, resilience and reconstruction. Where this sample of positive stories might echo some of the nation’s larger-scale growth, the book is not designed to trace the macro-level development of Rwanda as a nation, nor to reiterate national success stories. Rather, we wish to emphasize the process of recovery undertaken by individuals, and with each story to show how from a context of extreme violence and suffering, a life has been rebuilt, based on the strength and agency of the individual, while drawing on local, community and national resources.

Changing the story The focus of many existing studies on Rwanda tends to be on the political and historical background to the 1994 genocide, systems of transitional justice, and memory and commemoration. Important bodies of work exist on Rwanda’s Gacaca trials, which took place between 2002 and 2012 to prosecute hundreds of thousands of genocide suspects.2 Although the stories in this volume could stand as complementary to the witness statements often cited in that corpus, the testimonies presented here were gathered in very different circumstances. Building on recent publications that situate survivors’ stories in a wider political history of conflict and persecution in Rwanda,3 our book presents both a more personalized account of the genocide (through the genre of testimony) and a study of contemporary Rwanda that is more forward looking than retrospective, focusing on documenting the recovery and healing process of individuals in post-genocide Rwanda. As such, this volume contributes to developing a more comprehensive and up-to-date picture of Rwanda for an international readership, alongside recent books such as Jean-Paul Kimonyo’s Rwanda demain! Une longe marche vers la transformation.4 The best-known volumes of Rwandan testimony are journalist Jean Hatzfeld’s triptych, originally published in French and translated into English.5 Whereas Hatzfeld has been challenged for heavily editing the testimonies and effectively speaking for those who experienced the genocide, our book reproduces stories that have been carefully transcribed, translated and back-translated to ensure that the voices of Rwandan people are heard in their own words.6 After the Genocide

Introduction

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in Rwanda: Testimonies of Violence, Change and Reconciliation stands alongside the Aegis Trust’s collection of testimonies, We Survived!, Caroline Williamson Sinalo’s recent study, Rwanda After Genocide: Gender, Identity and Post-Traumatic Growth, and Catherine Gilbert’s study of Rwandan women’s published testimonial writing, From Surviving to Living.7 In terms of post-traumatic adaptation in Rwanda, existing scholarship has tended to focus on the devastating effects of genocide trauma.8 However, some research on mental health conducted within the country has more recently looked to positive psychological adjustment.9 Our volume draws on developments in the field of psychology to offer a different perspective. It moves beyond a sole focus on trauma and instead focuses on individuals’ healing and recovery, with a focus on psychological growth. The area of psychological growth in Rwanda merits fuller attention. This book provides a unique contribution to this area, since it centralizes Rwandans’ stories, allowing them to speak for themselves, while drawing attention to the neglected area of positive social and psychological adjustment in individuals who have experienced genocide. Of course, the stories cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of the context in which they were generated. We have therefore annotated the testimonies with cultural and historical explanations where appropriate. In the next section, we offer a brief historical context followed by a presentation of the theoretical lens of positive psychology, through which we invite you to read these testimonies of violence, change and reconciliation. The main events of Rwanda’s history are relatively well known, but the many complex elements of the background to the genocide continue to be challenged and debated.10 In Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics of History, Erin Jessee draws on oral history to reveal how varied, tense and complicated Rwandans’ relationships to the government’s official narrative can be.11 Our historical overview here remains brief, since the impetus for this volume is to emphasize forward-looking change from 1994 onwards, and to demonstrate that the genocide was not the endpoint for many Rwandan people.

Rwanda then The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi was the culmination of many decades of violence and discrimination. As René Lemarchand shows in The Dynamics of

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After the Genocide in Rwanda

Violence in Central Africa, the people of Rwanda had been racialized as ‘Hutu’, ‘Tutsi’ and ‘Twa’ through a series of precolonial, colonial and postcolonial myths.12 Esther Mujawayo-Keiner alludes to one of the key structuring myths, the Hamitic hypothesis, in her foreword to this volume (p. vii). Under colonial rule, first German then Belgian, the racialization of Rwandan people was formalized through various administrative reforms, including ethnic quotas and identity cards, reinforcing what the colonizer initially identified as ‘Hamitic [Tutsi] racial supremacy’.13 Feeling increasingly marginalized, the Hutu majority formed the separatist Hutu emancipation movement, MDR-Parmehutu, and anti-Tutsi violence began to escalate, particularly in the run-up to Rwanda’s independence on 1 July 1962. Parmehutu’s concept of Hutu nationalism was strongly supported by the Catholic Church and increasingly also by the Belgian colonial authorities, which were disappointed by Tutsi calls for independence. After independence, the Hutu-led ruling party, MDR-Parmehutu under President Grégoire Kayibanda, sought to demonstrate its power with increasing authoritarian force. The next three decades were punctuated by violent attacks against Tutsi, and many Tutsi were forced into exile in neighbouring countries. In 1973, Kayibanda was ousted by his Army Chief of Staff, Juvénal Habyarimana in a coup d’état. Habyarimana then declared his own party, the MRND (Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement), the only recognized political party in Rwanda. In 1979, Tutsi exiles in Uganda formed RANU (Rwandese Alliance for National Unity), which in 1987 changed its name to the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front).14 On 1 October 1990, the RPF invaded Rwanda from Uganda, with the declared aim of establishing national unity and democracy, and forcing Habyarimana to grant citizenship to the estimated 700,000 displaced Tutsi living outside Rwanda.15 The RPF invasion marked the start of the Rwandan Civil War, a war that raged on until August 1993 when a ceasefire agreement was finally negotiated, along with plans for a power-sharing government with the RPF. Just six months later, any possibility of power sharing and peace came to an end when the most efficient genocide of the twentieth century erupted in Rwanda. Following an attack on the plane carrying President Habyarimana on 6 April 1994, a large-scale hate campaign saw three months of systematic mass violence, which had catastrophic consequences for Rwandan people. The scale of the genocide is demonstrated in the large number of different places

Introduction

5

mentioned in the testimonies and illustrated in the map on page xvii. Between April and July 1994, as many as one-million Rwandan people, mostly Tutsi, were killed, often in the most brutal ways imaginable, some of which are mentioned in this book. A large number of Hutu were also killed, often because they refused to participate in the killings, or because they were related to Tutsi or simply looked like the racialized stereotype of a Tutsi. In the aftermath of the genocide, large numbers of fleeing Hutu were also killed, many of them in the refugee camps in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), Tanzania and Burundi.16 Many thousands of Rwandans went into exile during and immediately after the genocide, and the political and cultural fabric of the country was totally destroyed. The genocide officially ended in July 1994 when the RPF captured Kigali, but the echoes of the violence still reverberate twentyfive years later as Rwanda rebuilds itself. The small, personal details of such large-scale violence risk being overshadowed by debates over vast statistics and contested political history; and indeed, scholarship on Rwanda has been marked by important debates over ethnicity, impunity and governmental responses and responsibilities in the aftermath of 1994.17 Conversely, the present volume brings a perspective based on life stories, which allows for up-close and personal accounts of what was experienced by Rwandan people themselves. This moves attention away from the often polarized debates, which can distract from the remarkable lives of individuals. This is not to say that some of the voices here do not have a political agenda of their own: for example, Valérie Bemeriki’s testimony in this volume is undeniably strategic (see Chapter One). One of the most renowned voices of the genocide, Valérie was a journalist for the hate radio station, RTLM (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines), which broadcast genocidal propaganda before and during the genocide. She is now serving a life sentence for crimes of genocide. Her decision to frame her story in terms of admission of her own guilt and realization of the horror of her crime has to be understood in part as her ongoing attempt to receive a reduced sentence in Rwanda. In March 2014, Valérie gave evidence via videoconference against former Rwandan army officer, Pascal Simbikangwa, in the first trial of a Rwandan perpetrator to be held in France (Simbikangwa was a shareholder in RTLM). She made no secret of the fact that she gave evidence against Simbikangwa in the hope of getting her sentence reduced.18

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After the Genocide in Rwanda

However, first-person testimonies can provide a powerful counterpoint to the master narratives of genocide in the way they draw attention to local points of focus, and provide details and insights otherwise unseen.19 For example, where a number of violent epicentres from the genocide have been well documented, such as Nyamata and Bisesero, first-hand accounts from those killing sites are given.20 Marie Claire Nkima’s story in Chapter Four offers a survivor’s perspective on the massacre in Nyamata Church, a memorial site now regularly visited by tourists in Rwanda. In Chapter Two, Edison Zigirikamiro describes his own participation in the massacre at Bisesero in north-western Rwanda, where more than 50,000 Tutsi were massacred in 1994. Having heroically resisted the génocidaires’ attacks for almost three months using stones, sticks and traditional weapons, many Bisesero Tutsi were killed in a massacre on 27 June when French soldiers encouraged them to come down from the hill, saying that the genocide was over. They were then abandoned by the French soldiers to the mercy of the Interahamwe. Edison’s story describes the local workings of the genocide from the perspective of someone who participated in it directly. Recurring phrases in the testimonies, such as ‘the killings continued’ and ‘the killings intensified’ stand as stark reminders of the ubiquitous and inescapable nature of violence during those 100 days. The atmosphere of terror and the closeness of death must not be underestimated. We want the history of the genocide in this volume to be accessed through this form of personal story. This is central to our aim of demonstrating the power of storytelling: for articulating growth and change in an individual’s life but equally for disseminating that testimony to others. The testimonies in this volume speak of incredible resilience and perseverance in the face of unimaginable fear and danger. Survivors’ experiences during the genocide sometimes set the tone for the strength they manifest afterwards, and there are stories here of self-starting agency and rebuilding from right across the country.

Rwanda now The genocide is impossible to forget in Rwanda. Every year, in April, the commemoration period Kwibuka begins. For 100 days, the people of Rwanda remember the horrors of 1994 in a range of different ways, including large-

Introduction

7

scale events at Amahoro Stadium, cultural productions, community meetings, as well as smaller acts of remembrance by survivors and their children. At the same time, Rwanda has changed – and continues to change – in a myriad of ways. Over the past twenty-five years, the country has been rebuilt, with significant transformations in education, transitional justice (Gacaca) and ‘home-grown’ policies, which are celebrated in the RPF government’s discourse of national success. Transitional justice has garnered the most attention in Rwandan scholarship, but in our companion volume of scholarly essays, Rwanda Since 1994: Stories of Change, we explore other interacting and multilayered narratives of transformation emerging in Rwanda.21 The Global Development Institute recently commented that ‘Rwanda’s desire to hit targets is almost pathological’,22 and the country has drawn attention for its rapid growth in business, entrepreneurship, investments and trade.23 Economically, the market is seeing growth at a rate of 7 per cent per annum,24 and as recent host to the African Union (AU) summit, with President Paul Kagame currently as AU president, the country’s leadership in the region is only set to continue. The micro-level changes that occur within this context of growth on a national scale are often overshadowed by major criticisms levelled at the strong-armed leadership of President Kagame and his RPF government. Some critics, for example, interpret the intention behind the Gacaca courts and unity and reconciliation initiatives as a means of consolidating RPF power.25 Though certainly not beyond criticism, the government’s dual approach of commemoration and change runs alongside a concerted commitment to unity and reconciliation, spearheaded by the government’s NURC (National Unity and Reconciliation Commission). The NURC states that it aims to encourage unity, reconciliation and social cohesion among Rwandans while building a strong sense of Rwandan national identity. Following the criminalization of divisionism, ethnic labels such as ‘Hutu’, ‘Tutsi’ and ‘Twa’ are no longer used and programmes such as Ndi Umunywarwanda are designed to promote a single Rwandan identity.26 The NURC has also inspired many grassroots initiatives across the country, including unity and reconciliation associations in local areas, some of whose members tell their stories in a number of testimonies in this volume. It must be understood that these initiatives are often closely monitored by government officials, and are therefore not forums for open criticism. We do not suggest that the testimonies in this volume paint a

8

After the Genocide in Rwanda

complete picture of Rwandans’ experience of unity and reconciliation, and encourage readers to explore this area further.27 Survivors often describe themselves as the only remaining family member after the genocide, which is key to understanding the extent to which the social fabric of the country was destroyed after 1994. The work of unity and reconciliation happens not only between survivors and perpetrators, but also across generational, class and gender divides; these dynamics are a crucial part of societal reconstruction. As we see in some of the testimonies, not everyone finds it easy or even possible to be reconciled with those responsible for the deaths of their relatives. In Chapter One, Izabiriza Mariya explains how difficult she initially found it to forgive the men who killed her children: One day three men approached me and they said, ‘We are the ones who killed your children, can you forgive us? We came here to ask for your forgiveness.’ I said, ‘It’s impossible! No, not only you, but I can’t forgive the person who released you from prison. I don’t like that person, not at all.’ Chapter 1, p. 63

The perpetrators came back four times to ask for forgiveness before Mariya finally chose to forgive them. This is the reality of living after such tragedy and reveals how personal processes of forgiveness and reconciliation are not straightforward. On the other hand, the Rwandan government’s emphasis on forgiveness may have had an influence on Mariya’s decision. The context of close observation will doubtless influence what people express publicly, and there is a general sense of vocal commitment to the government’s aims in this area. The widespread participation in unity and reconciliation initiatives is perhaps unsurprising, but is still worth noting. Moreover, this is not just a top-down process: the agency of individuals in setting up these groups and leading others towards forgiveness and reconciliation is bringing change across Rwanda. These stories bring to light countless Rwandan individuals taking charge of their own futures after 1994, and rebuilding their own lives and those of their communities in ways that stretch far beyond government initiatives. It is this kind of individually-driven change that we have been observing through the lens of positive psychology. As we describe in the next section, one of the necessary changes following the genocide was the provision of psychological interventions. Those who lived through the genocide required an infrastructure for mental

Introduction

9

health, as well as the necessary rebuilding of so much else, physically and socially. Where this in turn has led to a huge network of support services (through individuals and institutions), there is still a risk that attention on post-traumatic adaptation remains skewed entirely towards the negative effects of trauma, including PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). So that those experiencing trauma, in this case Rwandans, do not have their identities over-determined by PTSD, and in order to better understand how people recover after such tragedy, it is important to pay attention to a broader range of post-traumatic adaptation. The research behind this book has been conducted as part of the ‘Rwandan Stories of Change’ project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and based first at the University of Nottingham, and then at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.28 Our partners were the Aegis Trust and the Genocide Archive of Rwanda. Over a period of forty months, we have investigated the ways in which individual Rwandan people have adjusted and reconstructed their identity in the years since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. In order to gain a qualitative understanding of the impact of the genocide on individuals, we have transcribed and translated testimonies from the Genocide Archive of Rwanda and analyzed them for indicators of social and psychological change. This has been done with a particular focus on the expression of post-traumatic growth, which is explained below. This interdisciplinary research has been carried out by specialists in postcolonial studies and positive psychology, and though our expertise in socio-cultural context and scientific analysis contributes to this volume, our main focus comes from our common interest in stories. We do not occupy the same disciplinary position as historians, anthropologists or political scientists, and instead situate this book, and our research, at the complex but fascinating intersection of life stories in all their linguistic, cultural, social and psychological influences.

The rise of positive psychology The field of positive psychology was formally launched by Martin Seligman in his presidential address to the APA (American Psychological Association) in 1998. In his address, Seligman argued that psychologists had attended to the negative and destructive side of human experience at the expense of the

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After the Genocide in Rwanda

positive and constructive side. What Seligman realized was that a considerable amount of time and money had been spent investigating the ways in which people were psychologically distressed, but nowhere near the same amount of effort had been put into research to find out what makes life worth living, enjoyable and meaningful. Before positive psychology, many social scientists’ unspoken assumption was that psychological health was defined solely by the absence of suffering. It was with this realization that Seligman resolved to use his APA presidency to initiate a shift in psychology’s focus towards the study of well-being that would help ‘to build the scientific infrastructure of a field that would investigate what makes life worth living: positive emotion, positive character, and positive institution’.29 Since Seligman’s address more than two decades ago, many scholars have devoted their careers to the investigation of well-being,30 and the principles of positive psychology are perhaps best illustrated in the field of psychological trauma, more specifically in the topic of post-traumatic growth. Thus, we apply the lens of positive psychology to interpret the testimonies presented in this volume, with a particular focus on the concept of post-traumatic growth. Post-traumatic growth will be defined in much greater detail in due course, but broadly speaking, it is the idea that trauma can often be a transformational force for change. The topic of post-traumatic growth is now widely recognized by psychologists, but this was not always so. Before we go on to discuss posttraumatic growth, it is helpful to understand how it arose in the context of studies into psychological trauma. Contemporary interest in the psychology of trauma began in the 1980s when the term PTSD was first introduced in 1980 by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) for Mental Disorders, now in its fifth edition.31 PTSD is a debilitating condition triggered by a traumatic experience that affects a person’s ability to function in their social and occupational lives. According to the DSM-5, PTSD has three defining characteristics: the presence of recurring symptoms (e.g. nightmares and flashbacks); an avoidance of thoughts and feelings about the trauma or places and activities that remind the person of the trauma; and hyperarousal (e.g. difficulty sleeping and concentrating, and irritability). Before the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, the concept of PTSD was not much discussed in Rwanda, and despite being a western diagnostic concept, it has subsequently received attention as a way of understanding the psychological

Introduction

11

consequences of genocide and as a means of offering treatment to those suffering from the effects of the genocide. Community surveys in Rwanda following the genocide reported PTSD prevalence of 25 per cent at eight years (2002)32 and 26 per cent at 14 years (2008).33 Research by Schaal and colleagues suggests that rates of PTSD could be higher in perpetrators than survivors, but there is more work to be done in this area.34 Not surprisingly, there has been much interest in how to plan interventions, and recognition of the need to build capacity for appropriate mental health counselling services in Rwanda.35 Although there is scope for further development and wider accessibility, the Rwandan government’s commitment to training clinical psychologists, started in 1998, has led to a significant increase in psychological counselling and therapy: services now include state-run clinics and one-stop centres, NGO (non-governmental organization) counselling services, sociotherapy, special provision for young people and therapy in prisons. Following the introduction of the term ‘PTSD’, by the 1990s there had been more than a decade of intensive research into the ways in which traumatic events can devastate people’s lives. However, in the midst of the PTSD research, a handful of scholars began to observe that survivors of traumatic events sometimes also seemed to report alongside the negative outcomes of trauma, what they termed as ‘perceiving benefits’,36 ‘positive changes’,37 ‘thriving’38 and ‘post-traumatic growth’.39 The latter term, ‘post-traumatic growth’, seemed most apposite, framed as it was by research into PTSD, and helped ignite further interest in the topic, while providing an umbrella term for this new area of research. Post-traumatic growth is therefore best conceptualized as the process whereby amidst the struggle to come to terms with trauma, an individual may identify lessons about themselves, others and their world views that they find to be positive, helpful for moving forward and rebuilding their lives. Posttraumatic growth is therefore an individual process, rather than something one is taught or guided to achieve.

The study of post-traumatic growth Tedeschi and Calhoun – who coined the term ‘post-traumatic growth’ – have likened the psychological process to the physical rebuilding that follows a

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After the Genocide in Rwanda

major earthquake.40 Building on Ronnie Janoff-Bulman’s notion of shattered assumptions, they argue that trauma can severely challenge an individual’s assumptions about the benevolence of other people, the predictability and meaningfulness of the world and the control the individual has over the events that unfold in their lives.41 If these negative thoughts persist, they can prolong a victimized state and contribute to the maintenance of trauma-related conditions, such as PTSD. Applying shattered assumptions theory to Rwanda seems applicable, given the failure of previously-trusted institutions, family, friends and neighbours to provide safety, some of them even participating in the killings, and the near-total destruction of the cultural and social fabric, which happened as a result of the genocide. To recover from trauma, an individual, usually with the aid of therapy, must try to rebuild these shattered assumptions. It is through this process that Tedeschi and Calhoun argue that post-traumatic growth can occur. To return to their analogy of recovery as the rebuilding following an earthquake, they argue that, just as buildings are rebuilt with stronger foundations to withhold future earthquakes, so an individual may gradually, over time, be able to rebuild the foundations of his or her identity. This process involves formulating new beliefs and goals that incorporate the reality of the trauma into their lives, yet with a focus on moving their life forward in meaningful and purposeful ways. Human beings are storytellers. It is human nature for us to try to make meaning of our lives by organizing what happens to us into stories. Stories help us to bind together our thoughts, feelings and behaviours in a way that is contiguous with our view of ourselves and our past history. Some theorists have therefore argued that post-traumatic growth is aided by the revision of one’s life narrative in a manner that helps the individual come to terms with the trauma and paves the way for the changes in how he/she views and engages with the world moving forward.42 Trauma creates a rupture in an individual’s life story, but in Rwanda the rupture was also at a national level. Assumptions about ourselves, our place in the world and our expectations about it are shattered; it is only through telling new stories that we are able to rebuild our sense of self – to reconstruct an understanding of who we are, our place in the world and what our expectations of the world are. Different cultures have different ways of looking at the world: some place importance on a sense of

Introduction

13

community; others value spiritual and religious views; still others emphasize personal responsibility.43 In this volume, we have selected examples that demonstrate post-traumatic growth through storytelling. It is through the mode of testimony that these examples of post-traumatic growth in post-genocide Rwanda can be best demonstrated, in a manner that allows the reader to contextualize the individual’s story in the broader context of Rwanda’s history and within the person’s own experiences of the genocide and the events that led up to it. Not surprisingly, survivors of trauma often have memories – that haunt them for the rest of their lives – of experiences they can never forget; these feature throughout the chapters of our book, as individuals recount the horror they experienced during the genocide. The study of post-traumatic growth does not deny ongoing trauma. Rather, it simply recognizes that there is another side to the coin – that in the midst of great psychological suffering a person may also find new perspectives on life that are beneficial to them. This is how the testimonies in this book are able to account for horrendous suffering alongside remarkable transformation. We offer some examples of post-traumatic growth from the testimonies below, but many more examples will be found in the pages that follow.

The expression of post-traumatic growth Post-traumatic growth is broadly defined but it is typically measured as increases or improvements in five domains. First, people often report that their relationships are enhanced in some way: for example, they find that they now value their friends and family more, and feel an increased compassion and altruism towards others. This manifestation of post-traumatic growth can be seen in Seraphine Niyigena’s story when she explains that she now sees it as her duty to care for others who are suffering, even if those people are outside her family and friendship circles. Let’s not say there are only specific people we know that we should help. No. Whoever a person is, we should listen to them and help. Even if it is someone who is behaving badly, do not leave them with their problems, even if

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After the Genocide in Rwanda

somebody misbehaves. No. Approach that person and talk to them. Even if they are unable to answer, you have a sound mind; you can do something. Chapter 3, p. 125

Second, survivors report feeling that they have a greater sense of personal strength. They have realized their own capacity for coping with extremely difficult circumstances, often coupled with a greater acceptance of their vulnerabilities and limitations. An example of this is found in Ernestine Mukakarangwa’s narrative when she talks about how being part of her community reconciliation group has made her feel supported by others. This in turn has made her feel more able to cope with the feelings of distress she experienced because of the genocide. The first thing that this group has helped me with is it’s made me feel liberated. I no longer feel like there’s a reason to hate those people. I used to feel like they were animals. When I approach them, I no longer see them as animals. Another thing that the association has helped me achieve is that I feel freer and I can talk about what happened to me, because I thought I would keep it inside me until the day I died, but now I open up. Chapter 2, p. 86

Third, survivors have reported that they have identified new possibilities or avenues for their life that allow them to rebuild their lives in a meaningful and purposeful way. For example, Gatabazi Eliyezeri talks about how he found purpose by thinking about ways to promote messages of unity and reconciliation to ease the suffering he had witnessed in his community since the genocide. I used to be a musician. I was the kind of person who did not like to see people interfering with others’ plans, especially because I was young when the genocide took place, but it affected me. The way I saw it, people were at odds with each other for no reason. It kept affecting me until 2011 when we got a radio at home and I started to ask myself, ‘How can I take advantage of this radio opportunity? What can I do so that I spread the message that people should live in harmony?’ Chapter 1, p. 60

Fourth, survivors report finding a fresh appreciation for each new day, and renegotiating what really matters to them in the full realization that their life is

Introduction

15

finite. Emmanuel Muhinda discusses how he thinks survivors have learnt to appreciate the value of life by recognizing the importance of their survival and using the strength that comes from this to honour the lives of their lost loved ones. I failed to live with myself and that adversely affected my life. They [survivors] must accept to live with what happened, to be strong and courageous . . . to work hard and be honourable. The first thing that should make us work hard is that we must work to prove there is a reason for our survival; to prove that what our parents had achieved or were planning to achieve can be achieved by us. We must make sacrifices in their honour and show dignity in all that we do. Chapter 1, p. 39

Finally, survivors often report becoming more spiritual, embracing the idea that there is a higher power or describing a sense of connectedness to the world.44 Izabiriza Mariya talks about how her faith has deepened since the genocide and how the process of turning to God helped her forgive those who had harmed her and killed her loved ones: All Rwandans were free and I was the only one still bound by grief. We went to church, we were taught, we prayed and I remember that one day they told us to bring our sins to the cross. They told us: ‘This cross will bring you forgiveness and love.’ I confessed everything in my heart to the cross. That cross helped me to forgive. That night when I was sleeping, I felt God giving me love. I needed it, I felt love restored in me, an unconditional love. Now I have no hate for anyone, I love everyone. I said to myself: ‘When those men came to ask for my forgiveness, I refused to forgive them, but now I will go to them and ask for their forgiveness.’ Chapter 1, p. 63

Such positive changes can underpin a whole new way of living. Unlike the concept of resilience, which describes how a person is able to return rapidly to their prior state of functioning following trauma, post-traumatic growth describes how trauma can be a springboard to more fully functioning psychological states. Furthermore, using self-report measures of perceived growth and openended interviews, a large number of researchers have shown that posttraumatic growth is common for survivors of various traumatic events.

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After the Genocide in Rwanda

Typically, 30–70 per cent of survivors will say that they have experienced positive changes of one form or another.45 Numerous studies have now investigated what factors are related to post-traumatic growth. Gabriele Prati and Luca Pietrantoni conducted a meta-analysis of 103 studies showing that optimism, social support, spirituality, acceptance coping, reappraisal coping, religious coping and seeking social support were associated with greater reports of post-traumatic growth.46 The particular forms these take will of course vary from culture to culture, and as we have described, in Rwanda some of the mechanisms put in place by the government are highly structured and come with their own particular challenges.

Post-traumatic growth in post-genocide Rwanda Although the concept of post-traumatic growth originated in North American psychology, it has since been subject to empirical investigation across different cultures.47 Together with therapists and counsellors in Rwanda, we have explored the limitations of measuring the concept in different cultural and historical contexts, as well as the need to account for the importance of communal recovery as opposed to only individual. The actual lessons to be learned as a result of trauma, the meanings that must be accommodated with existing assumptions, will invariably reflect cultural and linguistic patterns, and we have discussed these patterns elsewhere.48 So, the stories people tell are the pathways through which they make sense of their lives, construct their identities and establish why they choose to live their lives one way and not another. This has contributed to our decision to publish stories in a form as close as possible to their original telling, albeit in translation. We are not suggesting that narrating a linear before–after narrative is in any way sufficient for ensuring recovery, but rather that in the act of constructing a narrative, people are able to bring some order, agency and meaning to lives that have been uncontrollably shattered. Indeed, research using Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) has shown this technique to be effective in reducing PTSD symptoms among traumatized refugee populations exposed to multiple traumas because of conflict or organized violence.49 This technique helps survivors reorganize their memories of traumatic events into a coherent and

Introduction

17

chronological narrative, and it is this reorganization process that is thought to repair the fragmented autobiographical narrative surrounding traumatic memories that acts to maintain PTSD.50 Furthermore, research in Western cultures has shown that people who narrate highly-challenging life experiences with greater themes of agency, social-connectedness and positive meaning may show improved trajectories of mental health over time, suggesting that storytelling may be one simple, yet effective tool to aid recovery processes.51 It is now twenty-five years since the genocide against the Tutsi, an event that led to shattered lives, and for a time, a broken society. For those who lived through the genocide, their memories remain and their losses are still real, as their stories show. In the following chapters, the horror of the genocide is all too evident but, in the stories we have selected, post-traumatic growth today is also clear to see – not in the immediate aftermath, or for many years after 1994, but as time has passed for many, the need to move forward has led to change in many areas. Whereas during the genocide the claims made along ethnic lines drove so many to kill, in these stories we read of the newer, more inclusive national identity being driven by the RPF government, in which people are asked to see themselves as Rwandans (not Hutu, Tutsi or Twa) through the promotion of the Ndi Umunyarwanda (I am Rwandan) programme.52 The stories in this book also point to the powerful role of peace education in exploring this pan-Rwandan inclusive identity, and to the role of religious organizations – albeit one fraught with pain and tension in the aftermath of the genocide, where churches were used as death traps and priests became facilitators of killings. A vast body of scientific research has now accumulated on the topic of posttraumatic growth. It is beyond the scope of this introduction to provide a detailed review of the research that has accumulated over the past twenty-five years, but there are a number of points that we think are pertinent to draw out in the context of post-genocide Rwanda. The first concerns a misunderstanding of post-traumatic growth as the opposite of PTSD: post-traumatic growth does not imply that a person is free from post-traumatic stress. Second, the concept of post-traumatic growth seems to offer a new and helpful way of thinking about Rwanda because it recognizes that after the genocide people cannot be expected to return to the lives they had before, but that there is an ongoing process of moving into the future in full awareness of the social destruction and individual suffering and loss.

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After the Genocide in Rwanda

We must also be mindful not to create expectations that post-traumatic growth is either easy or guaranteed, but instead to promote respect for the difficulty of trauma recovery, while allowing for the exploration of possibilities for various kinds of change, even in those who have suffered greatly. Indeed, harbouring bitterness, anger and mistrust are described by Didace in Chapter Two, where he recounts worrying about fights breaking out between exprisoners and survivors. Boniface (in Chapter Four) describes similar outbursts of anger in the association Inyenyeri, and the need to calm each other down with good advice. Finally, there is much criticism of researchers applying concepts derived in Western to non-Western cultures. At the same time as suggesting that it may be helpful to examine how Rwandan individuals have flourished over the past twenty-five years through the lens of post-traumatic growth, we must remain alert to the danger of presupposing that this concept captures everything of people’s experiences, or of expecting traumatized individuals to report posttraumatic growth. The sample of stories included in this volume demonstrates that some people testify to this kind of positive change, but we do not claim this to be a universal experience. For these reasons, we think it important that new research and practice is grounded in the experiences of the people themselves, rather than importing pre-defined ideas.53 This is a particularly important consideration in the context of Rwanda, where the experiences of individuals often become overshadowed by the contested story of the nation, and where interpretations of that history can so easily be appropriated by Western scholarship, which risks excluding Rwandan voices from their representation.54 Post-traumatic growth here provides an original and important framework for reading these testimonies that allows us to draw out themes of positive change while allowing room for the complex, varied and ongoing painful realities of life after the genocide.

Testimony We have been able to gather the testimonies presented here thanks to our ongoing collaboration with the Aegis Trust and the Genocide Archive of Rwanda.55 The Aegis Trust is an international NGO working to prevent

Introduction

19

genocide and mass atrocities across the world through a series of educational and research programmes. In Rwanda, Aegis works in documentation, peacebuilding, education and commemoration. A vital part of the work of the Aegis Trust is the opportunity to hear from survivors and learn from their experiences of the past in both public and private forums. Aegis has established the Genocide Archive of Rwanda in Kigali as a unified repository for all information relating to the 1994 genocide. It contains documentaries, photographs, TV and radio broadcasts, interactive maps and other materials, including an extensive archive of testimonies. Some of these are the stories of change shared in this volume. The vital role of storytelling after trauma experienced both individually and collectively has been widely recognized, along with its reconstructive potential.56 The testimonies in this volume demonstrate the importance of narrative for articulating growth in general, its particular value for reconstructing shattered assumptions and its potential for bringing words to experiences of trauma formerly impossible to describe.57 Through the stories from members of Rwandan unity and reconciliation associations, we see that sharing and documenting traumatic experiences can function as a restorative intervention both for the individual and for their relationships.58 The form of a testimony that relates a linear account of before, during and after the genocide can also help restore a sense of coherence and meaning to an individual whose life and context has been devastated. In light of this, we believe it is important to leave the stories to be heard in the speakers’ words, without adding interpretation or analysis. What is more, one thing that Rwandans sometimes testify to, in the wake of the genocide, is that researchers reduce them to ‘objects of research’. Our express aim in this volume is to promote the voices and agency of Rwandans in their own right. In these testimonies, individuals gesture to what has been helpful in their life since the genocide: for some it is meeting perpetrators and hearing them ask for forgiveness; for others, it is turning to a new focus – often community work; and for others it is developing a different sense of purpose through teaching or advocacy. Those who stand as leaders in the community are shown in these stories to have a particularly important role, such as Esther in AVEGA and Virginie in her school (Chapter Three). Those who establish safe spaces for listening facilitate these changes, as do those who, like Pierre (Chapter One), go out of their way to resolve conflicts in their communities. Many of the survivors whose testimonies follow describe the loneliness of

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survival and some recall how angry they felt (Ernestine, Chapter Two). Other survivors describe the impossibility of forgiving those who are to blame, and the persistence of pain and grief. In the face of this hardship, there are remarkable shifts in mentality, and examples of courage, kindness and integrity.

Methodology The testimonies in this book were gathered in semi-structured interviews conducted between 2014 and 2016 by staff members of the Aegis Trust, themselves survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi. As editors of this volume, we were not involved in the collection of the data. The semi-structured approach enabled staff to collect stories about certain areas of interest (for example, unity and reconciliation), and equally allowed staff the freedom to ask their own questions on a range of subjects. Most interviews were carried out on a one-to-one basis. The exception was those interviews carried out with unity and reconciliation associations, which are clearly labelled in the testimonies that follow, and which were carried out in 2014 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi. Here, as we explain elsewhere, the collective nature of the unity and reconciliation interviews did not prevent the interviewers from collecting the personal viewpoints of each member of the groups. In other words, interviewees were not asked questions in their capacity as official representatives. However, we recognize that the particular context of those interviews (the commemoration and the participants’ membership of associations) might have influenced their answers.59 All the other interviews were recorded on a one-to-one basis in a private, neutral space. The interviews did not have a particular theme, and interviewees were able to speak as desired about different periods in their lives. The open questions and semi-structured format allow individuals to express their stories in their own words, giving them space to tell their stories in a way that will be restorative for them.60 Interviewees gave consent for their testimonies to be accessed and reproduced in written form, along with their names: for this reason, we have not anonymized the speakers. All interviews were conducted and recorded in the individuals’ native language, Kinyarwanda. We commissioned the translation of these interviews

Introduction

21

into English. As mentioned above, Hatzfeld was criticized for heavily editing the testimonies he collected in Rwanda and for effectively speaking for those who had lived through the genocide. With this in mind, we used an extremely rigorous translation process to ensure that the voices of Rwandan people are heard in their own words. This involved verbatim transcription into written Kinyarwanda, then translation into English by local translators, and backtranslation into Kinyarwanda. At every stage, accuracy and discrepancies were checked by two translators and we have made every effort to remain faithful to the original texts. We are indebted to the hard work of our transcriber and team of translators for their attention to detail and perseverance in achieving the translations presented here. Understandably, the editorial process has been fraught with ethical questions, including how much repetition to delete for ease of reading, how to ensure a balance of genders is represented, how to translate culturally embedded expressions and how to convey emotion accurately. We have selected stories that give as full a picture as possible within the constraints of our corpus, and at every stage have sought to remain as faithful as possible to the original recordings. The nature of personal testimonies about the genocide is that they are inflected with hesitation, traumatic recollection and painful memories. These are reflected in the text in exclamations and ellipses, for example. Rwandan people do not tend to have patronymic family names: children are given a Rwandan name, traditionally based on the circumstances of their birth, and a Christian name. In Kinyarwanda, people often introduce themselves with their Rwandan name first. We have retained this convention when we have transcribed and translated people’s own words, but have placed Christian names first in our own introductory passages. Inside the testimonies, sometimes both names are used. Many Kinyarwanda words are so rich in culturally embedded meaning that it often took a lot of discussion with the translation team to find appropriate equivalents in English. By remaining faithful to the original Kinyarwanda expressions, we have also endeavoured to convey this range of emotions and experiences as accurately as possible. Names of places and organizations, and some other terms, remain in Kinyarwanda, and all terms in italics can be found in the glossary at the end of the book. A small number of endnotes provide contextual and historical information, but these are kept to a minimum to allow the testimonies to be read on their own terms.

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The heterogeneity of voices in this collection underlines the fact that no experience of the genocide was the same, just as no life is the same after 1994. Rwandan individuals have diverse experiences of trauma, recovery, grief, guilt, peace; indeed, as Pierre Karangwa mentions, sometimes the absence of traumatic symptoms can leave a person feeling alienated (Chapter One). This collection of stories is by no means comprehensive: instead it stands as a sample of experiences of life in Rwanda since the genocide, bringing a particular emphasis to the self-starting processes of change people have undergone. The range of geographical locations and speakers’ ages is to be noted, and gives some indication of how all-encompassing the violence of the genocide was. Though many survived, nobody was spared: the horror affected people regardless of economic status, gender, age and neighbourhood. Moreover, in at least three cases in this volume, the same story is told from two perspectives – this is to illustrate how a catastrophe of mass violence so ‘wellknown’ worldwide was in fact lived very differently by each individual. Since so many lives, and so many stories, were lost in the brutal violence of the genocide, it is all the more important to gather together collections of diverse stories and to share them as widely as possible.

Identity categories For a number of reasons, the chapters in this volume are not organized according to categories of ‘survivor’ and ‘perpetrator’, both of which are complex categories that are difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to define. First, both the history of the genocide and Rwanda’s ongoing story is too complicated for only two binary categories, not least because the racialization of Rwanda created a third group, the Twa, who are rarely discussed in narratives of the genocide and regrettably do not form part of our corpus in this volume.61 The genocide demonstrated the extreme dangers of entrenched processes of othering, and the categories of survivor and perpetrator risk overlaying the heterogeneous collectives of ‘the Hutu’ and ‘the Tutsi’, which were so central to genocidal propaganda.62 Secondly, we want to be sensitive to the different ways people self-identify (including as rescuers, heads of families, leaders in reconciliation) rather than label speakers with categories that might be

Introduction

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assigned by the Government of Rwanda. Jennie Burnet has argued that the official narrative in Rwanda prevents any Rwandan Hutu from identifying as a survivor.63 For scholars such as Helen Hintjens, the association of survivor with Tutsi risks labelling all Rwandan Hutu as collectively guilty.64 Our focus on forward-moving change insists on a perspective that allows individuals to develop and redefine their own identities, be this in light of improved relationships, achievements or a sense of self informed by a new role in the community. Survivors describe the horror of what they experienced in 1994, and there is strong evidence of ongoing grief and pain in their daily lives, but their stories are the words of individuals who refuse to be categorized as victims. Finally, by placing stories of survivors alongside those of rescuers and perpetrators, this book reflects to a certain extent the way Rwandans have to live alongside one another today: some of the testimonies show how a number of perpetrators live alongside the relatives of those they killed, sometimes in reconciliation villages. These painful processes of reconciliation and reintegration are part of Rwanda’s ongoing story. In this book, we have chosen a thematic approach to emphasize individuals’ experiences within that story: chapter titles come from Kinyarwanda proverbs or phrases given in the testimonies and align with salient areas of growth we found when studying the testimonies. These are described at the beginning of each chapter. Teachers and students, peace builders and former prisoners; people of all ages speak alongside one another. This blended structure would evidently be more difficult in the more strictly categorized organization of an archive. Here, it leads to powerful juxtapositions where the same story is told from several angles and reflects how different individuals’ stories speak to one another.

Testimonies of violence, change and reconciliation The first chapter, ‘We moved from there to here’, opens with a horrifying account of the genocide from Ntarama. Like Nyamata, the church in Ntarama was converted into a genocide memorial in 1995. Emmanuel Muhinda describes how he lost his family members then hid in reeds, terrifyingly close to death, until he was rescued. His life after the genocide, encouraged by Esther Mujawayo-Keiner, is one of incredible resilience. The chapter gives examples

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of Rwandan individuals who describe moving forwards in a number of ways: growing in wisdom and empathy, and adopting roles of responsibility (such as heading families as children). We hear from a teacher; a former hate radio journalist and convicted category one genocide perpetrator; a peace ambassador, and two women from a unity and reconciliation group. Their efforts in restoring broken relationships are remarkable, demonstrating wisdom and empathy: Catherine Nyiransengimana explains that, ‘Forgiveness involves action; if you killed someone’s family, reach out to that person and if they have a problem, then help them solve it.’ And the belief that change is possible is widespread: ‘You can heal even if you don’t feel strong enough,’ says Eliyezeri Gatabazi. Moving forwards is particularly striking in a Rwandan context where the devastation of the genocide is so marked, and where remembering and looking backwards is such an integral part of public discourse and the yearly calendar. The testimonies given here highlight the courage and agency of individuals who describe their forward-moving trajectories since the genocide, and who describe themselves as being committed to spreading their messages of reconciliation and peace. The second chapter, ‘One wall cannot support a house’, presents testimonies from the unity and reconciliation associations established by grassroots initiatives in the aftermath of the genocide, inspired by government policies from the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. In these groups, Rwandans who live in the same area are encouraged to voice difficulties and listen to one another. One group gathers together widows of the genocide and women whose husbands committed crimes during the genocide; another is for ex-soldiers and prisoners. Other stories are shared by a perpetrator and survivor who give their testimony together, and two men from neighbouring hills where reconciliation has begun through sowing seeds for one another. The remarkable transformations described in this chapter can be encapsulated in the description of seeing each other. Ex-convict Edison Zigirikamo reflects on the extent of his crimes, asking, ‘Can you imagine cutting someone with a machete when they were married to a member of your family? That 1994 genocide was a scandal. It was about immoral and traumatic killings. We were hunting people as if they were animals.’ But it is not only the killers who saw people like this: Ernestine Mukakarangwa uses the same words to describe her attitude towards those who had killed: ‘I used to feel like they were animals.

Introduction

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When I approach them, I no longer see them as animals.’ The journey of forgiveness and reconciliation is painful and difficult, yet in this chapter we read of the new possibilities that come when, in Protogène Hategekimana’s words, ‘We gave forgiveness from our hearts, not just forgiveness from our mouths.’ The third chapter, ‘We are all holding the same rope’, centres on the theme of relating to others, which is an indicator of post-traumatic growth. This theme is of central importance in post-genocide Rwanda, given the ubiquitous presence of reconciliation initiatives. Beyond those contemporary mechanisms for unity and reconciliation, people speak of drawing on shared wisdom. A student, Seraphine Niyigena recalls the Rwandan saying ‘For people who are united, nothing is difficult.’ Rwanda’s communitarian cultural traditions emerge in this chapter, which presents a number of inspiring personal stories: a teacher who inspires her students to reach out to those who are excluded and bullied; a farmer who rescued five Tutsi families during the genocide; and an example of the transformation possible at a community level when individuals meaningfully commit to living together in peace. The Kinyarwanda word kwiumvanamo expresses seeing yourself in somebody: an expression stronger than empathy that conveys identifying with someone deeply and recognizing yourself in them. This chapter gives but a glimpse of the hundreds of similar stories not featured in this volume. The final chapter, ‘Let’s make bricks and build for them’, focuses on another prevalent indicator of post-traumatic growth, which is the pursuit of new opportunities. Agency is central to the redefining of identities since the genocide, and Rwandans have enacted that agency in a range of opportunities. This includes education, farming and physical building, which reflects the ‘rebuilding of selves’ that many speakers allude to. The theme of rebuilding comes up again and again, both in relation to Rwanda as a nation, and individuals reconstructing their lives. Examples of building projects in local communities have added poignancy, since they reflect people’s commitment to recovery, healing and reconciliation. Talking about the history of her association, Agnes Umuziga recalls, ‘We asked ourselves, “Brothers and sisters what should we do?” and we said, “Let’s make bricks and build for them.”’ The testimonies in this chapter demonstrate self-starting initiative and determination, often in the face of ongoing struggle and pain. They emphasize the ways in which the incredible

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resilience demonstrated in surviving the genocide has continued to grow despite lives being utterly torn apart. We see individuals in Rwanda not constrained by the labels of ‘victim’ or ‘survivor’, but pursuing a wide range of opportunities in the years after genocide. Here people also testify to the importance of sharing their stories with others: ‘My journey was long and sharing it has freed me. It also gave me hope to live and to see that my life goes on.’ The book ends with a spoken word poem, ‘I speak for a people’, by Rwandan poet and spoken word artist, Malaika Uwamahoro. Malaika’s creativity expresses some of the energy of her generation of Rwandans, and the poem’s tone encapsulates the determination and strength at the heart of many of this book’s stories. It is our hope that students, scholars and general readers alike will each find fresh insight and inspiration in these stories, and thus be able to build a fuller picture of Rwanda today than the dominant narratives of victimhood that have prevailed since 1994.

1

We moved from there to here Aho twavuye n’aho tugeze

This chapter gives examples of Rwandan individuals who describe moving forwards in a number of ways: growing in wisdom and empathy, and adopting new roles of responsibility (such as heading families as children). Moving forwards is particularly striking in a Rwandan context where remembering and looking backwards is such an integral part of public discourse and the yearly calendar. The testimonies given here highlight the courage and agency of individuals who describe their forward-moving trajectories of learning and growing since the genocide. There has been a significant turnaround in spaces of learning since the genocide, which is demonstrated in this chapter. Individuals here discuss the consequences of having been taught genocide ideology in the past, and also the discrimination that occurred in classrooms. In Rwandan schools, in training programmes and even in prison, educational initiatives are now working to encourage positive changes as opposed to divisive ones. The opening account goes straight to the heart of the genocide’s violence, recounting the massacres that happened at the church in Ntarama. That story by Emmanuel Muhinda is followed by the testimony of Pierre Karangwa, a teacher from Muhororo who describes the transformation he has experienced through the peace education programme. His story is followed by that of Valérie Bemeriki, who is currently serving a life sentence in Nyarugenge Prison for the crimes she committed as a radio journalist and spreader of hate speech during the 1994 genocide. Describing a very different use of radio media, Eliyezeri Gatabazi shares his experience of writing radio plays on themes of forgiveness and reconciliation. The chapter ends with this same topic, as Mariya Izabiriza and Catherine Nyiransengimana talk about what they have 27

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learnt on their journeys towards reconciliation. The efforts they have made demonstrate remarkable wisdom and empathy. One after the other, the individuals in this chapter describe themselves as being committed to spreading messages of reconciliation and peace.

Emmanuel Muhinda Emmanuel Muhinda lost all of his family members in the genocide, and in this testimony tells his remarkable story of survival. He then describes his life since the genocide, including the encouragement he received from Esther Mujawayo-Keiner to pursue his studies to university level. He hasn’t sought justice for those who killed his family, and instead chooses to focus on living a life defined by courage and dignity.

My name is Muhinda Emmanuel. I am a survivor of the 1994 genocide. My father was called Mushayija Evaliste. My mother was called Nyiratamba Verediana. I was born in Bugesera. My parents migrated there after the Tutsi were chased there in 1959.1 They had migrated from Byumba. We were a family, parents and siblings, and we lived here until the genocide. Seven children were born to my two parents. That was the whole family. I was born on 5 February 1985. All my siblings, with the exception of one who died before the war, all those born before me died, leaving me as the only survivor. In our neighbourhood, the genocide started at night when Habyarimana’s plane crashed. When it crashed, we rejoiced wherever we were, thinking; ‘Now that he is dead, we might get better leadership!’ It was like a victory. But we didn’t think about what would happen after that. A day passed. There was a man, a teacher in our neighbourhood, called Kazimbaya Canisio. He went to the town centre, near the sector offices, to have a drink after work. An armed man shot him with a bullet in the shoulder. He returned home wounded. That is when people started to think the situation might be worsening. More men came after that; they came from Kanzenze, near Ntarama. They were Interahamwe. They tried to kill people. The likes of Kamaka were able young men. When they tried to kill, people thought, ‘Let’s flee to a common place in order to protect ourselves or seek help from the government.’ That is when we left our homes, around 9 April. After spending a few days in the home of some

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relatives, we went to the nearby church at Ntarama. While we were there, more refugees turned up in large numbers. People thought, ‘We can’t all stay here, let’s go to the church at Nyamata.’ When we tried to go there, we got as far as Pene’s place but failed to make it any further. When we failed, we returned to Ntarama where we lived. At the time there were two journeys proposed. Some said, ‘Let’s go to Kigali. When the government sees us, they will have mercy on us and spare our lives.’ The others said, ‘Let’s go via Kanzenze.’ They found the Interahamwe and a soldiers’ roadblock waiting for them at the bridge. Some were shot and others were hacked to death. Some were thrown into the river.2 The remaining few returned to where we were. That’s when the trip to Nyamata was planned. When we reached Pene’s, we turned back. We spent the night in a classroom at Ntarama. It was the first time I had spent the night outside our house. We spent a night at the soccer stadium and we returned to the church in Ntarama the following day. We were there for a few days. Groups of attackers were sent to kill people but they didn’t reach the church. They would stop at a forest at Kinkwi, and the men would go to fight them – because most people’s cattle were there – and they would fight them back. More attackers would come from Kanzenze and some people died fighting them. After a while, they decided to come together to form stronger groups, and to kill. That’s when the genocide openly started in our homes. It is God’s miracle I survived: I didn’t have the ability to run faster than those men, not even the young men. We left our uncle’s home where we were staying, and went to the church with the others. When the raids came, some would go into the church while others stayed outside. But the most serious raid – when they wanted to display their power to exterminate – was on 15 April. That was the biggest raid, with many Interahamwe coming from Kanzenze and Kibungo. Those who had been stationed at Pene’s place came first, but they met with some resistance. After a while, those resisting felt, ‘They are too many for us to overcome.’ By this time, several old men and some younger men had fallen. The rest entered the church where I was. We were small in number and too weak to fight and make it into the church. The Interahamwe came closer, into the churchyard. They started to hack and shoot the people who had stayed outside. I don’t know how it came to be, but I lay down and took cover. They came and hacked at the people around us, but bypassed me. They started to fight with the old men who were protecting the

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entrance to the church. I could see them from where I lay; they thought we were dead. The fight went on and, after a while, the old men were overcome, and the Interahamwe started killing inside the church. The people inside the church were singing hymns of praise. One song I will never forget; they sang, ‘There is little time left for the war to end. And we will rejoice.’ In the meantime, the Interahamwe destroyed the walls of the church. They stoned people using the stones of the church walls. Then they went in and killed people in the chapel, as well as those in the outhouses. They threw young babies against the walls. The wife of Ngabonziza, our neighbour, was pregnant with her first child. They sliced her open to remove the baby, and her intestines fell out onto the yard. They started hacking at some women with sharp pointed sticks. They raped the girls, and all those they deemed young men. They started killing people at about 2.00 pm, and went on until 5.00 pm. Inside the church, children cried throughout. People screamed, some prayed and others sang. By 5.00 pm everything was silent. We were still lying in the chapel’s yard. There were dead people around and on top of me. Interahamwe would come out of the church sweating from the killing, and take a breather, as if they were celebrating what they were doing. At 5.00 pm everything went calm. After killing almost everyone, they came out, had a word, and then went home. Some left in the vehicles that they had brought with them, others went chanting down the road, wearing banana leaves. On the 15th, they finished killing at the church. They had killed about 5,000 people there, perhaps even more. We were still lying outside. Very few people survived the killings. A few who had fled to a nearby school came to find out what had happened to people here. Once other people started coming out, after the Interahamwe had gone, that’s when I stood up. There were only a few of us, less than seven. Some came out without machete wounds. We found the others at the school. The church became a no-go area. We left and went to the school at Cyugaro, as it was known in Ntarama. While we were there, more raids came from Kibungo and Kanzenze. They would fight us, steal cattle and loot our property. There was an attack on the 19th. The attacks happened every day. 9.00 am– 5.00 pm became known as ‘Time for the work of killing the Tutsi’. On the 19th, it was about 10.00 am, some people were cooking while others washed and fed the wounded. A massive group of attackers came with soldiers. Some old men

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shot the first soldier using bows and arrows. The young men took his clothes and his gun. After killing him, they thought that they had overcome the attackers, so they returned to the school. Two to three hours after they had returned to the school, government buses came carrying Interahamwe. There were Interahamwe who had been brought in from Ruhengeri and Gisenyi to live in the Bugesera area. They lived in what they called burende [huts], saying they were refugees from Byumba. But these were people they were training to kill. They didn’t have old men and women with them, or even kids like other refugees. They were young men and women of about the same age, who were trained to kill. They came in three overloaded buses. When we saw them through the banana plantation as they passed along the road, some people tried to calm us by saying, ‘Those aren’t buses, but banana leaves.’ We said, ‘Those are not banana plants, they are buses.’ They got out of the vehicle and approached us; it was coming to about 2.00 pm. They arrived and started surveying the area to decide how they should start killing. Some people stood and said, ‘Let’s go and fight these people before we die.’ The able men went to fight. Some people collected stones for those who were fighting using stones, and those who couldn’t fight could at least take stones to them. There were very many attackers and they overcame us. They followed us and reached the people in the school. They killed very many people. They also went to the nearby centre known as Butera, and killed all the people there. That is the day most of the people in my family died. Two had died before. But that is when most were killed. My elder brother died protecting the cattle. My grandfather and three of my paternal uncles were killed too. Of my siblings, there were two who had gone to Gitarama with some other people, as the journey from Bugesera to Gitarama isn’t far. I didn’t see them again and presume they are dead. When the attackers came closer we ran away. As I ran, I discovered that I was alone, without my mother, and at first I thought, ‘She probably ran in a different direction.’ After ten minutes I thought, ‘Something is wrong.’ I was with my maternal aunts, Espérance and Caritas. I said to them, ‘This isn’t right. I think mother must be dead.’ I started crying and they felt uncomfortable. The attackers withdrew at about 5.00 pm, after killing many, many people, I returned with the first group of people. As I went back, I could see dead people everywhere I passed. I went back to the place where mother had been. I had been living in a workshop at the school with my mother, two of my siblings, my

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other elder brother who had died that day and with my maternal grandparents. They were very old, and I think mother refused to abandon them. I found them hacked to death on my return. I think my grandfather was hit with an old hoe and died instantly. But grandmother had been hacked all over, from her toes to her head, she was struggling for breath where she lay. She was still breathing but she couldn’t be saved. Sometime after my return, she passed away. I later found my mother lying down. She had been hit by a grenade in the arm and leg, but was still alive. She had been knocked down and couldn’t move. She explained to us what had happened as she had been with them. There wasn’t much we could do, so we went to bury them that evening. We buried them not far from the school. We buried all the relatives who had died that day. And that day passed. On the following day, the 20th, another group of attackers came. We went and hid my mother when they came. We took her to a banana plantation where they used to pile the banana leaves in the gardens.3 We covered her with banana leaves and plants. They passed her by, and when we returned, she was still alive. We took her back to the school, since she couldn’t spend the night there. On the 21st, we hid her in the same way and thought, ‘They won’t kill her.’ We were given local herbs and administered them where she had been wounded. On 22 April, another group of attackers came. We were still with our paternal uncle; he said, ‘You don’t have to take her all the way out there. I have a hiding place here in a garage.’ It belonged to a man called Ngango. ‘I will put her in there. My wife is there too, and my children. She will be safe, they never check it.’ We believed him. We took her there and he went in too. ‘Go. You will find us still alive here,’ he said. We left and the attackers came to the school again and killed about 200 people. The raid of the 19th had killed many people, about 6,000 or more. Remembering the corpses at the school, there must have been more than at the church. We left our mother with him on the 22nd, but they found them in that house, and killed them. They were hit to death with spanners. When we returned, we found her fighting for breath before she too died. My uncle, his kids and father-in-law were dead too. We found him dead with his four kids, his wife and my mother. We buried them that night. Our uncle, Marcellin Gakindi, buried them along with Mupenzi. ‘Let us leave this place before we all die,’ people thought. They started to plan how to leave.

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But before we could leave, another group of attackers came from a place called Rugunga. It is a part of Ntarama that was also inhabited by many Hutu people. They came with an important person called Ngango. He was a merchant with a powerful influence, both in our area and in the district as well. At night they would sing the names of the Tutsi; ‘What if we send you for so and so . . . ?’ And they would give an example such as Marcellin. ‘Will you bring us Marcellin if we send you?’ The young men would reply, ‘Yes! We will.’ They mobilized them to kill people. The following day, Ngango came with a raid he had organized with people on Kibungo Hill. They were going to trap and kill us. I think they hadn’t agreed on a time, and he showed up earlier than them. He came with only a few Interahamwe. He had a grenade and tried to throw it at the people, but they got to him with a spear first. The grenade had already left his hands, and it killed two men who were close to him. When he was hit with the spear, those he had come with abandoned him and ran off. People went over to him after the Interahamwe had left, ‘Not with the way Interahamwe are killing us.’ And they killed him. He was a fat man, as I recall. When he was wounded, he didn’t bleed a lot, he just lost fat. After that, people thought, ‘Let’s leave this school and go to the swamps, it will be safer.’ We left the school around the 24th, and went to a swamp, in a place called Kaye, in between Cyugaro, Ntarama and Kayenzi. There is a type of swamp that is used to make grass mats. It is not a very thick swamp to hide in. We hid there the first day and on the second day a group of attackers came. It included the Interahamwe from Kayenzi, along with others from Nyamata, Kibungo and Kanzenze. The swamp was in between two hills; some stood on the hills, and others would go into the swamp and be directed by those on the hills to where the people were hidden. I was there with a cousin of mine called Aimable. It was a swamp made of smaller reeds, not a thick one that was good for hiding in. But since we were young, it was thick enough to hide us. We sat there while the Interahamwe killed a lot of people. We had a paternal uncle called Didas Bayijahe who was caught by the Interahamwe. When an Interahamwe speared him, he stabbed him back with a sword. The other Interahamwe left when his partner got stabbed. They were close to us, only four metres away. They had a serious fight. More Interahamwe came and started calling out hesitantly, ‘Come out, we can see you. We’ll kill you if you don’t come out.’ I thought to myself, ‘Let me go so as not to face a horrible death.’ I sat facing

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my cousin, Aimable, ‘They haven’t seen us. Stay put,’ he said to me. ‘Don’t worry,’ adding, ‘They haven’t seen us.’ He calmed me down and I thought, ‘Let me wait and see.’ They killed people and moved through the swamp, passing us by. We could see a person’s legs walking by, he was hitting the reeds saying, ‘Come out. We can see you.’ But I thought, ‘I will not go.’ I stayed calm. They kept killing people all around us, right here, as close to me as you are now. The Interahamwe who had been stabbed in the stomach with the sword started praying, ‘God, I have been misled, forgive me!’ He seriously repented for his sins. I think that was true repenting, the way I heard him praying. I became confused and said, ‘Can the Interahamwe really pray to God and repent for his sins? I must not think about this.’ The old man was still there with the Interahamwe on top of him. He was badly injured by the spear he had been stabbed with. The other time that we had a close encounter was while we were hiding in that swamp. They killed people who were close to us. There were some hard reeds deep inside the swamp, almost like roots. We hid under them and they didn’t see us. They killed some people and then left. The next day, we went to Kimpiri; it was a hill next to the swamp. Some people came and we thought they were refugees like us that we had left behind. ‘Let us wait for them,’ we thought. But when they got close, about 20 metres away, they started shooting. Before we could tell who they were, they had shot and killed some people. Some of us went to the swamps, but because of fatigue and fear, some of the others thought about suicide. ‘Instead of being hacked to death, let’s commit suicide.’ Many families committed suicide. I remember the families of Karangwa and Gahire who committed suicide with their kids, although some of them survived their attempted drowning and returned home. That’s when we decided to live in the swamp from then on. They would still come to kill people. Another time, there was a man, a former policeman, called Bikamba, and some Interahamwe had come to kill him. He went and found them first and fought with them, and took their gun, so then we had two guns. Interahamwe on their own were not a threat now because Bikamba had a gun, and another man called Habarugira also had a gun. So at least the number of people dying went down. The Interahamwe thought, ‘The Inkotanyi must have joined them.’ They didn’t believe any of us were capable of operating a gun, as they didn’t

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know us. Then one time they came with a gun pulled by a vehicle. ‘When they shoot, we’ll kill them all – if any are still alive,’ they schemed. They brought the gun, but fortunately, some people warned us and said, ‘Don’t shoot today.’ There was a man they called Sergeant. He didn’t involve himself in the killings from what I could see. He was the one who used to warn people, ‘Don’t shoot today because they’re bringing a powerful gun.’ They brought the gun. People saw a vehicle moving along the swamp by the hill. It moved right up the hill. They shot the first bullet and a second, but we didn’t respond. So they left saying, ‘These people are weak.’ Then they came back. It was approaching 10 May by then. The Interahamwe only came along once in a while to kill the people who stayed behind. It was as if they had lost their power to kill people. Then one day, in the evening, at about 8.00 pm, around the 12th or the 13th, we heard vehicles moving; they were crossing to Gitarama throughout the night. That is when the Inkotanyi had reached Bugesera and captured Gako. But we didn’t know about it at the time. After the gunfire, the Interahamwe started to flee. The following day, we were surprised that nobody came to attack us. We wondered what had happened. The following day, the men went to look for food in a place called Kayenzi. When they reached Kayenzi, the first group met the Inkotanyi, as they had already got there. The Inkotanyi had come with some people we knew from our neighbourhood. ‘We have come. Where are the others?’, the Inkotanyi asked. ‘Don’t you recognize us? We are Inkotanyi. Go and tell the others they are safe,’ they said. The men returned and told the people in the swamps, ‘The Inkotanyi are here.’ People reacted with, ‘That can’t be true. You want to give us away to the Interahamwe.’ ‘They are here,’ they insisted. They said they had seen Rugerinyange’s son. ‘We have seen Rugerinyange’s son. The one who joined the Inkotanyi.’ People hesitantly agreed. At about 4.00 pm, we left the swamp, and went to meet the Inkotanyi. They took us to Pene’s place. There was a Pentecostal church there. They led us into a meeting, people who had small weapons, like machetes and bows, were told to get rid of them. They didn’t want people to go back to their homes with the weapons they had used to protect themselves. At the meeting we were told, ‘You have been rescued, now go back to your normal lives. There will be no more death apart from through illness and old age.’ We left Pene’s place and went to Nyamata town, and spent the night at a soccer pitch. The following day, they showed people houses. ‘Open up those

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houses and stay there for the time being,’ they instructed. So people entered the houses, and started looking for food to eat. We got clean water from a river called Rwakibirizi. After a while, they collected the kids who didn’t have families, and took them to an orphanage known as Mingeti’s, where they lived from then on. The situation was getting better, but life was full of wounds. That is how life started again after the genocide. Looking back at those days, that life of the cross, it actually lasted about forty days. Every one of those days was hard for every individual. It was not easy to bear. But after a while we got used to that awful life and to death. There are some important days I will never forget. The first is the day we fled our homes. Personally, like any human, and a child at that, I had never seen people flee their homes before. That was the first thing. The second thing is the time they killed those who tried to flee to Kigali. They were killed in Kanzenze at Karumuna. Many people experienced an agonizing death then. I saw people in agony, being hacked and even raped. The pain was hard for me to bear. The worst thing that happened, and the worst of days, was the day the killings at the church took place. They killed the people I was with, and walked over us to go and kill more. People were killed in the most beastly ways, they hacked up that pregnant woman, splitting her open to remove her baby and her intestines. That was the hardest day to bear. The day we were in the swamps at Kayenzi, when they closed in, and tried to kill us, the time I almost gave myself away. I felt life was over. I can’t forget that day either. Those were the hardest days of all my life. After the genocide, life in Nyamata was hard. We found out that most of the people had died, with no one left in some families. All my childhood playmates had been hacked. Some had no arms, some had been stabbed in the head, and had no energy to play again. And I couldn’t help them either. I lived with some of them in the orphanage. I spent a short time there. In general, life was hard. We used to go to our villages to look for food. But we were scared of being killed by the Interahamwe. I lived in the orphanage after the end of the war. When school started, we started attending. I studied at Nyamata Primary. We used to return to the orphanage after school. Later, my maternal aunt, Nabayo Caritas, took me from the orphanage to live with her family. She was still single, about thirty years old. She brought me up, together with some cousins of mine, Munyuzangabo

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Aimable, Niyonzima Valence and Martini. She took care of the four of us despite having little capacity for our upkeep. Later she got a job in an Italian cooperation organization. She helped us the best that she could. Later, she got married, and she couldn’t live with the four of us then. We separated and went to different families. But we worried a lot in the families we lived in. After the war, I joined primary two, my previous class. I kept being promoted until primary four.4 I left Nyamata and returned to where we lived before to live with my uncle. I continued studying, but the education was poor because the teachers were insufficient. It was a hard life where we went to bed at 5.00 pm because we had no neighbours. After school, we would take the cattle to graze, as the only activity after the war. I was able to keep three cows and looked after them. My uncle too had cattle. I lived with some other kids, my cousins. After school we would go check on the cattle, and we would take them to graze. There was no other activity then. Later, we finished primary school in the year 2000. We passed the primary leaving examinations. We were to be admitted in secondary schools. That’s when we were sent to secondary school in Nyamata. My cousin, called Tumubare Albert, was sent to Saint André. Murenzi was sent to Nyamata High School. We started secondary school, though it wasn’t easy. But before we were due to start school, we didn’t have the finances to cater for all the requirements to go to school. There is a certain parent who was a good person, that I can never forget until today, in my life, called Mujawayo Esther.5 At that time she worked at AVEGA; its headquarters were at Péage. She told us that we couldn’t go to school without any things. She helped us get what we needed. She got us the basics needed for us to start school looking smart. We were able to live with others independently. That woman gave us everything we needed. We went to school and studied from the year 2000. She later left and went to Germany to live there. We lost contact then and I can say we became orphans again. It’s because she had been taking care of us. She didn’t only provide material things but also moral care. After her departure, life became hard again, and we had a hard time finding a place to stay during the holidays. Returning to school was hard too. We continued to struggle with all that. We finished and passed the first level of secondary school. I passed and got a place at Kigali International Academy. At that time it was in Kicukiro. I decided to stop studying in French. Whenever they talked about how the

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French helped the Interahamwe it affected me and I didn’t want to study in French any more. That’s when I went to study there. Life continued but it was never easy whenever we came back for the holidays. We kept studying and finished secondary school in 2005. It was impossible to get government sponsorship at that time and I was a few points short of getting that from FARG too.6 But while I was at school, I believed I would get a scholarship. Studying didn’t seem hard at the time. I believe it was in God’s will to get that scholarship. But my cousin Tumubare Albert was able to get a scholarship. He went to study at the University in Masoro. Life then became hard for me. I thought, ‘I can’t be a farmer.’ After some time of life’s hardships, I met someone who worked with AVEGA. I went to Remera to visit them: ‘Can you get me Esther’s address?’ I wrote to her. She replied saying, ‘It is true we had lost contact, but let’s keep in touch now that you have my e-mail.’ We talked about how I could go back to school. I went to Butare to seek admission and I was admitted to SSPA [the Faculty of Social Science and Administration], where I have been studying. I took EPLM [intensive language course] in 2007 and started my first year in 2008. That was when I started seeing clearly; then I learned what I wanted. Before that, I thought that education was just to help you live; to go to school so you don’t become a laughing stock. Much worse, to go to school because you have nowhere left to go. That’s the time when I started valuing education. I started to think, ‘I am not stupid . . . education isn’t hard.’ Esther encouraged me saying, ‘This is a sign that you can do something with your life.’ I studied and passed with good results, seventeen out of twenty. That’s how I finished the first year. But life was still hard for me. We went to school with a variety of people with different kinds of behaviour . . . some of those in your environment at school have relatives who participated in the genocide. That made life even harder. It later became too much for me to handle and I thought, ‘I should leave Rwanda. If I leave, life might even become better.’ That’s when I talked to Esther; I told her that I didn’t want to study in Butare any longer. ‘You seem to be doing well. What is the matter?’, she asked. I told her that I couldn’t continue there. I wrote to them complaining about a raise in tuition fees too. But the problem wasn’t tuition fees. I wanted to settle my mind and achieve something on my own, in a calm manner without social barriers, without anyone mocking me for going without food. To live in a place where no one minds what you do

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was the only thing I thought could help me. I left Butare and went to study in Uganda. That’s when I started studying at Uganda Christian University. I didn’t seek justice. I don’t think there is anything much we can do about what happened. In terms of justice, it is true that most of them were imprisoned. Some of them admitted and repented to their crimes and were released. They are living peacefully with their families in our neighbourhood today. I attended Gacaca once and listened to what people were saying. Some denying killing people. Yet we saw them. That time, I said that I would never return to Gacaca. The process of accusing people is not really the best way forward because there is no punishment that could bring back those who perished. As much as they are supposed to compensate us, that won’t help either. They might compensate you with cash, but without happiness, that has little value. That’s why I said, ‘Whatever they did has happened, I can’t change it. It’s better to forget it, and build myself a new life, without any conflict with those people. To ignore what they did and move forward.’ I didn’t accuse anyone, and I don’t plan on accusing anyone at all. Their conscience will judge them. They will always recall what they did. There isn’t much I can do about it. The way I see it, honestly, I can’t live in the same neighbourhood as them. I only come to Rwanda once in a while to visit. Sometimes, when I get to the place where I lived, and human nature kicks in, I feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I think of living in a place where I won’t see those people, yet it is impossible. That is one of the reasons that made me leave education here and go to a place where I can’t see those people, without anyone mocking me because of my situation. Maybe if God keeps helping me spiritually, I might settle and return to live here. But today, I have not attained that level yet. My message to survivors, every survivor, be they young or old, is that you must learn to live with yourself. That is what I had failed to do. There are two years in which I failed to live with myself: the time I was in senior four, five and six of secondary school. I failed to live with myself and that adversely affected my life. They [survivors] must accept to live with what happened, to be strong and courageous . . . to work hard and be honourable. The first thing that should make us work hard is that we must work to prove there is a reason for our survival; to prove that what our parents had achieved or were planning to achieve can be achieved by us. We must make sacrifices in their honour and show dignity in all that we do.

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I would like to give counsel to the youth not to lose hope, and to believe that everything is possible, that they can transform their lives. They shouldn’t lose hope and courage. They can achieve anything if they work hard enough. The successful ones should try and help those behind them to succeed too. That is my message to them in these times.

Pierre Karangwa Pierre Karangwa is a social studies teacher in Muhororo Sector. He fled to the DRC during the genocide, and experienced difficulties when he returned to Rwanda. Here he talks about divisionism in historic and contemporary Rwanda, and how his training in peace education has led to improved relationships at work, at home and among his neighbours.

My name is Karangwa Pierre Célestin. I live in Muhororo Sector, Nsanza Cell, Nyaruhondo village, and I work here at Nyagisagara School. I was born in 1978 and went to primary school near a place called Ruhindage. During our history lessons, we learnt how Rwandans used to live, before white people came to the country, and how they lived during the colonial era. The lessons of that time contained divisionism among Rwandans, but we had no idea of their significance until the genocide happened. When the genocide happened, I was exiled in Congo [DRC], together with my parents. While I was in Congo, the refugee camps had to be demolished. After that, my parents and I were separated and I went to live in the Congolese forests; I was not living together with Interahamwe but I found someone who agreed to stay with me. We stayed together, and there came a time when I met people that were returning from exile and we got to know each other. I sent a letter to my father to find out if he was alive through someone we met who was going back to Rwanda, because I was wondering whether he was or if he had passed away. If he was alive, he would know that I was alive too and I would know that I could also go back to Rwanda. I was very lucky when the Inkotanyi were looking for the Interahamwe militias because they had done unimaginable things in Rwanda. During that time, one of the RPF soldiers went back to Rwanda and met my parents because he knew them. When they asked about the address on the letter that I had sent them, because I had mentioned it, he told them that I

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lived there. One day, by the miracle of God, I received a letter from them asking me to come back to Rwanda. I went back to Rwanda but I felt scared. I travelled home. When I got home, I was told to go back to school but it wasn’t possible at that time. Instead, I got married. I stayed with my wife, but I was in conflict with her, as I didn’t have enough money. Eventually I went back to school. Back at school, I had a lot of problems with a lot of genocide ideology. As a person who had fled to Congo and lived a short while in the country, I still had some of that ideology, even if it didn’t lead me to do wrong. When we went back to school after exile, the hostility probably came from the history that Rwandans have gone through. This means if a Tutsi is a survivor of genocide, he finds himself alone while the others are in big numbers. Let’s say you’re a Hutu. You wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting with him at the same desk; you could feel there was a problem. Then there is something that could cause problems: if something happens, depending on what one has seen and gone through, he could have trauma. I also get troubled and wonder why I have gone through difficult things in the forests of Congo. Yes, of course I am with my parents, but there are other family members that we have lost, and I wonder why I don’t have trauma. This was the problem we had. I became a teacher and then did the peace education training.7 We learned many things. Before the colonial era, we learnt that Rwandans lived peacefully with one another. They had the same culture and the same language. They shared, they socialized and intermarried. And above all, they would drink together. Here, there were no problems on the social side. On the economic side, Rwandans were in three categories: there were farmers who had so many cows that they were called Tutsi; others who practised agriculture were called Hutu; and others that practised pottery and foraging were called Twa. During the colonial era, white people sat down and decided to divide Africa into parts. Rwanda was among the countries that were divided up, and they had taken some parts; for example Congo took some parts, and Uganda took some too. When white people arrived in Rwanda, we were colonized by two countries, Germany and Belgium. The Germans started colonizing us without focusing much on divisionism, even though they would do it later. After a while, in 1914, there was the First World War, and when the Germans lost the battle, the Belgians took over and started colonizing us. What I have learnt is that the Belgians started dividing us in order to rule.

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After dividing us, they immediately created categories of Rwandans. A good thing before the arrival of the white people was that if a person was called a Hutu, he could have a lot of cows and become a Tutsi, which was a sign of wealth. If a Tutsi was having problems, which meant he had fewer cows, he would move into the category of Hutu. Everyone was happy to move on and happy with what they had. White people took our three categories and made us into ethnic groups. Those ethnic groups replaced the eighteen clans that were previously in place. There was, for example, Abanyiginya, Abagesera, Abazigaba, Abungura, Abasindi and others. So they ignored our clans and created ethnic groups in 1932 – we learned that in the workshop. They are the ones who introduced identity cards and wrote those ethnic groups on them.8 What really got to me is when they said that there was propaganda that . . . they would take two siblings with different sized noses – because they had their tools to measure the nose – the one with a long nose would be called a Tutsi. Even a person who was tall and was over one metre, sixty centimetres would also be called a Tutsi, while another relative of that same person would be called a Hutu if he had a small nose and was short. That’s how they carried out divisionism. Instead of solving the divisionism problem, the first republic encouraged it. This happened under the regime of President Grégoire Kayibanda and continued in the second republic under the regime of President Juvénal Habyarimana. The killings and oppression of Tutsi recurred until the genocide happened in 1994. Then afterwards, in July 1994, RPF Inkotanyi took power. When they took power, we finally saw an end to that, and until today, the reason why we are participating in the Rwanda Peace Education Programme. We are looking for ways to live in peace and understanding, after the dark times we have gone through. Everything we learnt in the Rwanda Peace Education Programme has had an impact on my life. Well, now I cannot be hostile to anyone, saying you are a Hutu or a Tutsi. For example, there is a neighbour of mine we share a banana juice with – because I feel comfortable sitting and sharing with him – he’s a friend and recently I asked someone else to help me go and visit him. He accepted and we took a drink round to his home. He’s a survivor of the 1994 genocide, but we are on good terms. We don’t have a lot of genocide survivors

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in this area, but we talk with the few who live here. That’s a change I see because we feel comfortable and open with one another. Another impact relates to my way of thinking. My mindset has changed: when I am chosen to lead a discussion, I speak confidently and it helps me when I teach what I believe. Another thing is we were given teaching materials. When you show these to people and they see how genocide was committed, how people were killed, and how some people had the courage to rescue others, how other people were brave enough to reconcile with others, how they can do things that will help build peace, this also touches other people’s hearts. I would also like to tell you about something else: in my family, I was not on good terms with my wife. After attending peace education training, after understanding peace, I could go and teach other people with my wife. You know you can’t pass on to others what you don’t have yourself. When I am teaching, the community and students know how I live with my wife because, if I don’t live well with her, there will be rumours about her and me. That wouldn’t benefit them in any way; it would not help them. But after the training, I decided to give myself the task of following the examples from the sessions we had benefitted from. If you can see people who are united in the community, why can’t I be on good terms with my wife? I took the materials and showed my wife what we had learnt about peace and told her that we should also live in peace. I taught her and showed her the materials and she seemed touched in her heart. To tell you the truth, ever since that time, I have never had any conflict with her. For me, this had an impact on me, my family and even the community in general. I carry some of my teaching materials with me. When some people had a conflict, they came to me and you could see the changes in them. Instead of disagreeing with what I was saying, the woman nodded her head as a sign that she understood. When the discussions were finished, I called the wife and her husband to continue the discussion. At first, the wife didn’t agree to come back home, but the next day, she did. Since then, they are my closest neighbours and they are on good terms today. When my wife notices that and also sees people coming to me for advice, it’s something she is proud of and happy about. Well, when I notice changes in the community, personally I feel proud and happy. But that’s not all: I also feel grateful to the Rwanda Peace Education

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Programme and its initiators and those who came to train us because they have helped us a lot. I feel like it rebuilds me, it makes me happy and I am grateful to them. I also thank the government for the efforts made in order to help Rwandans live in peace. We have trained our co-workers in peace building and nowadays there is no problem. Whenever there is a conflict between colleagues, one of them might say, ‘Please remember the Rwanda Peace Education Programme,’ and he might stop his anger immediately before it goes too far. There is something that my students have done in the past couple of days. There was one student who didn’t have any shoes and they said to me: ‘Teacher, as you taught us to help one another and live in peace, one of our students was expelled from school because he has no shoes. We are going to help him and you can call him so he comes back to school.’ They contributed and bought sandals for him. Well, the work of the Rwanda Peace Education Programme has great value for Rwandans because starting with me, I’ve noticed significant changes, and the community where I live is changing. For example, students and teachers are now on good terms and they have taken great steps because before, when we would sit together and talk about our history, we didn’t understand it well and we could find ourselves on the wrong path, as some people had a bad ideology. Nowadays, when we talk about this, we find ourselves on the same page, and this training is very important. When you hear about two people living together when they used to have a conflict, you feel happy. Today, it’s important that we live in peace. If a person has an ideology, an attitude of revenge, an attitude of hostility, they should feel liberated and remember that we are all Rwandans. I would like to add that peace is a very good thing and where there is peace, everything is possible. I can’t say that peace is achieved in a day or in a year; it’s a long process, but it is possible. The reason I say it’s possible is this: if we have been taught the wrong history, which gave birth to genocide, I can say that we are currently getting good teaching. If we give good teaching, sustainable peace is possible even if it doesn’t happen straightaway. I have that hope and I want to give it to all Rwandans.

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Valérie Bemeriki Valérie Bemeriki was a presenter on RTLM radio during the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.9 In this excerpt, she talks about her life before the genocide and especially about her role as a journalist during the genocide. After the genocide she was arrested in the DRC where she was hiding and brought back to Rwanda. She pleaded guilty and, as a Category 1 perpetrator, is now serving a life sentence in Nyarugenge prison.

My name is Bemeriki Valérie. My father is called Bemeriki Ignace and my mother is called Nyinawabahutu Ancille. I was born in 1955 in the Southern Province, Huye District, Ngoma Sector. Before the genocide, I worked at the airport in Kanombe. I became a journalist in October 1990. When I was young I wanted to become a journalist. I had this desire when I was in primary school. I wanted to become a journalist. Well, my dreams [. . .] came true, but I did not get what I wanted from it because it has been the cause of my imprisonment. Talking about the history of our country, I was about four years old in 1959 and so there are things I can’t remember because I don’t know anything about them. The revolution that people talk about, which we fought for and which we were requested to preserve; we actually don’t know its positive effects. Some of us really didn’t know what we were doing. Then, when we started our studies, they included it in the lessons we studied. By teaching us this, I believe a trap was laid for us and it led us into everything that happened. Even apart from the genocide of 1994, they spread hatred among us. Before 1959, there was the monarchy as well as colonization; I didn’t know a lot about the monarchy. Colonization also took place during this time and was there to prepare the revolution of 1959. Since I didn’t live in the time of the monarchy, they taught us that it was a bad reign. But they didn’t tell us how bad the reign was itself; rather they taught us it was the Tutsi who were wicked. That’s what they taught us and this coincided with the introduction of books called amabuku, which indicated the ethnic groups of people. It’s these ethnic groups that we regularly learned and we acquired it in that way. It took root in us and we considered it a reality. They told us that the Tutsi were bad people and we considered this to be true. They warned us never to trust them, and we understood that we shouldn’t trust them. We grew up with

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this bad spirit of the seed of hatred that they sowed among us. This gradually built up until the revolution of 1959 where they killed the Tutsi. The Tutsi were killed, dispersed and their herds were slaughtered, their banana plantations were cut down and their houses were burnt. Others were banished to bad places where they could encounter animals that could kill them and even [. . .] as well as the famous tsetse fly in places in Bugesera where they were banished. Given the way they were described to us, we had the impression that Tutsi were bad people since they made us believe that we should not have any relationship with them and that nothing bound us to them. They revealed those who are the owners of the country: the Hutu. All this was inculcated in us throughout this period and it’s what we learned in primary school. It was even the history that we learned. There was the error of ethnic inclusion in the books called amabuku, and the same on the identity cards. Another error was that of persecuting the Tutsi at the time of the 1959 revolution, when all the Tutsi were ill-treated regardless of whether they were part of the monarchy or not. So, they started to teach us the wickedness of the Tutsi. This is really what we learned. They taught us this in primary school and you’ll understand that this was the seed of the ideology that prepared the genocide. They were convinced that if the genocide was going to take place, the ideology would have to be really sunk in among people in such a way that they would implement what they had learned and this has really been the case. In 1962, there was the war and some people escaped while the others were imprisoned without committing any crime. I remember that where we lived in Butare, our neighbours were sometimes imprisoned at one time and at another time released; others would flee whenever they got the means to do so. We would only hear that somebody had fled without knowing how and why they had fled. It was because they felt threatened during that time. This was not only in Butare where I lived, but also in other areas of the country. And then came the period after 1972. In 1972, there were divisions within the government in place, which was led by Grégoire Kayibanda, and there were divisions based on regions. The Tutsi started to be persecuted based on the districts where they were found. This means that whenever the Hutu had misunderstandings, they took Tutsi as scapegoats and blamed it on them. 1972 is the time where I noticed that so

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many people who were persecuted so much in either schools or workplaces were Tutsi. They were chased out of schools and some were killed, some were thrown in rivers, while others were forced to leave their jobs. Then, there came the time when the coup d’état took place and the First Republic was replaced by the Second Republic. These two republics are the ones I know, but the second is the one I know much better.10 During the Second Republic, they introduced the system of ethnic balance; the problem of the ethnic groups still persisted and they maintained the spirit of the revolution of 1959. They talked about unity and reconciliation but without implementing them. We would sing about unity and the reconciliation, but without knowing what we were doing, since ethnicity was always on our identity cards even though we continued to include unity and reconciliation in the songs. They introduced the ‘Mouvement’ to us (the then MRND), we sang about it, accepted it and all joined it. In October 1990, the war began. During the period of this war [. . .] there was a meeting held in La Baulle in France. François Mitterrand said that the countries of Africa must embrace the multi-party system. Since people had started talking about such things, we believed that freedom of expression was going to prevail in Africa; that people were going to express their wishes and desires without any problem. It was in that prevailing situation that I had the idea of leaving my job at the airport to work in journalism. At the time, there were few radio and television stations. There was only one radio station and only one national television station, and the latter broadcast only once a week. After seeing that there weren’t many media stations, I decided to work for the MRND’s media. At that time, the multi-party system had begun; I was also a member of the MRND party. During that period of multi-partism, many people wanted me to work for them, but I chose to stay with the MRND where I worked in the newspaper industry, working with its two newspapers, one of which was called Umurwanashyaka. In that period of multi-partism, MRND had one newspaper that they named Umurwanashyaka and then later set up another newspaper for the MRND youth group called Interahamwe. This newspaper took the name Interahamwe. I worked for those two newspapers. While working for those newspapers, we followed the editorial line of the MRND political party and we understood that we were waging the war against the RPF. We were conscious that we had to fight the RPF and its accomplices.

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We were told that our enemy was none other than the RPF and its accomplices, who were the Tutsi inside and outside the country as well as all those who supported the RPF. Well, after some time, I heard an announcement on the national radio and radio RTLM calling for people to apply for the post of journalist at RTLM. That’s how I applied, along with others, and sat the test. There were eleven of us who passed. I was retained among the best candidates. I started working at RTLM between the end of October 1993 and the beginning of January 1994. RTLM began broadcasting in February 1993 and in July 1993 launched its transmitting antennas when it started operating properly. During this moment, those who worked there were Gahigi Gaspard, Kantano Habimana, Noël Hitimana, a Belgian journalist called Georges Ruggiu and a Congolese called Mbirizi Philippe. Henceforth, we also joined them. During the month before the genocide, and even the period before that, tensions were very high: there were misunderstandings, disagreements and quarrels among the political parties themselves and against the RPF. They said that the country was in a state of war, that the war had not yet finished. There were also new political parties opposed to the MRND. The MRND was in coalition with the CDR and they were also involved in that situation. The tension was really at a high level and it was inevitable that people were going to fight. It was quite perceptible. In the press, the editorial line of RTLM was that of the MRND and CDR, as well as those political parties on the side of power. The editorial line that we had in the written press was the same as the one we continued to follow at RTLM. The situation was very bad: in the spoken press, politicians came to present their ideas through radio – the way they wanted it – or prepared official statements that they gave us to read out on the radio; or we went into political meetings and gathered information to broadcast. What I mean is if we followed the political line it’s because we were fully convinced. Nobody could lie by saying this was something that someone else had just inculcated into them on that day. They had already instilled that ideology in us and we believed in what they told us, that it was true. When it came to fighting for the revolution of 1959, we believed it was true, that we should do it. We were told that the Tutsi wanted to exterminate us and that any survivors would be their servants. We believed what they told us: that we should fight for the good cause of the 1959 revolution,

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and this revolution was for the majority ethnic group, the Hutu. That’s how it was and this was RTLM’s editorial line. One thing I would like to say is that during that period we were not practising real journalism. We were not really doing journalism because we were giving out information without checking it or going out into the field to see for ourselves, and we added our own emotions to it. These emotions I am talking about were our contribution to fighting the enemy. This means that we were not professional in our work as journalists. We were really outside the profession, using it without taking its ethics into account, and instead of teaching the population good things, we trained them in evil, sowed discord among them and urged them to kill one another. I have mentioned several places where people were killed and I played a role in the death of these people. In those moments, I was fully energized and I invited people to stop particular vehicles, warning them that the passengers inside those vehicles were going to kill them. You understand that this is something I emphasized. There are cases where I was saying that the Inkotanyi who were hiding in someone’s house were exterminating people [. . .]; you’ll understand that I didn’t say it in a quiet voice, but rather I spoke with full enthusiasm and I felt like I was on the battlefield. I insisted a lot, urging people to do something instead of just folding their arms. There was a time when I was asking people not to obey those who were asking them to leave a given area, that it was rather a trick by the Inkotanyi who wanted to conquer that area. We often gave out that kind of information. When the plane was shot down, it was [. . .] on the 6th. It was Wednesday 6 April 1994, between 8.20 pm and 8.30 pm. I was still in the studio and had just presented the news in Kinyarwanda. I normally presented the news in two languages: French and Kinyarwanda. I had just said goodbye to my colleagues and was getting ready to go home. I was about to enter the car when a technician who was on the balcony told me there was a telephone call for me. It was Maître Mbonampeka Stanislas calling. He lived in Ndera in the former commune of Rubungo, opposite Kanombe. When I spoke to him, he told me that they had seen confusing things in the sky. When I asked him what it was, he told me that they saw an airplane that was about to land, but that his watchmen came to tell him that something had just struck the airplane on one of its wings and it had caught

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fire. While he was telling me this, he yelled that the plane had exploded. I did not really understand what he was saying. After a little while he told me that the plane could be the president’s because it was known that he had gone to Dar-Es-Salaam [Tanzania] and was expected to return that evening. I told him that we didn’t know that but, as a journalist, I would try to find out. I then decided to telephone the military headquarters. I thought they might have some information since the country was in a state of war. The person who answered my call told me that he didn’t have enough information, but that the team deployed to find out what had happened had not yet gone far from Kiyovu. I was lacking information. I made the decision to phone the Camp of the Presidential Guard and the person who answered my call quickly put the handset of the telephone to one side and asked me to wait. Those were such old phone models. I kept the phone to my ear and I could hear him on another line of communication or a radio saying: ‘No, it’s impossible, the plane was shot down! It’s complicated.’ In a moment, he came back, picked up the receiver very quickly and told me he was sorry, but he didn’t have time. As I had heard what he’d said, I screamed at him not to hang up. I introduced myself, said that I was Bemeriki Valérie, that I was at RTLM. I asked him to clarify about the plane that had just been shot down. He gave me the information that it was President Habyarimana’s plane. In spite of this, the information was not enough for me. As a journalist, I was curious to know much more about the situation. I called the director, Phocas Habimana. He lived in Rugunga and he was the person who lived closest. He came to RTLM and I told him everything that had happened. He took the information at hand and began to contact the various people involved, among them the families of Habyarimana and Kabuga, and it was they who confirmed the information to him. He himself composed the communiqués we broadcast during the night. We broadcast them in French and Kinyarwanda. After reading the first communiqué, we received several calls from people asking for help, telling us people were being killed, especially in parts of Kanombe, Remera, the areas of [. . .] Rubungo, Ndera. We heard that people were being killed in those localities, at Chez Lando, and we were confused. That night, it was confirmed that there were no survivors among the people on board the plane, but the government asked us not to reveal this information

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at that time; we would announce it in the early dawn. At 4.45 am, we issued a communiqué that disclosed the deaths of all those people who were aboard that plane. After some time, the director told us that the Chief of Staff had said that Prime Minister Agathe Uwiringiyimana was planning to go to the national radio station to launch a coup d’état by speaking to the nation. He went on to say that they had prohibited all journalists from going to Ms Agathe Uwiringiyimana’s residence. This was understandable as it was dawn; nobody went there. The situation remained so, and after a while the director told us that ministers such as Frederic Nzamurambaho had died and were killed by the RPF. We took the information that way and we believed what he was saying. A man named Manirarora Bernard who collaborated with Kajuga Robert came to the radio station. He was president of the Interahamwe in Gitega Sector. He informed the director that a meeting had just been held at the Presidential Guard in Kimihurura, that all the parties’ leaders and steering committees of the ‘Power’ side of the CDR and MRND parties, as well as the youth committees of these parties, had decided that the killing of all Tutsi should begin. He disclosed the information that the Tutsi, in collaboration with the RPF, had shot down the president’s plane. This had all been prepared in advance. We learned that lists of Tutsi had been prepared in all sectors. All these lists had been made and they had them. I knew this [. . .]. There was a man called Setiba Joseph who was president of the Interahamwe in Giti cy’Inyoni. He confirmed to me that they started killing the Tutsi of Giti cy’Inyoni that same night. This doesn’t mean that was the only place where Tutsi were being killed, but everywhere else [. . .]. But you understand that he personally confirmed it to me. Everywhere else the Tutsi were killed the same way during that night. A meeting was held at the office of the Préfecture of the City of Kigali, which gathered the members of the youth committees of these political parties with the highest military members of the army staff, including the various colonels as well as Colonel Renzaho Tharcisse who was Head of the Préfecture of the City of Kigali and his assistant Butera Jean Baptiste. There were also the journalists who participated and I was among them. It was in this meeting that it was confirmed that the RPF had taken up defences on all fronts, especially in the city of Kigali. In Tutsi houses, there were RPF soldiers and their purpose was to kill all the Hutu and then conquer the capital, the whole city of Kigali. So, the rest was the responsibility

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of everyone to fight them. They called upon everyone to seize the weapons at their disposal and to fight them. For this reason, the whole population would be asked to follow RTLM. The public would be told to follow all the communiqués issued by RTLM, that they were more credible because they would reveal information about the status of the Inkotanyi. Ammunition, rifles and grenades were distributed in this meeting. Military outfits were also distributed to leaders, who in turn would distribute them to their communities. In addition, they asked these leaders to come and take other tools in case those they were given weren’t enough. That is what happened. However, machetes were not distributed in this meeting. The machetes might have been distributed at sector level. The advice was for everyone to make a contribution in fighting the enemy, who was the RPF and its accomplices, i.e. the Tutsi and all those who supported the RPF. Killings started on 7 April. On the 8th, it was revealed that the Inkotanyi were scattered everywhere, so all the vehicles that passed through the roadblocks had to be checked. Since the roadblocks were only on the bigger roads, they decided to put them even on small roads. That’s how roadblocks were put on small roads on that day, 8 April. Any vehicle that passed over the roadblocks had to be checked. Checking meant searching all passengers’ ID and any person identified as Tutsi had to be taken from the vehicle. They had also to give up all possible weapons that were in the vehicle [. . .]. When a passenger did not have an identity card, they looked at his or her face. The army issued a statement on RTLM and Radio Rwanda announcing that Lieutenant Mudenge had deserted his post in Ruhengeri and that he was requested to return to that post. We launched the communiqué as it was. I did not know him, but Noël knew him because they lived in the same neighbourhood, the same one as a woman who is here in prison called Nyirandegeya Mwamini. They all lived in Kivugiza. Given that Nyirandegeya Mwamini and Noël knew each other, the former telephoned Noël and told him that Lieutenant Mudenge (he had a Hiace minibus) was transporting the Inkotanyi (we called them Inyenzi) in his vehicle, and that he was distributing them throughout the city and even throughout the whole country. After saying this, Noël sent the news to the director who, in turn, passed it on to the military headquarters. The military headquarters prepared another communiqué stating that the vehicle should be stopped anywhere it was found;

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that it should be stopped at the roadblock when it passed because it was carrying the Inyenzi Inkotanyi and that the person who was driving that vehicle was an Inyenzi Inkotanyi. We read the communiqué as it was. On its way from Kivugiza, the vehicle was indeed stopped at the roadblock that was close to ONATRACOM. At that roadblock, there were young people who lived in Gitega, Biryogo. All the vehicle’s passengers were killed at that roadblock. I remember another story (I personally participated in it). This story is that of the roundabout near the François Karekezi printing house. It was reported that the Inkotanyi were inside this printing house and that they were shooting the people who passed the roundabout. As journalists, we had to be in the field, as we had information disclosed by the military headquarters. As we broadcast live on the radio, the Interahamwe that were in Muhima and Rugenge, the soldiers [. . .], all of them went there and the people who had sought refuge in that building were killed. Those who were able to escape took refuge at SainteFamille Parish Church. They were even pursued to Sainte-Famille Parish Church and some were killed while others managed to escape. There were terms that were often used, such as ‘to work’. ‘To work’ alluded to killing; that’s what it meant. The term ‘work’ was spoken in the speech of the President of the Interim Government, Théodore Sindikubwabo.11 He was the one who used it for the first time when he asked the population to ‘work’ by pointing the finger at the church. Perhaps he was the promoter of the killings that were carried out in the church in Kibeho where they burnt the church and killed the people inside? He gave them orders saying, ‘What are those people doing there? Work and remove them from there.’ I believe in his words that the meaning of the word was clear: going to work meant going to kill, since, after the killings, people were rewarded. They were given beer [. . .]. People who joined the others but did nothing, they were not given a drink because they did nothing. Some said: ‘These people did not work. It is us who have worked.’ You understand that working meant killing. There were other terms used to deprive people of their dignity by reducing them to insects: calling them ‘cockroaches’, ‘snakes’ and other terms that took away human dignity from them in such a way that they were no longer considered like human beings but rather animals that must be killed and anyone who resembled them should be killed. We journalists were put up in the Hôtel des Diplomates.12 In fact, Kigali was already surrounded and almost conquered. The bullets even reached inside the

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Hôtel des Diplomates, and the shells struck the walls of the hotel; we thought that everything would fall on us. You could see a lot of bullets hitting the trees and luckily nobody died there, but you could see shells falling and burning part of the building. During the early nights of July, several bombs fell on the city and we counted up to 72 shells each day. And as the shells fell, many people succumbed to them. We could see people leaving Gikondo or Nyamirambo saying that these neighbourhoods had been conquered by Inkotanyi. The situation remained like this until 2 or 3 July, when we were informed that there was no more ammunition. We were discouraged by this information and we realized that we could no longer resist and couldn’t fight any more. After saying this, they decided to leave the city on 4 or 5 July in the morning. They even started on the night of the 3rd. Then they began to tell the most renowned journalists the plan, and we were lined up as we went through the roadblock, with people told that we were journalists. By the time we left Kigali, the government had already been moved to Gisenyi. When we arrived in Mount Muhe, we kept the working spirit that we had when we first started at RTLM in Kigali. We said we were replenishing our forces and urged the youth to join the army in order to break the strength of the RPF and prevent it from also getting to the city. We stayed there for two or three weeks and then we left. Everyone had to save themself. I thought that I shouldn’t seek refuge through Goma but rather take the road to Cyangugu because I believed that the members of my family who were in Butare could have taken refuge in the Kibeho refugee camp or that they could have gone to Cyangugu. I went in a military vehicle in the direction of Cyangugu and when I arrived I met them there. Some had already arrived in Congo and they were looking for accommodation. So I also crossed the border together with those who had stayed in the camps. Life was really difficult. The situation got complicated when we arrived on the other side. It was a difficult life because people got sick and died [. . .] there were terrible diseases. Almost everything we had was seized. We did not have anywhere to sleep and sometimes we had nothing to cover ourselves and would sleep on the ground uncovered. Children died in the arms of their parents and there were people who died on the road. For me, this situation was like a punishment God had inflicted on us because of what

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we had done. I often thought about this and everything we were taught [. . .] and I realized that there were some bad things we did. Bamwanga Jean Baptiste who was on Radio Rwanda died. There is also another journalist whose name I don’t remember. Kantano died there. Noël died on his return to Rwanda . . . Gahigi Gaspard, and so on. Then I was left alone. What was difficult for us was not the two years we spent in the camps but rather the first war of liberation in the DRC. They destroyed the camps and this made life very difficult for us. We got lost in thick and bad forests. People died on the roads. As people advanced, they would fall into battles between Kabila’s soldiers and the ex-FAR and succumb. Others died falling into rivers because they were unable to cross them. As for me, I arrived at Roso and there was a river I couldn’t cross, so I had to go back. I arrived in Walikale and there was my paternal uncle who lived there but I couldn’t find his home. I kept on looking and fortunately I arrived at a well-built house and, miraculously, it was my paternal aunt’s home. So I stayed there for a long time [. . .]. Then Kabila (Laurent Desiré) came to power in the Congo and after Congo became stabilized, the pacification service was established and I got a job there. After a while, I had an idea [. . .] I wanted to say that I found I couldn’t afford that life. Thanks to the work I was doing in the pacification service, I had been able to earn some money and I had the idea to go to Goma. In fact, I wanted to go to Arusha. But since I didn’t know the Congo, I asked people to show me the way [. . .] I am convinced that they gave away some information about me that allowed the Rwandan soldiers to apprehend me. This happened in Minove. That is how it happened. But then if I think of what we did and how bad it was [. . .]. The soldiers who apprehended me came in military uniforms and spoke to me in Kinyarwanda. It was early in the morning. They knocked on the door and I opened it. We greeted each other: they asked me if I was Valérie Bemeriki and I confirmed this to them. They asked me if I was a refugee and I said I was. They then asked me to go back to Rwanda with them, but I refused, telling them I would come the following day. They insisted, but I categorically refused. In fact, I did not want to go back to Rwanda. They continued to insist and I told them that I knew them, that they were Inyenzi and that I knew what kind of people they were. They were astonished to see that I was still the same Bemeriki who had

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not yet changed. I kept telling them that they were very wicked people, that they hated us and that they were going to kill me in a horrible way. We went together, but I didn’t believe anything they told me, so much so that they gave me food but I did not eat it. I spent a whole week without eating until we reached Ndosho where we found a roadblock guarded by Rwandan soldiers. That’s where they left us. I was with a young man they had arrested, saying that he was an Interahamwe. Then, I saw a vehicle coming, a Mercedes with tinted windows, and they said they wanted Bemeriki. I asked them what they wanted me for. They replied that they wanted to take me to Rwanda. I asked them what they wanted me to do in Rwanda; I said that I knew they wanted me to die in a tragic way. I was so convinced that they were killers who wanted to exterminate us all. After that, they reassured me that nothing bad would happen to me. The agents of the prosecutor’s office in Kiyovu came to pick me up from Gisenyi and brought me to Kigali. The next day I was received by a senior officer (I didn’t know his name). We talked to each other and after a while I was informed that I was being handed over to the prosecution service. I was taken to Muhima police station. I arrived there in June and left that police station in December from where I was taken to the ‘1930’ prison. I began to think deeply and could not understand the situation. I thought all my relatives were dead. I thought they were dead and that those who managed to get back to the country had been killed. Those were the ideas I had in my mind. A moment later, my younger sister came to see me. I asked her how things were and she assured me they were doing well. I asked her for information about everyone and she assured me that everyone was fine. I told her that I thought they had all been killed. After a few days, my mother came to see me. I was surprised. I told her I thought they were no longer alive. She revealed to me that all my neighbours and my old acquaintances were doing well and, shortly after, they all came to visit me in prison. It’s here that I found the knot that would push me to keep reflecting on what we were taught and what we did. It is through this examination of consciousness that my heart managed to regain its tranquillity. I thought about it for a long time. Previously, I did not even listen to Radio Rwanda as it was impossible for me to listen to the Inyenzi. I had such an ideology. But what I see now is the opposite of what I believed because my family members are all alive. I could not understand the situation and I began to realize that what we had been told

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was not at all true. I then began listening to Radio Rwanda, following the speeches of the President of the Republic and analysing their content. I noticed that what he said was true and aimed at rebuilding the country. His speeches were full of love for Rwandans without segregation. I began to regret what we did and why we did it. This helped me to discover myself and I accepted the atrocities we committed; that they shouldn’t have happened in our country. I began to understand how we were led into bad deeds during colonization. It was from that moment that people became poisoned, and those who replaced the colonizers reinforced what the latter had started and made us understand that our enemy was the Tutsi, while among even the Hutu themselves there were many misunderstandings. This fits well with the saying, ‘Interests bring people together but do not unite them.’ That is quite true. People only follow their own interests. We gained nothing by killing our relatives. Positive thoughts started gradually coming into my head. It was I who took the decision to acknowledge the role I played in the genocide. I admit that we wanted to exterminate the Tutsi, whereas this act was not appropriate, it was not necessary at all. I realized that I played a role using RTLM and I recognized it. That’s how I decided to plead guilty myself. I acknowledged the crime that I committed and I asked for forgiveness. There was a genocide survivor I asked for forgiveness. He’s a member of the family that lived next door to my home. We were imprisoned together but he was sentenced for a different offence. I did this through the prison management. They brought him to me and I did everything possible. I asked him for forgiveness. Another person I asked for forgiveness is the daughter of Sebera Antoine. She is called Claire. She was detained in Nyarugenge Prison for a different offence. I managed to approach her and asked her for forgiveness. I have asked forgiveness from all the people I could reach. During the trial in the Gacaca courts, I apologized to all the people I could see. I even gave testimony on Radio Rwanda, despite the fact that there are those who did not, of course, think positively about this. There are those who hear my voice and it reminds them of the same voice I had during the genocide and it causes them harm. I recognized this by asking for forgiveness on Radio Rwanda during that time. Afterwards, I was summoned to the Gacaca courts. People saw me in a state that they weren’t expecting, since they believed I was going to demonstrate resistance and oppose them. But on the contrary, I showed great kindness and

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the jury appreciated this very much. I said to them, ‘What I see today is different from what I saw before. What I was told was what I kept in my mind. I ask for forgiveness. I can do anything to help the Rwandan community that we have destroyed and for which we have caused these kinds of problems. I will do everything possible to rebuild our country in order to rediscover Rwandan unity and live in peace again.’ Whenever I looked back, analysing the situation in the past, after realizing that I played a crucial role in what happened, and after considering that I was the one who initiated the idea in me of understanding the seriousness of the offences we committed, I felt that I should face the consequences and I accepted the penalty. But when I was sentenced to special life imprisonment, I was in pieces. I thought about it. I couldn’t imagine how others who committed more severe atrocities than mine – those who were on the street killing people directly, others went into people’s houses and killed all the inhabitants – but when they were taken to court, especially those who attended the Arusha court,13 they were given lesser sentences than mine. So, I felt that my punishment was heavier than others. I didn’t perceive it initially, but little by little, I came to accept it. I said to myself, I should better accept and serve my sentence, maybe a time will come when the President of the Republic will have mercy and pardon us. Yes, he may pardon people in general, and I may get the opportunity to be among those to be pardoned; or else things may change in one way or another because I am the one who took the decision to accept the offence and plead guilty. I did that willingly without anyone forcing me. I even went to various places to testify; I even testified in various courts; I even went to the International Criminal Court in Arusha and testified against those who were accused of using RTLM, and told the court the truth about the role of RTLM, but my testimony seemed to contradict what they said. So, being sentenced to special life imprisonment means that all my testimonies about what happened and how I willingly accepted my offence were not given due concern, whereas those who committed the same offences as me are still denying it. In that respect, I feel that if I were to continue revealing the truth about what happened – despite the contradictions with others who committed those offences but still deny them – maybe a time will come when they will understand my testimony and review my sentence.

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Nevertheless, when I think of people who underwent all those atrocities and imagine how they felt, I feel some sympathy for them. Considering that I, as one of those who played a role in their suffering, and considering that I am still alive and breathing, I think I should have been sentenced to death. Considering that I came back from exile and found all my relatives alive, whereas some of those on whom all those offences were committed lost almost all their relatives, leaving them alone in family life, sometimes I feel that this punishment I was given is fitting for me. Sometimes I feel that I shouldn’t think much about it. I feel that those who lost their relatives are more aggrieved than someone who got a punishment for the offence they committed. That’s how I see it. If I had not returned to Rwanda, I would still be the same. But, I thank God because the fear I had is now no more; I have observed the situation, after analysing the whole truth of the thing, more so after attending a number of training sessions where we learned a lot of good lessons concerning good citizenship.14 We found that all the past lessons we had learnt were quite different from the truth of things as we learn them now. We are learning better lessons about living as good citizens. When we analysed things from the past, we found that what we were taught in the past was wrong. The truth of the matter was hidden from us. But, when I see what we learn now, I don’t see how we can justify and go back to performing atrocities like we did in the past. Because when one starts considering ethnicity, then the idea of wanting everything for yourself and thinking only about yourself comes in. Yet, we are all Rwandans, and our country Rwanda is one; we have to live in it as equals. No one should say that Rwanda belongs to so and so, or to those people. Our country is one. Rwandans, we are brothers and sisters. We really are one. Altogether we should not consider ethnicity, we should consider one thing: being Rwandan, living in brotherhood, in equality, because we now have this privilege. The time will come when we will all have forgotten this completely; when we will be seeing all Rwandans in terms only of Rwandanness. For me, this is the advice I would give to all people – maybe they will hear me and take the decision to join me in this way of thinking: all that we are here for is that we should all work together. Whether you committed genocide or you are its victim, we should build unity and reconciliation, and seek forgiveness from each other; we should accept the atrocities we committed so that we put our efforts together and rebuild our nation.

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Eliyezeri Gatabazi Eliyezeri Gatabazi is a youth ambassador for peace education. He writes plays that have been aired on the radio, and are designed to provoke discussion around forgiveness and reconciliation. Here he talks about his impact as a peace builder in his community.

My name is Gatabazi Eliyezeri but a lot of people know me by the name Nasoni. It was also given to me by my parents but I only registered two names. I lived in Karongi District in the western province of Rwanda. It’s where I work. I was born on 18 January 1985. I am married with three children. I used to be a musician. I was the kind of person who didn’t like to see people interfering with others’ plans, especially because I was young when the genocide took place, but it affected me. The way I saw it, people were at odds with each other for no reason. It kept affecting me until 2011 when we got a radio at home and I started to ask myself, ‘How can I take advantage of this radio opportunity? What can I do so that I spread the message that people should live in harmony?’ I write plays, and so I went to the radio station and requested they let me put on one of my plays, and they said yes. I looked for groups of people to perform my play and afterwards I realized that it had reached a lot of people. After being trained on the Rwanda Peace Education Programme, I did some thinking and said, ‘Let me expand the project so it can be aired on the radio,’ but I also travelled to another region to look for people to talk to. I wanted to work in lots of places, to reach all the youth about the impact of peace building. We then asked ourselves what state the Rwandan community was in, and we found that after the genocide there was suspicion among people. One person would look at another and see them through the lens of ethnicity, and look at another and think that no matter what, that person cannot be trusted. Then we asked, ‘What role can we play?’ We had to say, ‘Let’s promote our play as a platform for discussion. After the play in fifteen minutes, we ask those who listened to it to discuss with us and tell us their thoughts.’ First and foremost, we wanted to hear the thoughts of those who listened to the radio, to our play, about what lessons they got from it. It encouraged people to ask for forgiveness and to give it. It encouraged people to talk openly about what happened. It united them more as Rwandans. It made me feel like I am a Rwandan.

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The peace programme inspired me to go and prepare a play for 20 July. The event was very good. It taught about fighting against genocide, telling the truth, asking for forgiveness, about how people should live with each other. I remember we entitled it ‘You can heal even if you don’t feel strong enough.’ A lot of people attended: there were people from the security services, from the government. I remember there was the deputy mayor who is in charge of social affairs. It was a very good event. Now I am always worried that my peers might not have peace or might lose hope for tomorrow. I can give you an example. While at work, I was looking at Facebook and saw a person who had posted harsh words. I messaged that person saying, ‘What you write are your thoughts but we as Rwandans are one and there is nothing you can do to separate us.’ I told that person, ‘If you feel like you want to spill Rwandan blood, keep your weapon to yourself (mind your language) because you will not spill blood there.’ Let it be understood that I had seen – I was saddened by – the harsh words they put, they said, on Facebook. I really had a greater impact than I used to have. Another thing I can say is about the family: all the neighbours are aware that they can’t stir up any conflict, no one can bring problems knowing that I’m around. In the past, there was a man and woman I agreed to help. I woke up in the night to go and stop their unnecessary fighting (I had called the police but they had ignored me). So I went and got involved. It was resolved and over. It ended well. Let it be understood that even the neighbours know we don’t allow that kind of trouble. Many come to me for advice. I see that it has had an impact on them too. Another thing I can say is that many people, especially those who call the radio – there are those who call telling us that they were bad but that they have changed because they saw the play. In general, I think it has had a positive impact on Rwandan society. There’s still a long way to go; let it be understood that there is still a long battle for people to change. Even in this month of July, there is a place we are planning to go to, to host an event to spread the message. Peace is made up of a lot of things (it’s a huge concept). What peace means to me – I don’t know how I can explain it – because peace is when a person feels safe and calm, without anyone threatening their security, and who is able to sleep no matter what they see and then wake up and carry on with their plans. Peace is made up of a lot of things but most especially, living in calm without any

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of your peers making you feel threatened. I think that’s a good way of living in peace.

Igiti cy’umuvumu Igiti cy’umuvumu (Symbol of Authority) is a unity and reconciliation association that gathers together survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Here, two members, Mariya and Catherine, talk about the things they’ve learnt and achieved on the journey of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Izabiriza Mariya I’m called Izabiriza Mariya. I live in Rweru Sector, in Gikomo village. I am a 1994 genocide survivor. Even before the genocide, I lived here in Rweru Sector. The genocide to murder the Tutsi happened. They killed all the Tutsi, and even a rat in a Tutsi’s house was not spared. But God helped and some of us fled, so that later we could tell others what had happened. No one was meant to survive, as we all saw it, but God saved some people and helped them flee to Burundi. We thank him and we give him the glory he deserves. I fled to Burundi in 1994, but I fled without my husband. We’d been separated when we were running and hiding in sorghum fields. No one would hide you, even the person you loved wouldn’t agree to hide you; and if somebody did hide you, then sooner or later they’d bring people to kill you. When I got to Burundi, I was told that my husband and children were dead. I fled with a little girl that I was carrying on my back. The child said, ‘Your children and husband were killed. Your husband was hacked and the children were dumped in a pit alive.’ So, I took the news for it was. When the time came and we returned to Rwanda, I asked myself, ‘Now that I am in Rwanda, aren’t the killers still in this country?’ Whenever you laid eyes on a Hutu, you thought you were going to die. That Hutu killed my husband, my children, he will not spare me. That caused me trauma and anxiety. For six years I was distressed, I was poor, I was alone and I was depressed. When I joined the association, Prison Fellowship Rwanda said that we would make bricks and build houses together. I remember that I lived in a very

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small house; it was a hut. It was burnt down, so I lived there in a destroyed house. We started making bricks here; I saw and interacted with many men, some later died because of sickness and others fled. As we made the bricks with the men, I asked myself, ‘All these men were my neighbours, why can’t the murderer of my children show himself?’ One day three men approached me and they said, ‘We are the ones who killed your children, can you forgive us? We came here to ask for your forgiveness.’ I said, ‘It’s impossible! No, not only you, but I can’t forgive the person who released you from prison. I don’t like that person, not at all.’ The men left and I stayed there crying. After a few days, they came back again, because we are neighbours. After some time, the Gacaca courts started, they started confessing their crimes and telling us what happened. The men started talking, and they were given the task of exposing their fellow perpetrators who were not in prison, because no one knew about these people’s crimes. They spoke of those who had committed the crimes. They spoke of others who were involved and they also spoke of those who went to kill in other places, because they knew the entire area. The men confessed to their crimes in public and they were forgiven. As for me, I was left asking God in heaven: ‘God, these men are free now, but I am the one still bound by grief, what should I do? Tell me what to do.’ My heart was not free. I did not take care of myself. I cooked only when I wanted to because the little girl and another child that I had were being taken care of by the villagers. I would pray to God, asking for his forgiveness. All Rwandans were free and I was the only one still bound by grief. We went to church, we were taught, we prayed and I remember that one day they told us to bring our sins to the cross. They told us: ‘This cross will bring you forgiveness and love.’ I confessed everything in my heart to the cross. That cross helped me to forgive. That night when I was sleeping, I felt God giving me love. I needed it, I felt love restored in me, an unconditional love. Now I have no hate for anyone, I love everyone. I said to myself: ‘When those men came to ask for my forgiveness, I refused to forgive them, but now I will go to them and ask for their forgiveness.’ As I was thinking about it, the men came back for the fourth time. This time they came with their families, their wives and their children. We laughed, they offered me ubushera and we drank together and we talked. And this time I forgave them entirely. I got a good house built with bricks and cement. I travelled to India because I was free. My children once asked me,

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‘Why are you living with those people who killed our siblings and our father?’ I answered them saying, ‘My children, those men asked for my forgiveness and I forgave them. It is true that they killed our family, but it was the government that had taught them to kill other Rwandans. This new government teaches us to forgive and to ask for forgiveness and for students to learn.’ They replied, ‘Mum, what you have said is right.’ Now my children and their children are inseparable – they talk, they visit each other and peace is in the country. This association has helped me to achieve many things. It has freed me; if it was not for this association I would not be free. I was in extreme grief. I have been able to improve my life. I am a woman who can pay for her insurance. I pay for my children’s school fees. Oh, there are so many things to tell, it would take too long. To the survivors, I would say: when you do not forgive those who have asked for your forgiveness, you are bound by grief, your heart is not free. Even though people think a person is fine, she is actually still in distress. I was once like that. I looked like I was fine, but I was dead on the inside. But when you forgive those who have asked for your forgiveness, or even if they do not ask for it, talk to God and say, ‘God, I ask for a heart of love and forgiveness.’ When you finally forgive, life will be beautiful. And to the perpetrators: if a person knows that they have murdered during the genocide – killed innocent people, young children, old men who had helped them milk their cows – let them ask for forgiveness because when you have not asked for it, you are like a dead person, you are a dead person among the living. When we moved into the houses, we used to use wood to make fire and have light. It was difficult and it didn’t provide enough light for the house. So, we went to India. During the meeting, they selected four illiterate old women, myself included. We went to India and started studying and we learned. We came back to Rwanda and applied everything we’d learned in India. We have now installed electricity here for 110 houses. We also worked in other places. We were in India to learn how to install solar panels and batteries, and also how to charge them. They also taught us how to use PCB lamps, how to plug them in and switch them on. I charge the solar panels, I install them, I plug in the wires, I charge the batteries and produce power. We went to Ruhengeri and Byumba and installed electricity for them too. This technology is beneficial. We taught it to the women in Ruhengeri and Byumba. We are paid to teach

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them, which enables us and our children to live well. You can see it is a powerful development.

Nyiransengimana Catherine My name is Nyiransengimana Catherine. I am a survivor. As the president mentioned, I am the vice president of the Igiti cy’umuvumu association. There are many things we can be proud of in our association; among the many things is that we became united. This is not only in our sector either because, as the president mentioned before, we travel to other sectors to spread the word of unity and reconciliation. We are lucky that we have unity and reconciliation. Now we can show people the harm caused by their actions, which we do to prevent it from happening again in the next generation. This is the testimony we give to other nations without lying, because what we say is the truth. That is why the testimonies that we give here are of what really happened, not made up stories. Wherever you might find someone, they will tell you what they went through. We do not tell people to say this and that; we speak the truth. If unity and reconciliation is a journey, then it is a continuous journey. We take one step at a time. We do not rush or force anyone. Unity and reconciliation is a journey. Even though we’ve formed a group that moved from one sector to another, there are still other places to reach. As a matter of fact, some sectors even invited us saying, ‘We’re sorry, but we don’t understand how you have achieved all these activities.’ We told them to come and see our activities. As I said before, we have achieved these activities, but we do not hide the harmful things that took place between us – the proverb says: ‘Not every bit of truth is to be told,’ but that is not what we do. If someone killed your family, then they would come to you and confess and ask for your forgiveness. The perpetrators have been taught ways to admit their crimes and how to ask for forgiveness, because they used to hide it from us. But when the truth came out, many of us who did not know what had happened found out. When they were released from prison, they found us ready to give forgiveness, and when they found that they were forgiven, the truth was told even more. That’s why we say that there are other places we can go and share our testimonies about what has happened here. Not only in words, but also by teaching them the ways they can work

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together and achieve activities. Through these activities they are able to attain unity and reconciliation, because in isolation, one person saying, ‘I killed your family, forgive me,’ and you saying, ‘I forgive you, because you have asked for forgiveness,’ is not what demonstrates forgiveness. Forgiveness involves action; if you killed someone’s family, reach out to that person and if they have a problem, then help them solve it. Even when they are able to perform the work, still reach out to them and help them, because that way you get to talk. Because when you spend the whole day with someone, you can’t not have something to talk about. The perpetrator also has an opportunity to tell you the reason behind what they did, and you can relieve them through forgiveness and also get relief for yourself. As Mariya said, she would have not been able to do this in the traumatized state she was in before. She would not have gone to school to learn these things. But when the government of unity and reconciliation was established, the idea of asking for forgiveness and offering forgiveness made everyone feel free. And when she became free, her mind started functioning normally again. She was able to work and earn a good living and help those in her community. If she demonstrates these activities to others, then even the person who asked for her forgiveness will say, ‘Even though I hurt this person, she has improved, she has grown; she no longer begs for things.’ Even if she asked for something, it would not be because she is still traumatized, but because she needs financial support to go and teach in other regions. She does not ask for support because she lacks food or because she does not have the capacity to take care of herself. That’s something I would like people to appreciate: she learned all these activities from India, and she also got an opportunity to go to the USA, although she didn’t mention it. I will say it on her behalf: she went there to demonstrate the things that local women have achieved and to inspire everyone else. That’s why she went for a meeting in the USA. So, not only did she travel to India, but to the USA too. We are also very grateful for the knowledge she acquired. Unity and reconciliation united Rwandans. No Rwandan walks around with guilt anymore; it made them think normally again, like they did before, when the tragedy had not yet happened. These are the activities that we, the women of this village, do. In Ruhengeri, we have already installed electricity in more than 410 houses in all those villages. Now we think normally and plan for a better future.

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One wall cannot support a house Inkingi imwe ntigera inzu

The testimonies in this chapter come from the unity and reconciliation associations established by grassroots initiatives in the aftermath of the genocide, driven by government policies from the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. These groups are designed to encourage all members of the community to take responsibility for promoting social cohesion among Rwandans. In the groups, Rwandans who live in the same area are encouraged to voice difficulties and listen to one another. One group (Abashyize Hamwe) gathers together widows of the genocide and women whose husbands committed crimes during the genocide: here Providence Uwimana and Epaphrodite Nyirakanyana talk about how their views of others in the group have changed. Other stories are shared by Protogène Hategekimana and Révérien Gendaneza who live on two neighbouring hills where reconciliation has begun through sowing seeds for one another; and Didace Kayinamura and Ernestine Mukakarangwa who give their testimony together. Edison Zigirikamiro was imprisoned for participating in the genocide and spent twelve years in prison. Here he gives his testimony, describing the respect and peace that now characterize his relationships with his neighbours. The final stories in this chapter come from six members of another unity and reconciliation group (Imyumvire Myiza) that is made up of ex-prisoners, survivors and perpetrators. These individuals reflect honestly on the horrors they experienced or enacted, and then on how their relationships have shifted through the painful and difficult process of reconciliation.

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Ndaje Muvandimwe This is the story of two hills. Protogène Hategekimana is from Ruseke Hill and Révérien Gendaneza is from Giheta village, Ngoma Hill, in Nyarubaka Sector. Protogène is married with three children, and has been instrumental in the reconciliation process in post-genocide Rwanda. He took the lead on inviting perpetrators from a neighbouring hill to seek forgiveness from their neighbours. Révérien works as a farmer and has four children. He participated in looting, but was found to be innocent in a Gacaca trial. Both men are part of the association Ndaje Muvandimwe (Don’t Fear, I’m Here for You). Here, the two men speak of their experiences of the genocide, and their personal responses to reconciliation.

Protogène Hategekimana My name is Protogène Hategekimana. I was born in Nyarubaka Sector, Kambyeyi Cell, Ruseke village. I have a wife and three children. I’m one of the survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi. In 1994 I was a student. The genocide started when I was visiting my family home. My older brother and I were able to flee to somewhere in Kabgayi, but my other family members, including my parents and my younger siblings, didn’t survive. The association Ndaje Muvandimwe was founded in 2005. After seeing that the perpetrators weren’t on good terms with the survivors, that was when I thought of trying to fight this fight, so that people could live a normal life together again. It wasn’t easy because of the grief the survivors felt. The family members who’d survived saw the perpetrators as animals, so much so that they didn’t even want to see their faces. I wanted to start to unite those people with families who had survived. Most of them, about 90 per cent, wouldn’t dare come back to where they had committed their crimes in 1994. During the genocide, they killed my family members and stole our property. That’s when I thought of what I could do. To go back a bit to explain where the genocide took place – there were two hills. Our hill was called Ruseke and was inhabited by Tutsi, and Hutu inhabited the hill of Giheta. So, we were surprised to hear that the hill we called our friend was the one that played a part in killing our families. But we did not give

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up. I thought that there were people I grew up with, the same age as me, who didn’t participate in the killings of my family members. That was when I thought about looking for some of them, so we could talk about what we could do for families from these two hills. We were in a bad place; there could have been a second genocide. That was when I approached a man called JeanClaude Mutayomba, who was a family member of one of the perpetrators, and I told him that I wanted to fight this fight and unite people, even though it wouldn’t be easy. Even though our people died, the survivors needed to regain their humanity, so that if the perpetrators came to ask for our forgiveness, we would be ready to give it. That was when we starting thinking of ways to help people start to see themselves in each other again. I started to fight this fight, even though it wasn’t easy to make the elderly, orphans or my younger siblings who had survived understand that someone who had killed their parents, their siblings, was coming back and they would meet them. It was difficult to make people understand, because as I said before, even seeing their faces unsettled them. I started by saying, ‘I heard that there are some people who might come to ask for forgiveness.’ The Gacaca trials had started and were encouraging people to admit to the crimes they had committed during the genocide. So this is what was done. I went to them and said, ‘Listen, I am now the head of my grandfather’s family. I am the oldest. The rest are my younger brothers and my uncles’ wives. All the responsibilities are on my head. If my aunt has a problem, she calls me, but we are not neighbours. I live in Musambira Sector, Kamonyi District, and even though the sectors are close, I can’t reach her quickly, but other people can. I have to struggle with these problems because other people killed their families.’ I had to look for ways to reunite them and get them to see themselves in each other again, because if they ever cry for help, they will be the first ones to reach them. The survivors must understand that they should see themselves in each other. So I approached them in January and we thought about what we could do. I talked to my aunts. They are old women who respect me. We sat together and gave each other advice. I said, ‘Aunts, I want to do work for you. I want to sow sorghum for you.’ I said, ‘I don’t want any of you to have to sow.’ They asked, ‘How much strength do you have, to sow for all of us who survived?’ I said, ‘Just say yes, and I’ll show you how I’ll do it.’ They said, ‘OK. We accept.’ That was when I went and called Claude, who was struggling alongside me and told him, ‘Listen, Claude. For

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those people to stop feeling afraid and become a family again, there is something small that I want. I want us to work together and see how those who receive them will react, to see how they look at each other. We shouldn’t care how much work we do – whether we dig a small plot or a large one. We want at least to make them meet again for the first time after killing their family members.’ He said, ‘I’m going to try to see what I can do and see if they accept. But my people will understand. You will have the challenge. You are the one with the difficult task of making our people understand, so that they can really feel it for themselves.’ I tried to give my aunts an example of someone who had stolen from our family. I said, ‘Don’t you see that he is going to die anyway? Why should we have his blood on our hands? Why don’t we do something else?’ They said, ‘That’s right. They’re in bad shape. Those people came and admitted that they killed our people brutally, because they threw about twenty-one children from my family into a septic pit alive. They lifted the concrete top and put all of them under it alive, none of them beaten, then they put the concrete back on and guarded it until the children inside died.’ I told them, ‘These are wounds that we must try to forget a little so that life can continue.’ I said, ‘Firstly, we will never forget our loved ones, but we should also see the benefit of uniting with the perpetrators. We who survived can see that we must live, and for us to live well, we have to live with others in harmony.’ I went and told my aunts about it and they said, ‘OK. If they’re not afraid of coming here, then they should come.’ That time the perpetrators came with their wives. They came together and divided themselves into small groups. There were eight or nine households and every household from our hill was given a small number of people. Some came to my home, others went to my uncle’s home, and others to the remaining families. When they organized themselves in front of our homes, some of the old women remembered that it was the same place as where the killings had been organized in 1994. They said, ‘That’s where they used to meet when they made the plans to kill people here. They might come back.’ I said, ‘Don’t be afraid, we are together and they don’t have more strength than all of us. If we have to, we will defend ourselves. Don’t be afraid.’ Very few of them came on the first day. They came in a small number and worked. When we finished, they came back the next day. On the first day there were around fifty, on the second day there were around 100, because they had

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seen that we hadn’t done anything to harm the first group. On the third day, we had a party. It was the last day. We got together and we welcomed people and forgave them. The people greeted each other for the first time. Yes, after greeting each other, people hugged, and started losing the fear they had for one another. That is when we said, ‘There is a group of perpetrators who have asked for forgiveness,’ and we made a decision. We told them, ‘If we forgive you, we forgive you completely. Don’t be afraid to come to our families; there is work if you need it. And if we need to come to your homes on that hill, we want to come without suspicion.’ I said, ‘We forgive you for all the property that you stole and that we asked about during Gacaca – property worth over 40 million Rwandan francs.1 We forgive you.’ We started like that. That is how our association was created and up to this day, as we are talking, we are still together. We started the association with twenty people: ten people were perpetrators and ten were survivors. But now everyone from both Ruseke and Giheta villages sees themselves as part of the association we started. They visit each other and invite each other to their weddings, so that today, there are no suspicions. We forgave them. I can give you the example of a boy called Nyandwi. He is one of the people who played a role in the death of my family. He told me how he killed my mother. He clubbed her twice. He admitted it during Gacaca. He talked about how he clubbed her and threw her in a ditch after they had taken money from her. The next morning he said, ‘Maybe she still has some money.’ They dug her up and left her on the hill. After all of that, even when we meet today, he’s one of my friends. We talk. There’s a man called Joel Mugabowindekwe. He’s also one of the people who played a role in the deaths of my family members. You see even now we are sitting together. Truthfully, we accepted working together, and we gave forgiveness from our hearts, not just forgiveness from our mouths.

Révérien Gendaneza My name is Révérien Gendaneza. I have four children. I’m a farmer. I was born here in Musambira Sector. I live in Cyambweho Cell, in Giheta village. Truly, our families, the people who were living on Ngoma Hill, which is in Giheta village, used to live in harmony with those who lived on Ruseke Hill before the

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war.2 They were united. We studied together in school, we looked after cows and we invited each other to social occasions. When the war started, a serious problem was created: some of our families were the ones who went and killed our friends. That led to very bad consequences, to the point where we couldn’t even look at the survivors in a good way. It was a great thing that they thought of. It wasn’t easy to understand how those people would go and ask for forgiveness from the people they hurt. They hadn’t seen each other since. But we had to do something to help us reunite; we had to go and sow seeds for them. It was a way of approaching each other. We sowed the seeds and it made them very happy and we started talking. There was some property that was damaged, stolen, and others had been destroyed. All that was worth 40 million Rwandan francs. The families of the survivors cleared the debt. That was when we started the association, so that others could learn from it. So we worked. Up until now, we are living well with no problems between us and we wish others would use us as their role model and do as we have done. During the genocide I was eighteen years old. I had three older siblings. One time during the war, when I was at home, someone came looking for one of my older brothers, but he couldn’t find him. We went into the town and found there was a plan to get people to go and kill Tutsi. We went along – it was by force; those who refused would get beaten. We went to look for where Tutsi were hiding. The boy and I found that they had gone, but we were told there was money in their homes where they had left it. That boy and I hurried to look for the money. We found the money, but others were there looking for it as well. When they arrived and started looking for it and realized that others had taken it, they searched us and took it from us. After taking the money from us, they didn’t do anything else. They immediately took those they’d captured, the ones they called Tutsi, and killed them. They threw them into a latrine there. They took the money and divided it among the people who were there. When they killed those people, our palms were wet with sweat. They made us lie down and stare into the sun because we’d betrayed them by taking the money. That made me uncomfortable because I’d seen it happen. The time came for gathering news about what had happened and I felt that I couldn’t keep that in my heart, so I started talking about it. Afterwards, Gacaca started. When Gacaca took place, trials were held and people were imprisoned. They were punished. I gave

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them my testimony and they decided I was innocent. I saw all that with my own eyes; that’s why I gave my testimony about it. When we started the association, it turned out to be a wonderful thing and it was even a miracle, because after not seeing a person for five years and then shaking hands, that’s a big thing. Another thing is that when your family is not poor, you live well. The money was forgiven and I benefitted from that, because up to this moment we haven’t had to live as poor people. If we’d had to give back 40 million Rwandan francs, we wouldn’t be anywhere.

Ukuri Kuganze Didace Kayinamura and Ernestine Mukakarangwa, a genocide perpetrator and a survivor, are part of the same unity and reconciliation association called Ukuri Kuganze (Let Truth Prevail). After the genocide, Ernestine didn’t want to see anybody, but Didace persisted and sought her out. Because of his kindness, Ernestine joined the association and now they work together, advocating for their neighbours and working towards unity and reconciliation.

Didace Kayinamura My name is Kayinamura Didace. I was born in Rwabutenge Cell, in Gahanga Sector. Now it is Kicukiro District, Kigali City. I was born in September 1969. I have a wife and two children. I’m the chair of an association called Ukuri Kuganze, which is made up of survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi and also ex-prisoners who confessed and accepted responsibility for genocide crimes and asked for forgiveness, especially those who were released after the presidential decree made on 1 January 2003.3 We have five principles that we members follow: to respect each other; to support and understand each other; to accept each other; to tell the truth about what happened and to help each other. These principles guide our members. The association started on 1 August 2003. It was the idea of those who’d been released by the president’s decree. We were doing community service in Kinyinya. We did community service for three months, because we were among the first to be released of those who’d been charged with crimes of

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genocide. During our community service in Kinyinya, we learnt lessons that would help us re-join society as well as our normal lives. You’ll understand it was hard for those of us who’d been released after committing crimes of genocide to go out during the commemoration period. It was difficult because there were people who didn’t understand, especially the survivors. Both sides were scared. I remember that during community service we used to go back to our birthplace to meet the families of those we harmed. We would spend time together socially, as was expected. Even though it wasn’t enough, it happened. Back in prison, people would say, ‘There is no forgiveness for a person who killed another person, even if they admit it.’ Those were the kinds of attitudes in the prisons. They would say, ‘A Tutsi can’t forgive you. These are the tricks of the cockroaches,’ things like that. We had left those attitudes back in prison. After we’d done some training, we said, ‘We are leaving that attitude behind.’ That is when we said, ‘The people we left behind in prison have a different attitude. We’d like to go back to tell them and testify, especially because they would say they expected to hear that whoever had got out had been killed.’ That never happened. We wanted to go back and help them confess to their crimes. After the training, I thought, ‘How about we find a way to start an association that brings us together and see how we can reach out to people?’ We wanted all sides to be represented; society as a whole. We felt as though we weren’t really part of society, that it wasn’t giving us value as human beings. At that time, there were twelve of us who’d been released from prison. We came together and said, ‘Let’s find at least one genocide survivor that we can help. Even though they might not take it well, let’s do something. It’s impossible to bring back to life someone you’ve killed, but at least we have the heart to show that we have the desire to rebuild our country, even though we played a role in its destruction.’ That’s how we came up with this association. There was a child who lived near the genocide memorial site in Nyanza, where the Nobleza Hotel is now. Nobleza made the child move away. She is an orphan. I asked her, ‘What do you think about the people who were released from prison?’ She answered, ‘Every time I see an ex-prisoner, I remember I don’t have my mother or my brothers or my . . .’ I said, ‘If they did something for you, would it make you happy?’ She said, ‘No. There is nothing they can do for me that would make me happy – unless someone can bring my parents or siblings back to life. Nothing else could make me happy. Nothing else matters.’

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She was living with a family that had taken her in because her home had been destroyed. She showed me the ruins of what was once her home. That was when we started doing community service, but it wasn’t as an association; we were volunteering. We started community service as twelve people who’d been released from prison. We fetched water and made bricks as she sat and watched without talking to us. On the days we were volunteering, she used to come and sit near us without talking to us. We would work and go home at around midday. It went on like that and by the third day she wasn’t as scared of us anymore. We started going to fetch water together. She would borrow equipment for us, like jerricans for example, when we didn’t have enough. Sometimes she would pass mud to people who were making bricks. At some point, even the survivors she lived with started helping us, even though their homes hadn’t been destroyed. That was when we learned about forming an association and working together. We said that each one of us would approach a person they had hurt and ask for their forgiveness, and if they agreed, ask them to join the association. If any of them said no, we would ask others to help convince them and at least make it possible. That’s what we did. During the building process, people would come to watch and ask, ‘What are those people doing there?’ They were very confused. The soldiers from nearby also wondered what we were doing and asked, ‘Who are you and what are you doing?’ We just ignored them because we thought we might get hurt. I later explained to the soldiers what we were doing. They said, ‘What you’re doing is very good. Next time you come here, let us know.’ So I told the afande who had asked us to go back two days later. After we told them this, we saw fifteen soldiers coming to help us form bricks and we went to fetch water from their camp. The project continued. We started the association as twelve exprisoners and two survivors. So many people came to join in the first week that by the end of that week we were forty! We were worried there might be an accident. If a survivor saw that the person below him was the one who had hurt him, what would happen? Would he drop a brick on him as we built? Would someone maybe drop a hoe on another person’s foot, or maybe suddenly get angry? Things like that. People would get drunk and say things. For example, a survivor would say to another person, ‘Give me back the money you took from me and the cows

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you stole.’ After getting drunk someone else would say, ‘Did you not forgive me? I asked you for forgiveness.’ The other would say, ‘I’m not listening to you.’ Small things like that. There was also mistrust on many sides. That’s what led us to make some rules and try to present our idea of forming an association. The idea of going back to train prisoners was also raised. Judge Mucyo as well as Fatuma supported it and they looked for financial support from RCN.4 We started going into prisons. The thing the prisoners feared most was, as the proverb says, ‘The sorghum that grows fat is eaten by the birds.’ Those who said it saw that we looked fine and not like the prisoners wearing pink. A person in prison looks like a prisoner – a different face after being there for eight years, living one lifestyle, eating one dish, wearing one pair of clothes and never stepping outside. When they see a person coming back with a different face, looking like he has adapted to life outside, they are surprised. I remember that when we went to the prisons, all we did was sit and give testimonies and then the survivors would give testimonies. After giving the testimonies we would hear from them that imprisonment was eating away at them. We would go and find that around 42 per cent of them had confessed to their crimes. In the prison of Gisovu, for example, in just one week, they had reached 75 per cent. So briefly, in the beginning, after coming up with some rules, we built around four houses for orphans of the genocide in that region, the region of the memorial site. Those houses became an example of unity and reconciliation for us and the fight against genocide and its ideology, but we had some financial difficulties. Each time we finished a project, we would have a discussion and share testimonies of what had happened. An outsider who didn’t know what happened in Rwanda would hear about it there. We wanted them to know and also to understand what had happened. That’s how we were able to build fortytwo houses here in Kicukiro, through the help of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, which gave us roofing equipment and doors. In Bugesera, we built three houses. I remember when we were leaving Rilima Prison, we were with Judge Mucyo and Ambassador Mutaboba and they asked us to start a branch of the association there as well. We started a branch and set up a committee. I remember that it was Judge Mucyo and Mbarushimana who gave us transport money to set up a committee there. Now, there are 260 houses in Bugesera.

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In our organization, apart from mobilizing, we also can’t watch a person being oppressed by leaders and just keep quiet about it. We report it. We don’t focus on just one group, like survivors, for example, or ex-prisoners. We look at all groups. In Gacaca we listened to both sides and advised them. We would listen to the accused and we would listen to the survivor, and if a person was wrongly accused, we helped him as members of the jury by writing his verdict and following up on his court hearing or accompanying him. For those released from prison, we would tell them to do this or that, and we would give them advice to explain what would happen if they confessed instead of avoiding the truth. That’s how we worked for our association to get it where it is today. Our association is now made up of ordinary people. The types of people in our association include all Rwandans, because all of them are welcome, because this country has many people – some were imprisoned because of their crimes, others are genocide survivors and others are outsiders; others have family members and friends who are in prison. Everyone feels welcome in our association. Every Rwandan finds themselves in one of the four groups, because in this country if a person is not a genocide survivor, they may have played a part in the genocide and been imprisoned. A person who didn’t participate in the genocide is from outside and part of the group of Rwandans who returned home after being forced into exile. People who aren’t part of any of those groups have a loved one who is in prison. That’s why our association is made up of four groups. There was a time when we Rwandans were responsible for losing each other’s respect and started to call each other things that we were not. Some were calling others ‘snakes’ and ‘cockroaches’. According to our principles, we respect and accept one another as Rwandan. I accept you as a genocide survivor and respect you for it, and you do the same for me as an ex-prisoner. As for the genocide survivors, they also have sacrificed something; allowing themselves to forgive, to say that it’s difficult to say, ‘Forgive me, I killed your sibling or I hurt you and killed members of your family.’ It’s difficult, but because the association is based on the value of forgiveness, you make a sacrifice and say, ‘Since this person admits that he hurt me, that he committed a crime against me, I will be the bigger person and forgive him so that I don’t become like him.’ That sacrifice is what I call courage. When that happens, it gives you strength. My strength as a person who committed a crime, who dares

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to admit I did this, gives the other person the strength to say, ‘I forgive you because you have dared to ask me for forgiveness.’ What I tell the people I lead, especially on the side of the ex-prisoners, is always to remember the forgiveness they asked for, and why they asked for it. They mustn’t forget why they asked for forgiveness. I like to remind them of that. As for the survivors, ‘Remember the reason why you are alive. You’re not alive because the Interahamwe loved you or spared you because they loved you. You survived so that you can at least solve the problems that Rwanda has today.’ After applying those lessons to ourselves within the association, we then take them to other citizens. What the association has helped me achieve in my personal life is that I now consider myself as . . . my members are like my family. I like to say that Ukuri Kuganze is like one big family. It’s a family because most of the time I don’t get along with my relatives as well as I do with others in the association. For example, the people in the association – the genocide survivors, ex-prisoners, outsiders and those whose family members are in prison – they were the ones who helped me find a place to live. So I generally call my association my family. I really connect with it more than with my family, because most of the time, they are the ones who are my friends, they are the ones I tell my problems to even before going to my family. Many people see me as their leader, whether it’s people in Bugesera, in Kicukiro or in Nyarugenge. Many times, an old woman or an old man who is part of this association in Bugesera has called me to say, ‘There’s a problem, come and help us.’ I seriously see them as my family because there are many of them who mean more to me than my actual relatives. I might have a problem and not tell my wife, but I would tell the general secretary. If someone sees a good opportunity, they call me immediately,‘There is something here that might help us raise money.’ Then we go there and work together. For example, currently there is a cooperative we work in together where there’s a president and I’m the treasurer. The money we earn, we use efficiently. We agree on things like that. While we’re still on this topic, I can say that unity and reconciliation is of immeasurable value. Considering all that Rwandans have achieved in unity and in Rwanda rebuilding itself, I can say this is the strength of Rwandans who love their country. That’s why I say that what Rwanda has achieved in rebuilding itself is because of the strength of every Rwandan, even though we are facing

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challenges from people who aren’t happy about what Rwanda has achieved. Personally, even though we live together like this, I thought a Hutu would never again speak to a Tutsi. In July and August of 1994, after seeing what had happened, I just thought they were never going to speak to each other ever again, but they did so after a short period of time. So, I say it was because of the strength of every Rwandan, especially the genocide survivors. I thank them very much for their endurance, for accepting people who have hurt you so much and especially for forgiving them and allowing them to work with and talk to you again. We now work together in projects that help us move forward and rebuild our country. It was incredibly brave of them.

Ernestine Mukakarangwa My name is Mukakarangwa Ernestine. I am a mother of four: two boys and two girls. I am also married. I was born in 1975 and I was nineteen years old when the genocide took place. My father was called Badega Pierre and my mother was called Mukundehe Domitile, but they died in the genocide. During the time of the genocide, we were five children. I was the youngest. We were a big family: we had uncles, aunts and cousins. As of now, there is not a single family member left; there is only me. The genocide in Bugesera started in 1992, as you probably know. I think everybody knows that, because it was on the radio. I remember it started in 1992, but no one in our family was killed. We fled. I remember we fled to Gahanga while others fled to the Ecole Technique Officielle to the priest’s house. When things had calmed down, we went back home. It got much worse in 1994. I remember in 1994 on 6 April, Habyarimana’s plane crashed at around 8.00 or 9.00 pm. I don’t remember the exact time, but it was around that time. I remember that the next morning, on the 7th, they told everyone to stay in their homes. We heard the news because we had radios.5 We heard that they had started killing some people, people like Lando. Our house was directly opposite Amahoro Stadium. I remember that we saw Lando’s house on fire . . . We saw . . . And we listened to the radio. On the 7th, on the 8th and on the 9th, they came to our house and started killing. The person they started with was my father’s older brother. My dad was popular. He was a respectable Tutsi, if I may say so. He was dark-skinned and handsome. We were a family that . . . we

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owned many cows and land. My father worked in construction. Basically, we were powerful people during that time. We were even doing well in school. I studied up until year seven of primary school. I finished year seven and year eight. I started year seven after finishing . . . year six. I was in year seven and it ended at year eight. I failed, but not because I wasn’t smart. In those days, they made us repeat years because of our ethnicity. I was very smart, but my teacher asked me to repeat the school year, and so I did. I remember I was doing well at that time. It was during the time that Agathe Uwilingiyimana was the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education and she would give opportunities to Tutsi to allow them to continue their education if they’d done well in their studies. I’d done well. I was a smart person. I was always top of my class from year one to year seven in primary school. I did well, and so I went to study in Butare in Gisagara. I remember that I was ranked eleventh in the whole of Kanzenze. I studied for three years in secondary school. I was in my second year when the genocide started, and in my third year I had too many disabilities and it was too difficult for me to continue studying. So I stopped and I got married before I was ready. You could say that the living conditions were bad back then. There was nowhere to live or even sleep. I got married before I was ready, and you have other problems after you give birth, but, for me, it was the disabilities that made things especially hard. Even after FARG tried to help me, I didn’t go back to school. On 9 April they started killing. They killed our old man, Daniel Sebutekera.6 They were people who knew how to shoot well. After they killed him, we went to a church near our house in Mwogo. We said, ‘A long time ago, nobody would be killed in the Lord’s house.’ I remember that, in 1992, the people who fled to Nyamata were left to starve, but they were never killed. We fled, and when we got there, we found that the Interahamwe had surrounded us. We said, ‘This cannot be.’ Our home was like the island of Patmos; we sometimes like to call it Patmos, like the one that John was stranded on. It’s surrounded by many swamps, so it was difficult to know how to escape. The old people with us, including my father, suggested that we flee to Kayumba, which I think is now in the sector of Nyamata. We tried to flee to Kayumba. They shot at us while we crossed the Karambi swamp in our sector of Mwogo. There was a policeman called Bwanakweli; he’s still in jail. He was the one who was shooting at us. He was a policeman in the

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Kanzenze Sector, but he was born in Mwogo, just like us. He even came to our sector to ensure that they had killed all of us. As we crossed the swamp, he shot at us, but when we got to Kayumba, we found that they were already there. It was hard for them to get there in 1992, so this time they started there. Some of us went inside the church at Nyamata, others went to Ntarama, while others went to the ADPR (Pentecostal) church in Kayenzi. Its pastor was called Uwinkindi – since he’s returned to Rwanda, he’s been in prison. I knew him very well, because he was the pastor in the church that we used to go to. Some of the people who were rescued in Kayenzi later told us, ‘We remember he went and asked . . . he told the Interahamwe to kill. He would tell people to close their eyes and pray, as is the usual practice, and when they had closed their eyes, he would give a signal. Some died, while others refused to close their eyes and instead stood their ground by leaving the church.’7 When we got to Karambi in somewhere called Kayumba, where you can see Nyamata up on the hill, we saw that people were throwing grenades and bombs into the church at Nyamata. We refused to go in and we stayed on the hill. After it was over, some people from Nyamata came out screaming, and those who were in Kayenzi gave a signal to kill, even in Ntarama. It became serious like that. We stayed on that hill in Kayumba. I remember when it was attacked, they kept on . . . Soldiers came to the forest to shoot us and we said to ourselves that living was pointless. Some suggested that we drown ourselves in the river, but we couldn’t because they’d already cornered us and started to kill us. They caught me and tied me up and did other terrible things that I can’t talk about here. They bound my arms and legs and threw me into the river. I sank really deep. They threw me into a river in Bugesera and the river brought me here to this place that used to be called Kamonyi, in Kanombe, but is now Kicukiro District.8 When they got me out of the mud I was still tied up and my shoulder had been cut with a machete. They had pierced my breast and then thrown me into the river. I was tied up there for about three days. In Kabeza there were some Muslims who had hidden some local people, that’s what they told us. Then they lived together, and afterwards they made the decision to kill them because they were afraid that those they were hiding were partisans of the RPF. They had also fled and when they came to drink water, they found me in the mud. There were stinging ants – I think you know the type – they had

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followed the blood. I’d been cut with a machete. They’d hit me on the chest with the kind of hammers that are used on rocks; even now, I’m crippled. Blood poured from my nose and mouth while I lay there in the mud. When they looked over, they saw that I was moving because of the ants. They asked one another, ‘Is that person alive?’ They cleaned me up because I’d been hit on my back with a hammer that’s used on rocks, and on my knees, as well as in other places. They picked me up. They hid me for about two weeks, but everyone was scared that they might die. After the RPF soldiers had captured Kagasa, which is now in Gahanga Sector, the Muslims came to report that people were being killed. They took three of us. I’d been hiding alone, but others were in other people’s homes. That was how I survived. I remember that the RPF soldiers took me to Rebero. They took us in military tanks to Ndera. I lived like that with no one else from my family by my side. I was with other people who . . . I was disabled. That was how I survived; it was the RPF soldiers who rescued me. I joined this association in 2007. I was able to join when they were doing the Gacaca trials here in Gahanga. Some people would go to talk about what had happened, how they were involved in the genocide and they would hold Gacaca for people to confess their crimes. When they confessed and accepted their crimes, we said, ‘The government has done us wrong because there is no way of living with those people.’ Personally, I didn’t even want to see them. We avoided them because we believed they were still killers and they were just lying. When Gacaca started, some of them came to give testimonies; others would say, ‘Is this possible? Can people talk about what they did?’ We thought that no one was ever going to admit to killing another person’s loved ones. That is when I started to let go. A man called Didace came along. I remember that I had bought a house from him and his sister and mother after I got to Gahanga. In 2003, when people were confessing to their crimes, the people who threw me into the river came to confess. It was published in a newspaper called Ingabo and I read it. He asked me, ‘Are you the one in the newspaper Ingabo, the one people confessed to drowning?’ Those men thought I had died. I’d never been back home between 1994 and 2006. I’d never set foot back on our hill. I lived in Kicukiro and I didn’t want go back to my home on the hill because I didn’t want anybody to see me. It’s not specifically because I didn’t

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feel safe; I just didn’t want to see anyone, especially because women were extremely abused. I didn’t want people to see or even think about me and start saying, ‘Look, there’s Badega’s daughter.’ I didn’t want them even to see my face because of what I had been put through. Afterwards, that man Didace kept trying to get closer to me and he later told me, ‘Even though I never committed genocide in the area where you’re from, I ask for your forgiveness as a Rwandan.’ I remember that I was sick at that time and he would ask me what I was suffering from. That man kept asking about me, and eventually he said to me, ‘They tell me you’re a survivor.’ He went around asking people about me. ‘I’m asking for your forgiveness, please.’ He kept on begging me, and advocating for me in the commission and in the prosecutor’s office so that we could give information. I told him, ‘Information about me is known by God alone and there is no one else I can share it with.’ Instead, he brought news reporters and shared the information with the National Prosecutor’s Office. I’d been very sick for a couple of days. He came to visit me in hospital when I was wired up and couldn’t even talk. After I got better, Gacaca started in 2006. I started having mental health problems. I was disabled and I was mentally disturbed. People came to see me. I remember Paul Giles Ndamage coming to see me as a news reporter. When he found me wired up, he said, ‘I can’t use a person who is in such a state. Do you really think we can show the face of someone in this state?’ After I had regained some strength, I remember he kept on refusing to listen, saying, ‘Can you record what this person has to say? So that . . . In case she dies before giving her testimony.’ Because I kept telling him, ‘I will not speak and I didn’t give my family any information about Gacaca.’ Apart from the people who came to me with information, I never went to the hill where my home used to be. They sent me a message and I told them, ‘How does this person who sent me a letter from Gacaca know where I am?’ I said, ‘I never want to return to that hill.’ Didace kept trying to get close to me, taking me to the prosecutor’s office. He kept saying, ‘I really care about you. We are a family, even though we hurt the country and you. I really care about you.’ I remember this one time, he gave my husband some money and told him to buy me something. I told my husband to give him back the money . . . I said to him, ‘If you take his money, we might turn into crazy people. I don’t want it.’ My husband gave him back the

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money. Afterwards, he kept trying to get close to me. I remember there was a time he advocated for me; they treated me better. He asked them, ‘Have you tried everything to cure her?’ I remember that after they understood how to treat me, I started to loosen up and I found that out of all the people who did things for me, he did even more than my relatives. This is when I started to accept myself and I thought about joining the association. After a while, I started to like him. This is why I joined the association, because of Didace. Now you can see that there’s no problem between us. I found other survivors in the association; I wasn’t the first one to join. We help each other and Didace really does advocate for me effectively. I heard that during the genocide they dragged him to an attack on people who were his friends and neighbours; Tutsi were his friends. They told him, ‘You have to beat this person for us to know that you are not on the side of the Tutsi.’ When we found out the whole story, we found that they had already cut that person with a machete and tried to kill him, but he wasn’t quite dead yet. He was still whimpering. They told him, ‘You have to beat this person for us to know that you aren’t on the side of the Tutsi.’ That was how Didace participated in the genocide. I joined the association in 2007 because of Didace who continued to be kind to me and ask for my forgiveness, saying, ‘Even though I didn’t commit a crime directly against you, I committed crimes against your fellow Tutsi and I am sincerely sorry about it.’ The thing that especially encouraged me the most was that we’d bought a house from his family. So, I said, ‘I want to be one of the survivors in the association.’ The people of Gahanga thought I was a survivor with a lot of anger . . . I could say the same about myself. I hated the Hutu. I felt that I would never agree with anyone who was a Hutu. So much so that I would say, ‘I would never walk on the same street as them.’ There were those who saw me and ran away, even when I went to the hospital or to buy food! There were even times when people refused to sell me food because I wasn’t a good person; it was Hutu who were selling the food. When Didace would come to me, I’d tell him, ‘Your fellow Hutu have refused to sell me food.’ But later on, I . . . When he tried to speak to me I would accuse him, telling him, ‘You people are cruel.’ I would accuse him because I knew he was a Hutu from a certain family in Gahanga and I have family who died in a church in Gahanga. Didace kept

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trying to calm me down and at some point I wondered, ‘Are the things they’re confessing to true?’ Afterwards, I asked around to see if the things they were saying were true and whether there were people who had joined the association, who had participated and given information during genocide, but were never put in prison. When they gave their testimonies, some people refused to believe them and diminished their importance by adding things they didn’t do, so as to confuse them. We stood by them and said, ‘No, be strong. We are with you. No one will make your confession worthless. If someone wants to make it worthless, and make you cruel like them, then no . . .’ I remember Didace is the one who took me to the prosecutor’s office and advocated for me. Every day Didace was with the leaders; he supervised how people gave their testimonies when confessing and admitting to crimes. So then I started letting go. That was why Didace liked me and that is why I joined the association. He even taught us how we should work for the country. If the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission the government put in place and the RPF soldiers who conquered the country didn’t seek revenge against the people who had killed, then we Rwandans should also work for the country. This is now part of me because of Didace’s kindness and the good heart that Didace showed me. My particular role in the association is to tell the survivors that being alive is especially because of the strength of God. The other thing I do is teach them to forgive. I tell them, ‘If things are like this, a person asks you for forgiveness,’ especially because I used to pray, but my praying at that time felt incomplete because at some point I said, ‘Did they not kill us in churches?’ Ever since then, I have felt my humanity coming back to me. I have prayed to God and it has felt good. I say, ‘Even the word of God says that those who will not forgive will also not be forgiven.’ Especially because survivors know that I went through hard times. There are some with me whose loved ones were killed. They escaped and they weren’t hurt in any way. So when they come, knowing my special case, they ask me, ‘Are you seriously telling me that?’ I answer yes. They then say, ‘You, Sandra’s mum, what you have accepted I will also accept.’ I also tell them especially, ‘Don’t ask for what those people owe you. We are decent people.’ I especially like approaching survivors during the commemoration period and offering them comfort. I participate a lot on behalf of survivors to defend their honour and make sure they benefit. Another thing we wanted was for the

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people who confessed and accepted responsibility to tell us where our loved ones were buried . . . I participated a lot in Bugesera, asking them to tell us where our loved ones are or . . . Especially outsiders who deny that the genocide happened. But when we are together in that team, they say, ‘We did it,’ and we confirm that it was done to us. You find that it’s really effective because they can’t deny that the genocide happened. The first thing that this group has helped me with is it’s made me feel liberated. I no longer feel like there’s a reason to hate those people. I used to feel like they were animals. When I approach them, I no longer see them as animals. Another thing that the association has helped me achieve is that I feel freer and I can talk about what happened to me, because I thought I would keep it inside me until the day I died, but now I open up. I remember when they put me on television when I was sick and in bad shape; one side of my body was crooked. There were people who took pity on me, saying, ‘We are from an insurance company and we will take care of the cost of your treatment.’ I don’t know if it’s OK for me to thank someone here? I thank the family of policeman Denis; they helped me. When I think about it, I get emotional and cry with joy. I never cry when I’m sad, but when I’m happy, I cry. In particular, the association gave me a voice and I loosened up and talked. I became known throughout the country and they were able to advocate for me and come to my rescue. There are especially some people it built houses for, and now they don’t get rained on anymore. Also, in the association, there are times when we participate in advocacy. Especially in Bugesera District for example, some NGOs help members get livestock, giving them lessons to help them survive in daily life. They get training in things like farming and rearing animals. Let me repeat that Didace never leaves me behind in anything that would benefit me or Rwandan society, and I tell him about good opportunities. We go together to training sessions held by the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. They train us and sometimes they even give us work and money for transport. All this benefits me. Those people got to know about me and helped me; it’s because of the association where Didace advocates for me. I remember Didace advocating for me. I remember that when I felt liberated I went on Radio Umucyo to preach the word of God. I remember that I went abroad because of the association. They said, ‘We cannot accept this. We want to take you abroad for better treatment.’ That is the

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reason . . . I used to get sick a lot and even though it’s still that way now, it’s not as bad as before. But most of all I now have a good heart and I feel free. I can talk without feeling like I have the heart of an animal. I especially thank the government of Rwanda. We thank the government of Rwanda, especially as survivors. Survivors like me, even though I’m severely disabled, I’ve never lacked treatment. Even now when I ask for help, when I’m sick, I can go and get better treatment without . . . Personally, I don’t have any problems. I’m speaking for myself. God helped us. He did not abandon us. Even though I wasn’t able to study because of my disability – there was a time when I couldn’t concentrate: I would study and get tired – but I never lacked the opportunity to study. I have a renewed hope that our government is a good one. They have really helped us with emergency care. They cannot refuse me emergency care as a person with a disability. Even though I look well, I’m disabled. When I get pregnant, I have trouble giving birth and I can’t carry a baby on my back like other mothers because of that disability. Being pregnant and giving birth was hard, but I thank God for giving me the ability to give birth. I have four children, two girls and two boys. Because I’m part of the association, people have heard things about my past, my family and how I’m no longer like an animal. Now many of them will cultivate my land and help me with the harvest. I remember that they even helped me be reimbursed for my family’s property. They helped me to be free and I told them to come to the association in Bugesera. There are times when they call me and I just think, ‘They want information from me,’ but instead they say, ‘We’re grateful to the government of Rwanda because we thought we would never be able to look each other in the eye again.’ So our government helps Rwandans live together, whether they’re survivors who were hurt or the ones involved in the genocide. These are important things you don’t see anywhere else. We thank our administration. Another thing is that as an association we try to fight against genocide ideology. I’m not afraid to tell someone, ‘I don’t want you to hurt another person.’ If we see that a person is being oppressed, we can even follow it up and take it to the police. We have many projects. We started them in 2004 up to the present. Every year we have at least one project as an association. We do things for both members and non-members. For members, we have built around forty-two houses in

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Kicukiro for people from these groups: ex-prisoners, survivors, those who returned from exile who didn’t have anywhere to live, and those who have families in prison who don’t have anywhere to live. The survivors are our top priority because they’re the ones who faced most of the consequences of the genocide. In Bugesera we built 260 houses. That was a way to solve the issue of not having enough homes. We also have agricultural activities. In Bugesera District, we grow vegetables, plant trees and take care of the natural forests. There’s a plot of land we bought from Mayange District that we want to build on if we get the means to do so. There is something we started called the Unity and Reconciliation Development Box. It works at a local level, but we want it to reach all Rwandans so that people can meet and discuss their lives, how they live with one another, what separates them, what rebuilding means and also to give money to associations. There is a book in Nyarugenge that they’ve written concerning the after-effects of genocide. They are now holding discussions, especially in the form of plays. Those are part of the sensitization activities that we do. The most important thing is that we manage to live together and keep meeting to discuss what happened, especially doing activities and talking about what happened in our past. Sometimes doing an activity such as rearing pigs, even if the pigs die, has other benefits, like working together, and unity and reconciliation. The activity becomes evidence for us of living well with one another or fighting against genocide and its ideology, because when an exprisoner and a genocide survivor are doing the same activity, they’re fighting what is bad and building what is good. Those are the physical activities that we participate in. Something else that we’ve done is to receive and give testimonies about the good example Rwanda has set for survivors and ex-prisoners to live together. We like to receive many foreigners from Israel, Belgium, Norway and places like that. The books that they write come back with our pictures and testimonies in them. They also tell us about how much Rwanda has achieved through uniting people.

Abashyize Hamwe Providence Uwimana is part of an association called Abashyize Hamwe (Those Who Came Together) that gathers together widows of the

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genocide and women whose husbands committed crimes during the genocide. She is the sole survivor from her family, and here talks about the support she has found through this association. Epaphrodite Nyirakanyana is the wife of a genocide perpetrator, and is part of the same association. She speaks about the empathy and trust that has grown between women in the group.

Providence Uwimana My name is Uwimana Providence. I was born here in 1963, which is also where I survived the genocide in the administrative cell of Mvuzo, in Murambi Sector, Rulindo District. After the genocide, many issues arose, especially among the women, because we were left with nothing. Many of us were widows, others had husbands who committed crimes and were in prison, and women and their families were left with problems. We were six children living with both our parents. My father, who was elderly, and my brother had both passed away. Of those who were left, many were killed during the genocide, including our mother, one brother and my older sisters. Today, I’m the only survivor in my family. It’s not only them, but in my extended family my sisters had children who were also killed, my uncle . . . they killed my uncle and his mother. So if I were to talk about my extended family, my family is finished. Among my siblings, I’m the only one left. In the administrative cell of Mvuzo where I’m from, there are many women who are married to men who were imprisoned because of the atrocities they committed in this region. In Mvuzo there was genocide. Most of them were imprisoned. Their wives were left alone with their children. They had a problem building homes by themselves. Others were also left with nothing, overwhelmed with grief. There was no communication between the two groups of women; neither side felt responsible for the other side’s problems. No one felt like talking to anyone else, each one going their own way. As you can hear, this was a problem and people held grudges against each other that they didn’t want to let go of. It was a very difficult situation. That’s when we started getting together. We approached the authorities and brought the other women together. We formed the association Abashyize Hamwe in Mvuzo. After we women came together, we talked about our problems together. We felt like . . . Both sides listened to each other and you could understand that

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even if the other women’s husbands had hurt us, those women also have problems now. They also started to understand that we have problems that are beyond us and we found that if we put those problems together, we could rebuild ourselves. That’s how we started: by listening to each other’s problems and giving each other advice. They would tell us about their problems and how they took food to their husbands, and we would tell them how we were doing, our physical disabilities and wounds.9 And they started understanding us, to the point that today, when there’s one of us who is a genocide survivor, we all come together and visit them. If they have another difficult problem, we go and give them umuganda: we cultivate beans and sorghum for them. Basically, we are one. Another activity that brings us together is cleaning the memorial site where our loved ones are buried, and they understand that it was a horror that should never be repeated. In our association, from where we started to where we are today, I feel that we share our challenges. We help each other and carry out different activities. This sorghum project you see here is ours. We started in 2012, in August. When we started, we were people with problems. We have a lot of old women who couldn’t help themselves. Usually, in our projects we don’t focus on how quickly we develop, but rather on rebuilding one another; rebuilding so that a person understands that these people are his or her fellow members of society. The rebuilding process is not fast because we don’t have a lot of strength. Many are old women and others are sick. There aren’t that many young people. But we carry out our activities so that we can keep rebuilding each other slowly, and slowly take a step forward. In the last growing season, we were able to cultivate peas, but we had the problem of a lot of dew and we lost some crops, but we didn’t give up. In this growing season, our fellow members chose to cultivate sorghum working together and I let them. They were happy about being joined together. We agreed and cultivated that sorghum. But honestly, I feel that, in the future, we could try to grow edible fruits or vegetables that would help our elderly women receive nutrients that would make them stronger. I am the leader of the association. I helped the others come together so that they can help each other. No one can help themself. Those of us left with nothing are weak and the women whose husbands are in prison are not very strong. They bring their little amount of strength and we help each other; we support those who have little strength.

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This association has helped us achieve a lot. Being like a lonely tree with no one near you or maybe the friend you have lives far away, if you get sick he or she will only find out after a week. But today, if I get sick, my friend in the association will know immediately and say, ‘Our leader is sick. Let’s go and visit her,’ and she would come and talk to me and comfort me. And if an activity of yours might be going slowly, they help you make it progress. I believe this association is very important. The reason I say it’s important is . . . each person was on their own, and in Kinyarwanda there is even a proverb that says, ‘One wall cannot support a house.’ When people come together and help each other, they put together their thoughts and actions, and really help each other with what little strength they have.

Epaphrodite Nyirakanyana My name is Nyirakanyana Epaphrodite. I was born in Mvuzo Cell in 1977. When the genocide happened I was single. I got married in 1998 after the genocide. I lived with my husband until he was accused of genocide crime in Gacaca. So I’m one of the women whose husbands were imprisoned. After he was imprisoned, I was troubled. Life confused me. I was lonely and didn’t want to face survivors. Later, I received a letter proposing to bring us together. We shared our problems, generally both from the survivors’ point of view and from ours (women with husbands in prison). We realized we had difficulties in common so we created the association to help and support one another, including the elderly women who couldn’t look after themselves. We improved their standard of living. We have elderly women survivors who were left with nothing. We improved their standard of living and we realized that we were together even though we used to think this was impossible. But it became possible: we would meet and share our ideas, we visited one another and when a person got sick we visited them. To be honest, after they took my husband, I didn’t want to speak to any survivors. But now we have rebuilt ourselves: we meet and discuss, and if someone has a problem we visit them. Going to the memorial brought us together. Many feared going to clean the memorial site. But it’s this activity that brought us together and we met at the memorial. We comforted each other, we were not disgusted with each other and we saw ourselves in each other.10 That was how I joined. I can say that the association

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has helped me achieve something because living in solitude . . . being alone is a problem, having no one to confide in, no one to really talk to or get advice from or encourage you, that was a problem. They trusted me and made me the treasurer. We decided not only to meet at the memorial site, but also to look for ways to save money that we could use whenever one of us was in need without going here and there asking for a loan, to get it from the association instead. This association has helped me achieve a lot, because I was lonely. I was able to join my peers and we rebuilt ourselves and shared ideas. The loneliness I felt was gone. Now I like genocide survivors; that’s the first thing. The other thing is that when my husband was imprisoned, he left me at his father’s home, but now I have made progress and built my own house and even though it’s not entirely finished, I live in it. It’s not the same thing as living at my father-in-law’s. It really is beneficial because we have evolved. In terms of unity and reconciliation, you can see that everyone sees themselves in each other. I feel like that is the major thing. There’s a survivor whose husband was killed by my husband and I used to say, ‘That woman is responsible for my husband’s imprisonment.’ As you can understand, for us to meet and rebuild and share ideas is a big step that we’ve taken. We’ve rebuilt ourselves to the point that there are other people who wish to join us. They said, ‘How can we join those people?’

Edison Zigirikamiro Edison Zigirikamiro is from Bisesero in north-western Rwanda, where more than 50,000 Tutsi were massacred in 1994. Having heroically resisted the génocidaires’ attacks for almost three months using stones, sticks and traditional weapons, many Bisesero Tutsi were killed in a massacre on 27 June when French soldiers encouraged them to come down from the hill, saying that the genocide was over. They were then abandoned by the French soldiers to the mercy of the Interahamwe.11 Edison is a former perpetrator who tells the story here of his life before the genocide and his participation in the killings. He spent twelve years in prison and then did community service (TIG). He now lives peacefully with his neighbours.

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Before the genocide, we were farmers. We had such a good relationship with the neighbouring families. We didn’t have any problems with our neighbours. We lived well with them. We were Hutu who lived in Bisesero. We had a lot of Tutsi neighbours and we would do some farming for them. We were good neighbours who would offer each other some cattle and we used to intermarry. When you live with friends and relatives and you share food, there can be no problem. We did not have any problems or feel guilty about anything. Also, as my father had lived here before, they would offer him cattle,12 we would invite people to various events, exchange brides and so on. I was born here in Bisesero and I am still living here to this day. We had a very good relationship with the people who lived in this area at the time. We would help carry the sick people to hospital. Whenever there was a wedding, we helped out. That kept our relationships close and we lived well together. What I know about the history of Rwanda is that I grew up when King Rudahigwa was ruling the country. Rudahigwa died and other kings took power and history kept rolling. There was an ethnic war in 1953. I know about that one. The Hutu attacked the Tutsi and wanted to kill them. My father fought to protect some of the Tutsi who were our neighbours. Those Hutu were defeated. At that time, some houses had already been burnt down. I was six years old at the time and I saw it all happen. I remember that our father would always advise us not to participate in those attacks. He was given the name Zigirikamiro [‘the cows are important’] because of his good relationship with the Tutsi. He would say, ‘Kids, those people gave us their cattle. We are rich now. We have cattle and we do beekeeping.’ My father didn’t want anything to do with discriminating against the Tutsi, not even talking about it. He would always say that the people he lived with in Bisesero had given him some cattle so we were able to drink milk and be healthy. The chaos of 1953 stopped in the middle of the year. When it stopped, people went back to living together. However, whenever children went to school they were made to sit separately, Hutu away from Tutsi. That was the birth of divisionism. That was the beginning of the ethnic conflicts. Later on, they started distributing ID cards that would explicitly mention someone’s ethnic group. There would be a mention of Hutu, Tutsi or Twa on the ID card. That made everything worse and the Tutsi and Hutu started being separated,

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even in class. The Tutsi would not be invited to meetings. After Kayibanda took power, the Tutsi were no longer considered human beings in society. Meetings started happening and they would preach the genocide ideology during political party meetings. That was the beginning of everything.13 There was another war in 1973 aimed at hunting down the Tutsi. People were divided. The Tutsi had to be killed even though they were the same people as the Hutu, and they were friends who shared meals and exchanged brides. The war in 1973 was so severe and a lot of people were killed in Mayaga. Many houses were burnt down. I know this because I heard people talk about it, but I was a little older in 1973 so I saw a lot of these things happening. We had a good relationship as neighbours then and later on. How could you hate someone who has offered you their own cattle? We were good neighbours and didn’t have any issues with each other. My father was a wealthy person and he had also offered some cattle back to the Tutsi. I assure you from the bottom of my heart that this is true. For example, whenever meetings were called, my older brother would sometimes attend the meetings but he would spend the night somewhere else. My father would ask him why, instead of picking up a hoe to do some farming, he was wasting his time running around in the neighbourhood. My father didn’t want any of his children taking part in political matters. Before the genocide started, everything was fine. There were some minor attacks here and there though, and we had to intercept some Hutu killing Tutsi in Mayaga and Gishyita. We went to stop the Hutu who were coming to attack people in Bisesero. Another group went to stop some Hutu who were coming from the north to attack people in Bisesero. Our house was on the other side of that hill. We would climb to the top of the hill and gather there. We went down the hill, but my cousins left midway to go to Gishyita. They were going to plan an attack on the Tutsi in Bisesero. The killings escalated when those guys arrived in Gishyita. The sector leader, Mika, told them that he was coming to exterminate all the Tutsi who lived in Bisesero and that we would be killed as well if we didn’t leave Bisesero. The guys came to see me while I was cutting down some trees over here. A guy called Nzamwita came to me and said, ‘You know what? We’re leaving. Our people have just been killed and they’ve taken our properties.’ I was like, ‘Nzamwita, are you alright?’ He said he wasn’t alright because the Hutu were

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already killing the Tutsi on the other side. I started walking towards my home, and when I got there, there was nobody left in Bisesero. They’d all moved to the other side in Kibingo because the Hutu in this neighbourhood had already started the killings. The first person to die was Narcisse’s older brother. They killed him down there and shot many other people. The war began. The attacks came from the south, in Mayaga, and some other people from Mugonero came over here carrying guns and grenades. I always get chills whenever I talk about this. It was quite something. People started running away to the mountains. I was also one of the attackers at the time. I have confessed and begged for forgiveness. We would stand on the other side and we would see people being pushed to the ground, others were hit with the base of a gun or hacked by machetes and killed. They also stole some cattle. All of that happened under the direction of the sector leader of the time called Mika. He was the one who brought the people from Mayaga and the Interahamwe from Cyangugu. The Interahamwe came and we worked together to destroy houses and exterminate all the Tutsi. What I saw with my own eyes really shocked me and I still feel scared to this day. I always ask God to never ever allow the same thing to happen again. Women and children were running looking for a place to hide. They then gathered twelve buses on the mountain located on the other side. The attackers came from this road down here along with those Interahamwe that they had brought from Cyangugu and they started killing people. They murdered all the Tutsi and only a few survived. A few of them survived because God decided to spare them. In the middle of the massacres, the RPF came. There was a battle with the attackers until they conceded and left in their buses. They took the roofs off houses and damaged them and no one in Bisesero was left with anything. The majority were killed. We were happy to hear that the Inkotanyi were coming to rescue people. People had nowhere to go. We would just come and kill them and then destroy their houses. We would take the victims wherever we wanted. Some of them would be taken to the other side of the hill and so on. Can you imagine: we would start killing in the morning and sometimes only go home at night? There were some soldiers who had come all the way from Cyangugu and they would spend their nights on the mountain. They would break into houses at night and kill those who’d been spared by God during the day. The sole idea was that the Tutsi had to be exterminated. All of them had to die because they

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were evil people. Our main objective as Hutu was to figure out what a Tutsi looked like. Whatever was happening had been carefully planned. Habyarimana had an agenda and he had successfully convinced all the other leaders. I was taught to hate the Tutsi and I ended up participating in the attacks and killing the Tutsi. I didn’t care about their cattle that had fed me. I had eaten meat and drunk milk from their cows, some of my family members were married to Tutsi women, but none of that mattered to me. At that time, we didn’t respect the strong and perfect relationship we had had, when those who were called Hutu became evil towards the Tutsi. We killed them because of their innocence though we had the same body, the same blood, the same ears, the same feet, the same mouth, the same nose, but we Hutu had wild hearts, and we would spend the whole day cutting people into pieces on mountains, even though they were innocent people. Everything was because of the government politics. If we had had the same government as the one we have today, where we have a father for the nation who is calling upon all Rwandans to unite, what took place would not have happened. If Kagame had a heart like Habyarimana’s, all the perpetrators would have been killed. Those who killed got imprisoned and those who fled to other places, the president brought them back. Then he came up with Gacaca and he told Rwandans to unite since he knew that those justice cases would take more than 400 years to complete. If Habyarimana had the same heart as our current government, nobody innocent would have died. In Bisesero we would attack alongside soldiers to kill the people. I don’t deny any of it. All these mountains were scattered with dead bodies. And we are the ones who killed them. My individual contribution was that I killed people. However, what I didn’t do, I’m telling you the truth, and this is from my heart – even God in heaven knows, though it’s difficult to trust a human being – what I did not do during 1994 is that I never stole cows and ate them. I never stole people’s goats, but I did participate in the attacks. I personally killed three people. Those are the ones that I mentioned during the Gacaca court. And I accepted those crimes. We went there and they threw stones at a man. Then he ran away. I really was among that group of people. And I really ask God to forgive me for that. Then they ran after him. They took a club and hit him on the head. Then they completely killed him at Muhuzo, on the other side there. I was among that

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group of attackers. They killed him with stones and cut him with machetes. I was among them and, you understand, I was right there next to him. Let me tell you something: an average of about 500 people died every day. It’s not really easy to count them. Many people died every day. So many people died for real. For instance, one group of attackers came from the south, another one from here, and they would surround people. Do you think there was any chance for those people to survive? They weren’t powerful or even armed. On the other hand, we were armed and walking along with soldiers who would travel here. Our sector leader Mika would bring soldiers and vehicles. The group from the south would come at the same time to kill, and they would surround people. This used to be an all-Tutsi area. Then they killed them all. The first weapon we carried is the traditional one: a club with nails pinned to the upper side of it. The second weapons were machetes, the third were spears, and the fourth were guns and grenades. If we hadn’t had guns, we wouldn’t have defeated the Tutsi, and the fact that they were killed in large numbers was because they weren’t armed. I used a big stick and a machete. Those are the weapons I walked around with, and nothing else. And we would grab stones when we reached the area they were in. Then we would throw the stones at them because, at some point when they were attacked in a small group, if they saw us, they would fight back. Some Hutu actually even lost their lives. During the killings those of us who were here in the middle, we wore wet and dry banana leaves so that those who were from the forest would see that we were their fellow Hutu. So it was a kind of sign that they put in place to be able to kill people. Those who came from the north brought tea. They would wear things containing tea. That was also a sign that they were Hutu. And finally those who came from Mayaga would wear coffee leaves. When we were chasing them, it was like, ‘Look! There they are! Look! Look! There they are! Look!’ That’s what we did, and when they said this, what did the Tutsi do? They ran away to try and save their lives. The attacking group on this side would say, ‘Look! There they are!’ Then the attacking group on the other side would reply, ‘Yes, look! There they are!’ The group from the north would also say, ‘Look! They are gathering over there.’ Then they would run after them; they even chased them from here to Kibuye, to the camp. However, of those who went there, none of them came back. They killed them along the way. You would run after a Tutsi on the mountain just because their

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nose did not look like a Hutu nose. That was an evil, wild thing. Can you imagine: a nose? Don’t you see that your nose looks like mine? That’s the evil thing that made people die. In 1994, we would just say that we didn’t want any Tutsi in the country. That was the principal objective. That’s what the leaders then had convinced the population. Others would attend meetings and would be convinced that they really wanted to kill Tutsi because Tutsi weren’t good people. We would just run after them and cut those we reached with machetes. Then how would they act? When we reached them and it was over for them? They were so afraid. How could you escape if you were surrounded by five or six people who were killing other people? Would you act fine in front of a person who wants to cut you with a machete? They would just pray to God to come and save them. There was no kindness towards Tutsi because the idea was to kill them all. There was no kindness then, for sure. For instance, the families that were staying on this hill, all hills contain destroyed houses because of the unkindness of Hutu. Imagine taking a machete and cutting into pieces someone that used to give you food? Can you imagine cutting someone with a machete when they were married to a member of your family? That 1994 genocide was a scandal. It was about immoral and traumatic killings. We were hunting people as if they were animals. Why were we running after them? Why were we hunting them? Had they done something wrong to us? We had exchanged brides and bridegrooms, my father had been given many cattle by Tutsi and they had given us milk, but I eventually took the initiative to go and kill them. It was really chaotic. What made us kill Tutsi was the bad politics of the government that was there then. Even those groups of Interahamwe were created by the government. Then that government said later on that it was a good idea to use leaders that would convince us to kill Tutsi though they had done nothing wrong to us. It was about the bad politics of the government where the Interahamwe had guns, and they would give you machetes, and they would walk around the neighbourhood simply killing people. Don’t you see that it was such a big problem? It was the government’s politics that planned those killings; nobody would have done that on their own. We wouldn’t have got those guns if the government wasn’t behind everything. All the big plans belong to the government.

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After the genocide, I first went to trial in the area where the first man I killed used to live. It was in Gitaburira. Because I had pleaded guilty and accepted my crimes, when I got there, they asked me to hand them the papers describing my crimes. Then I said, ‘Your honour, I am asking God in heaven to forgive me. And I am asking Tutsi to forgive me. And I am asking the whole world to forgive me. I truly accept all the crimes I committed, your Honour.’ There was someone I had forgotten to mention in my case because I was confused back then. Then I was tried, and they went into a secret room to discuss what decision to take on my case. Afterwards, they came back and said, ‘We have recognized that the man called Zigirikamiro accepts his crimes and he has been convicted. He has spent twelve years in prison already. Therefore we have decided that he must spend two more years doing TIG.’ I was given two years of TIG.14 Then I went back home, and started doing TIG. On my way from doing TIG, I walked passed a bar that belonged to some genocide survivors. I heard them saying, ‘You see that man; even if he committed crimes in the war, don’t hold a grudge against him. When he shows up, have a drink with him.’ And that’s what happened. There were no more consequences because, since I got out of prison, I have had a good relationship with the genocide survivors. We attend the same church, we support each other at weddings, they call me to do farming for them, they invite me to weddings. They respect me like any other old man. When I came back to Bisesero, the problem was that I had a bad heart. Sincerely speaking, I had a bad heart before I was tried. But after the judgement, and looking at the strong unity of Rwandans, I settled down, and lived like my family. Now I have three children with my wife. My wife is still young. Now I am their man and they consider me the way they used to in the past. They don’t look at me for who I was in 1994. You can ask anyone. I never have disputes with anyone. I’m not scared nor do I feel guilty when I walk around. Nobody holds anything against me and I am never ashamed when I meet people.

Imyumvire Myiza This testimony comes from some of the members of Imyumvire Myiza (Positive Thinkers) association working from Ngororero District. Its

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leader is Laurence Mujawayezu, who separated herself from the FDLR and came home to Rwanda. She speaks first. The association is made up of survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Some are ex-FAR, others were rebels. They share several stories of forgiveness. The last person to share is the group’s secretary.

Laurence Mujawayezu My name is Mujawayezu Laurence. I was born in Ngororero District, Muhororo Sector, Mubuga Cell, Gasovu village. I’m the president of this association Imyumvire Myiza. We started as an association and we had four groups of members: the first group are those who admitted their crimes in the tragedy that took place in our country of Rwanda during which many people died, those who participated, confessed to their crimes and asked for forgiveness. It was given to them by our President, His Excellency Paul Kagame. They were released on his orders and when they came home, we started the association. There is a group of survivors and there are soldiers. When I say soldiers, I should explain that these include ex-FAR, RPF soldiers and those who left the rebels [FDLR]. We brought these groups together. There are also ordinary citizens. We put these groups together and started this association in 2005. We got legal status in 2009. When I came back from the DRC, the Rwandan government of unity welcomed me. Afterwards, they were able to support me. They gave me money to help me reintegrate back into normal life. They didn’t hate me. They welcomed me even though I was an enemy of the country. They looked after me. When I got to my home village, that was when the people in this association visited me. When I joined Imyumvire Myiza, they showed me the benefits of joining the association. Before that, I felt ashamed and regretted what I had done. I had betrayed the country. I went to help the enemy FDLR. I was so ashamed, to the point that I felt that I didn’t want to be known or show myself to the president of our country, Paul Kagame. But after joining this association, the fear and shame I had felt towards others in the country of Rwanda was over. It ended with the help of this association. When I joined, I didn’t have a house to live in. I used to rent, but the association lent me money and I used it to build a house. Now I’m living in a

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house I call my own; I no longer rent. Another thing that the association has helped me with – after joining they didn’t judge me or care that I was from abroad and had worked for a party against the government, a party that was against Rwandans. They didn’t have a problem with that. They gave me livestock. They gave me a goat and three rabbits, and I reared them from my house. I took care of that goat that they gave me. I said to myself, ‘I must get something out of this gift.’ I managed to buy a cow. Now I’m rearing the cow. What I can add to what I have already said is to encourage all the Rwandans I left abroad, who are afraid to return to this country, that they won’t be killed if they come back. What I can add is to tell them to come back, because if they come back too late, they will find that we’ve finished all the good things. But if they come now, we can rebuild Rwanda together. The politics that they taught us weren’t true. Rwanda is a Rwanda of unity and reconciliation. There is no more ethnic discrimination and the lessons we now know – that there is no Hutu or Tutsi – they can share in. I would tell them all about the time I have spent since 2003 living with them, some of them are survivors who gave me things. There is a man called Kabanza who gave me a cow. There is a survivor called David. He also gave me things. He lives in Butare, in Ruhango. Truly, they should come home and we can rebuild Rwanda together, because Rwanda is a wonderful country that wants to build unity and reconciliation.

Innocent Kabanza My name is Kabanza Innocent and I was a soldier in the RDF.15 After being demobilized, I went back home. After going home, I sat with my other demobilized colleagues from the RDF and some FDLR soldiers who had been reintegrated, and we thought about ways to bring us together because we were all in separate groups. We needed to all sit together and talk about what the former FDLR soldiers thought of us. They may have had an issue with us and we may also have had issues with them because, as soldiers of the country, we had fought against them. We thought that the thing that could help us so that we could sit together without suspicion was to come together and talk to those men. We started our association, Imyumvire Myiza.

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The strength that we used to fight in the DRC and here in Rwanda, we brought that strength together to see what we could build, hence we carried out various activities. We said we would start projects like building fishponds and planting coffee, and we would include survivors because, as RDF soldiers, we fought to liberate them. And we included perpetrators who had taken their machetes and killed others. Why? To come and unite with us. That’s when we held a meeting and agreed to look for those people. We got together and discussed what could develop the country and generally give us value. I came home in 2002. We started this association in 2003. I returned home with a wife and two children. As the president of the association said, I gave the president a cow. I wanted to give her that cow because I wanted to help her start a new life. She came to be among us and she also needed to rebuild herself so that we could show her the new ways of living in our country; we Rwandans usually live together. This was a way for us to get closer to each other, to share information that could rebuild the country. When I have trouble paying tuition fees for my two children, I borrow money from the association to carry out activities that generate income, and with the profit I make, what do I do? I send my child to school and I repay the association with interest. That’s the first benefit the association has given me. The second benefit is for the members: there are now no members who go to sleep worried. We have solved the problem of health insurance. Before the year ends, we contribute to the health insurance plans of all our members. None of our members has ever lacked insurance or can say that they have a sick child or person stuck at home. This is what the association has done for our members. What I can say, what I can say to people who hear about our association Imyumvire Myiza is that Jesus had twelve disciples. You understand that there were very few of them, but what did they teach and do? They inspired the whole world. The whole world was able to hear what they were saying about the gospel. We encourage all Rwandans to come together in an association like this one for unity and reconciliation. Every Rwandan should understand that his fellows, whether Hutu or Tutsi, are his siblings and that he is a person who should rebuild the country. Everyone should see themself in others and they should come together in associations like this one for unity and reconciliation. That is when our Rwanda will be peaceful, and suspicions will end.

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Alphonse Bizimungu Yes, our association has helped me improve myself. I’m a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The committee of our association approached me, and I thought that it was doing good things. They approached me and said, ‘How about you come and we sit together and talk?’ I agreed because I was really lonely and I felt I couldn’t approach them. They told me they wanted us to sit together and do something to help improve our lives. They showed me the projects they had achieved. They told me that what happened would never happen again, and that we should instead work to move ourselves forward. Because I was really living in a bad way, I was in bad shape and lonely, and I felt incapable of talking to anyone. I feel that they’ve really improved my life, especially since we used to meet and they would show me the good things they had achieved. I said that I should sit with them and they should share with me what they have achieved. So, first they taught me about living together. They taught me that, with any problem I might face, they would join me in my suffering. They would sit me down and talk to me, and I felt that it really helped me, and I could agree to stay together with them. After seeing the work they do, I really felt that if I joined them, I would improve my life and continue with them. So they truly taught me good things. They told me, ‘You can solve the problems you were living with and the grief you may be suffering. We know that if we work together, we will lack nothing. Let go of the resentment of hating Hutu or those who hurt you because the perpetrators in our association will now ask for your forgiveness. Let’s sit together and do work that moves us forward in our district or in Ngororero District.’ We wanted to improve ourselves and push ourselves forward to rebuild our Rwanda.

Emmanuel Bazambonahe I’m from Ngororero, Muhororo Sector, Rusororo Cell, Kagugu village. I’m one of the people who turned themselves in and admitted to committing crimes. Yes, war broke out – I mean the tragedy that befell this country – because of the bad government that was in place. They made us participate in killings in 1994. In the genocide that had been prepared, after making us participate, we took machetes and killed each other. We stole and did terrible things. They told

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us that every Tutsi was a snake and none of them were to remain in this country. We did it, and after doing it, those who had made us participate got on planes and left while we stayed in the tragedy. I was imprisoned in 1995. I went and did my time there and got old. I wished for things, I got sad and grieved. I didn’t know what to do. I had lost hope; it was all over. By the grace of God, I heard that His Excellency the President of Rwanda had introduced a programme for people who had killed and admitted to their crimes, and he decided that if they asked for forgiveness, they would be released to do community service for the country. We did this with great motivation because we felt relief in our hearts. It was as though we were celebrating New Year. We used to think that we were going to die because of the horrible things that happened to this country. You know what happened; no one can talk about it to anyone else. I used to think that nobody who got released would ever talk to the people they hurt. After the Gacaca trials, we did the work that replaced imprisonment and I thought that this was a time for me to sit and reflect. When I returned home, I had no hope and felt that I couldn’t do any work. I felt as though I had no strength because I felt there really was nothing I could do for myself. I also felt lonely. Every time I met someone I had hurt, I wanted to look away. I felt that even though I was forgiven and I had finished community service, if I met that person, we wouldn’t be on good terms because I was afraid and, when I looked at him, my heart would beat faster. I met people and they told me, ‘We want to start an association where different people can talk about what happened to ease the pain in our hearts.’ So I went and I joined the others. I was there when they started the association. I was there and we started it together. We started as a few people and would hold meetings together. When I arrived, they said, ‘We want survivors, ex-combatants and we want those who were released from prison.’ When I sat with the survivors, each time I glanced at them, I would look away. And now to show you, there’s one of the survivors I used to meet here who I asked, ‘Do you really think we’ll be able to live together? Will you not harm me and will I not harm you?’ She said, ‘If we really put our minds to it, we won’t have a problem.’ It may surprise you that there is one of them here – an old woman called Martha whom I hurt. I want her to come and share an idea with you. If she can hear me, let her stand up and come here and I will show you! Martha,

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this old woman, I hurt her and even now I ask her, ‘Martha, didn’t I hurt you?’ [They hug] Martha Yes. Emmanuel But I asked you for forgiveness? Martha And I forgave you. I killed one of her loved ones. I asked her for forgiveness in front of the others. Now, we’re in the association together without any problems. We’re making money in the association and eating well. We are no longer afraid. We are now together.

Bampire My name is Bampire. I was born in Gatumba Sector, Karambo Cell, Rugara village, Ngororero District. This association got me out of my loneliness. I was almost dying because they killed my children, they killed my wife and I was left alone. But the members of the association came and told me, ‘There are people who are easing the pain in their hearts. There is an association of people who were released from prison and survivors called Imyumvire Myiza. Others have already joined; you’re the one who’s missing.’ I went to the headquarters and they started teaching. They were asking for forgiveness. One man tried to hide, but when I saw him, I felt like I had seen him in the crowd that came to kill my people. So, when I saw him, I would sit far away from him and he would also sit far away from me. But there came a time when the teaching about unity and reconciliation got to me. I started greeting him when I saw him, and he would also greet me when he saw me. Afterwards, they put us in the same group and we worked together. After working together, we introduced ourselves to each other and then he said to me, ‘I ask for your forgiveness for what I did. If you are able to give it to me, tell me so.’ I told him, ’I forgive you, here with all the members watching.’ Things kept going well, and sometime towards the end of April, we had an idea to promote unity and reconciliation. They wanted to give me livestock to help me to get fertilizers. They gave me two rabbits and a goat.

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They also gave me a washbasin, soap and detergents. They gave me some fish too. I felt like I had entered a new life. That was when they told me, ‘Go and approach others who seem to have no room in their hearts and tell them to come here.’ I was able to bring other people. Now I see that things have really gone well because of the steps I’ve taken.

Zumuhire Marie Josée I am this association’s secretary. A secretary knows a lot of things. If I started to talk about the history of Ngororero, I wouldn’t stop. It was the kind of place where people didn’t listen. They had a certain mindset. But, when this association came about, they saw it and were astonished. They said, ‘Ah, survivors, ex-combatants and ordinary people got together and did such things! How did they make those fishponds? Yet they are different people. How do they cultivate that coffee?’ When they come here and see us dancing as you saw us dancing, it also surprises them. They see us making things for people. If our members need goats or something else, we make it happen for them. We don’t only provide for members of the association, but also for those who are not part of it. We would invite them and say, ‘Come and we’ll make things for you, and show you that all we’re doing is for the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission.’ We’re pushing our association forward, so that as Rwandans we know we should pick ourselves up and improve, so that what happened would never happen again. We must rebuild our country.

3

We are all holding the same rope Twese dusenyera umugozi umwe

This chapter focuses on relationships between people, which is one domain of post-traumatic growth. This theme is hugely significant in post-genocide Rwanda, given the country’s communitarian traditions and also the ubiquitous presence of reconciliation initiatives. Beyond those contemporary mechanisms for unity and reconciliation, people speak of drawing on shared wisdom and feeling greater closeness and compassion for others. The six testimonies included in this chapter give up-close, personal stories of Rwandans drawing together in different ways: empathizing, teaching, rescuing. This is not to suggest that post-genocide relationships are problem-free. Far from it: the stories here also testify to bullying, exclusion, resentment and unforgiveness. The first story in this chapter comes from Célestin Ngiriye, a farmer who rescued five families during the genocide. Next comes Virginie Mukasonga, a teacher; and Seraphine Niyigena, one of her students. Both women describe their relationship from their own perspective, and in their example we see the transforming potential of trust, empathy, encouragement and caring for others. The next testimony comes from Protais Bizimana, who is, like Virginie, a teacher who has seen the impact of his commitment to see the best in people, within his family and also in his wider community. Members of a unity and reconciliation group (Gira Ukuri) then share stories of relationships that have changed through meeting together regularly. This chapter ends with Marie Mukankusi’s testimony of surviving the genocide, and the physical and emotional relief she has experienced through supportive relationships since 1994.

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Célestin Ngiriye Célestin Ngiriye is a farmer. He was in charge of Bibare Sector in 1994, and convened meetings to ask people not to kill during the genocide. Through his initiative, he was able to protect and save the lives of five Tutsi families.

Here is an account of my life before the genocide. I was born in 1955 in Muhara commune. When I was young, I went to primary school and finished primary school in 1970. In the meantime, I was involved in agricultural activities to generate income. In 1976, I was elected to be the head of the cell in which I was born.1 I was just a young, unmarried man. I got married in 1978 and I still live with my wife. We had our first child in 1981 and during this period I was well and had no problems. In 1985, I was elected as the head of Bibare Sector and I led that until 2001 when I was appointed sector coordinator. I had that role until the time of political reforms when coordinators were replaced by executive secretaries. My family was really well disciplined: I brought up my children to be polite and they got on well with their peers. They never got involved in any kind of theft; in short, they behaved very well. Before the genocide, I loved everyone: young people, the elderly, young men. I hated no one. I actually loved everybody. What made me unhappy was those people who created trouble, who would beat others for no reason. The thing that made me happy is the trust that people had in me and this was shown by voting for me during elections. I am also happy that I succeeded in saving the lives of people such that nobody died in my area. At that time, my family had a really good relationship with those in my neighbourhood and it is still the same today. Our role was to rescue people. Five families of thirty people took refuge in my home and they stayed there for two days. The five families were made up of thirty people. At night, we brought them to the church and they all got there without any of them dying. In the sector I was leading, there were no killings, but on the contrary in the bordering commune, Murambi, massacres took place long before, when the multi-party system was introduced in Rwanda. Those who were not members of the MRND were beaten and their property was seized.2 They tried to introduce the Interahamwe militia into my sector but I refused. There were no Interahamwe in my area. The killings intensified in Murambi commune, in the neighbouring

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sector of Rwimitereri, as well as in Bugarura in the neighbouring commune of Muhura. During the genocide, on 7 April in Murambi, they started early in the morning killing people and cows, and burning houses. As for me, I went to the cells neighbouring that area and had meetings with the residents and cell officials. I asked them not to take part or to imitate what was happening in Murambi, but rather to remain united and stand firm. I asked them to welcome anyone escaping from Murambi and to give them food. My people certainly agreed with my opinion and this was on Thursday 7 April. On Friday morning, people from Murambi came and kidnapped a man named Sebushumba who was a Tutsi living in Bibare, after killing his friend who lived in the neighbouring region of Murambi. They took him with his cows. People asked for my help. Accompanied by young men, we went after them. It was in a place that looked like a valley and we seized the cows and the man from them. We took him to our office on the top of the hill from the small valley. That day [. . .] nothing really happened on the first day in Bibare. In the afternoon, around 2.00 pm, the Bakiga and the gangs coming from Muhura and Bibare began to slaughter people’s cows.3 They ate the cows belonging to Cassien and Juma. Those who were being hunted saw how they had started killing the cows, and they also felt threatened. As I couldn’t protect them in their separate houses, I asked them to come to my home in order to secure their protection. They came with members of their families [. . .] five families composed of thirty people came to my house. That evening, between 7.00 and 8.00 pm, people attacked me. They had come from Bibare Cell, from a place called Musasa. I asked them what made them come to my house and they said they had come to my rescue. I told them I had no problem, that I was protecting myself with my people. However, I had asked the person in charge of the cell where I lived to look out for these people to ensure the safety of the families. I threatened the attackers by saying that I was going to shoot at them, but one of them replied telling me that they knew the number of bullets I’d been given. He went on to tell me that once I had used all the bullets they were going to capture me. I shot three times and they fled. In the morning, we found the houses of the people who had fled to my house destroyed and their livestock eaten. They stayed in my house but I walked around the villages, especially in other areas of Murambi and Bugarura, to

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comfort the population, exhorting them not to commit any harm, but it did not work. The houses were burned down and those who had sought refuge in my home fled to the church. On Saturday 9 April 1994, Jerome, a Rwimitereri sector leader (he was a friend of mine; I had offered him a cow) came to convince me to look for young men to carry out an attack and kill the people who had managed to take refuge in the church. I replied that my people were not meant to kill others. I asked him to leave my house with his Interahamwe and he left and did not return. On Sunday, there was a man called Samvura who’d been involved in looting and who was usually a thief; he went to Juma’s home to plunder his property, eat his goats and set fire to his house. As I had a team of people in every cell who’d been given the task of protecting the population, they beat Samvura as well as those who were with him and he died. Seeing his death, his relatives began to blame me for supporting the Tutsi who, they allegedly said, were now killing Hutu. As a result, people began to hunt me. I had given the report of what had happened to our mayor, Muramutsa. He asked me to arrest those people who killed Samvura but I knew the circumstances in which he had been killed: it was because of burning down houses and stealing Tutsi property. His people said that they should shoot me [. . .] that they should seize my gun from me on the pretext that I was working as an accomplice of the Inkotanyi. That was Sunday 10 April. On Monday 11 April at 9.00 am, there was an attack directed by Gatete after he had conducted massacres in Kiziguro. They were going to kill people at Muhura. They met me at the sector office where we could observe what was going on in Murambi. I told them that the Inkotanyi had dug protection bases on the other side of our region, that they could exterminate Gatete’s people if they were ever provoked. A soldier said he knew the Inkotanyi well and advised Gatete’s people not to attempt to provoke them. So they went away. The Inkotanyi hadn’t really arrived in the area but they arrived that day and this was really lucky for me. Otherwise, they would have found those people already dead. For me, this was nothing but deep hatred for other people. In fact, seeing that the situation was drastic, an elderly man called Kamanzi with whom I usually spent time, came to me and said they were likely to be killed themselves since people had just killed his fellow men. Standing on the hill, I asked him to warn all those families to come to my house where I could

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protect them, since I couldn’t if they remained scattered. I helped him call them. So they came to my house and the same night there was an attack on my house. There were thirty people in my house. There were five families totalling thirty people including children and women. I was prompted to hide them by the love that God has given me to love people and even now, I still have that love, thanks to the love I received from God. While we were waiting to defend ourselves against those who could attack us, we hid in ditches. I was simply ready for anything. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know whether the Inkotanyi were going to win the battle or whether Habyarimana would win it. I was only doing what any man would do. If the Interahamwe ever won, they would kill me. I also didn’t know what the Inkotanyi were thinking except that they had come to comfort us. We were fleeing, but on our way they made us go back home, and after that we spent no more nights outdoors. I was thinking at the time that the Interahamwe could kill me or kill other people. I thought about these risks, but after the Inkotanyi victory we were summoned to return to our homes. I was asked to continue leading my area and since then I have had no problems. Those I hid were pleased with me and they still are these days. They appreciated me since after being saved, some offered me cattle, and even cows. We live alongside one another very well and we even intermarry. Hiding them made me very happy. What makes me so happy is to see them saved. The grief I would’ve had would have been to see all my efforts reduced to nothing if they had died. It was a blessing for me to see them saved. I was pleased and I still have the same feeling. It hurt me to see people passionate about killing other human beings like them. It made me so sad and it still does. Also, at the moment when they had taken refuge in the church, their property was plundered. I organized community work, umuganda, and rebuilt their houses that had been destroyed. On their return to their homes, I had already completed the reconstruction of their houses. My whole family and the community treat me well since I did something that has benefitted everyone. The Hutu even saw the benefits because, if they had been engaged in killings, they would now be in refugee camps and even suffering the harmful consequences of the massacres. Life was really difficult at that time because there was no food, people had already fled without having harvested, and all the livestock was slaughtered, therefore there was almost

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nothing. Now we live together with the people I hid. The people I rescued are very happy and we rejoice when we are sharing something. When I’m happy, they’re happy too. I saved them all. If those Hutu had killed the Tutsi, would they not suffer the consequences? They are all grateful to me, thanking me for having prevented them from killing each other. We live together well without any problems. I think hiding and protecting people is a good thing. It can serve as a lesson for others and encourage people not to stand by as people mistreat each other. My particular message for Rwandans is to have a loving heart so that nobody hates others. This Ndi Umunyarwanda programme should be disseminated throughout the population, starting with young students, where it should be incorporated into their classes; parents educating children so that they can grow up in the spirit of all being Rwandan, with no division between them.

Virginie Mukasonga Virginie Mukasonga is a teacher who was born in Nyanza, in Busasamana Sector. At Kavumu Muslim High School she inspires her students and sees the impact of her teaching about peace and compassion in how they act. Virginie participates in the Rwanda Peace Education Programme (RPEP), a training programme delivered by the Aegis Trust in partnership with a number of other organizations. To date, this programme has trained more than 60,000 educators, young Rwandans and members of communities.

My name is Virginie Mukasonga. I was born in Nyanza in Busasamana Sector, Kavumu Cell, Mukoni village. I am also a teacher at Kavumu Muslim High School and I am married. I was just an ordinary teacher, but especially in charge of girls’ education, and I am the president of a Virtue and Bravery Club. I fulfil the role of teacher as well as this position of being a president. As a person in charge of girls’ education and the president of the club, I felt that it would be an advantage if I learned about peace education since I would have the task of teaching about peace in that club, and because I noticed that we needed such training in order

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to help each other build peace in our school. I was very happy to participate in the RPEP. I benefitted a lot from that programme; I learnt important things. The first thing is that even if I look a bit older, I am not old. I learnt the history of Rwanda: before the colonial era, after colonialism and after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. A lot of people don’t know this history. Even if some know about it, they don’t have a clear picture of that history because they have been told it by others who don’t know exactly the reality of what happened. But through that training I was able to understand the history of Rwandans before colonialism, after colonialism and after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The skills I have gained helped me to change the mindset of my pupils as well as my colleagues, so they can have the right information instead of accepting whatever they are told by others in a way that differs from reality. In the RPEP, I learnt a teaching method that would increase audience participation so that, as they have ideas, they could easily share them with others. As you all know, a teacher has a lot of courses to teach. She might decide to look for simple methods that do not consume her energy, yet these might not be productive. Before, I could go in front of the students, talk and make my own decisions, but nowadays, I introduce the lesson, and let pupils discuss it in groups using participative methodology. There is a way of matching topics whereby the pupils are the ones who come up with a decision or a conclusion. They were so happy with this methodology that they told me that now they do understand well and feel interested in the lessons. That makes me happy and it has helped me a lot in my teaching activities. The content has also changed me personally, my colleagues, my pupils, as well as the community where I live. If I can explain, it means that because of how I grew up, I felt it was impossible to talk about the history of Rwanda. I was very reserved, so as not to hurt anyone with what I said. As people had grief and sorrow, I decided to keep quiet and mind my own business. But now I can talk comfortably and get straight to the point. I am not ashamed of uttering words such as ‘Hutu’ or ‘Tutsi’ in my discussions with others because now I know the history and their origins. I feel able to answer any question that I’m asked. That’s how I have changed. Another way in which I have changed is that I feel more pity than before and I feel I am indebted to serve the community more. I couldn’t approach children before because I didn’t feel ready to answer their questions, but now I

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know that not much is required to help others. I feel encouraged in a way that, even my director and colleagues are aware that I have fixed a weekly schedule of listening to pupils’ problems after school. This has helped me a lot and I can see its impact. The pupils feel comfortable talking to me and whenever something happens, they are told to come and talk to me. That’s how I can say I’ve benefitted from this training. Since the RPEP training, I have implemented a lot of things even though I had little time, but I was happy with the progress I made. As you know, our schools don’t have enough resources, for instance there’s a lack of classrooms. I couldn’t get a room for the mobile exhibition, but I was able to hang the posters on the wall just as they were hung in Nyanza where we were trained. I encouraged pupils, starting with the club that I represent, to come and visit the room during break time and after school. This activity was fruitful: pupils came and read stories; when they didn’t understand one of the stories, they asked me and I explained it to them. As I said earlier, the teachers and those in charge saw me as someone willing and able to approach pupils. I don’t know how that happened, but largely it was because of the training we’d had – that played a big role. There was a pupil called Hyacinthe who encountered a problem at her aunt’s home where she was being mistreated and she was unhappy. One day, she was thrown out of that home. When she was thrown out, she was ordered to leave her school uniform in the house. I came to know her story when I found her standing alone with no school uniform. I called her and asked her why she was dressed like that. I asked her, ‘Are you coming to study with no school uniform?’ She said yes, and I asked, ‘Where is your uniform?’ She replied that she’d been ordered to take it off. I didn’t understand very well, and I asked her to come over and sit in the room. I signed the attendance sheet, did some small activities and told her to wait for me for a little while. I sat together with her and she told me the whole story. She started telling me how she was living with her aunt, and that her father had been killed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and how her mum had married a husband who was Hutu like her. After that, the husband didn’t like the children. He didn’t hate them, but he had the ideology that it was a sin to live with a Tutsi. The children were badly treated in a way that made me well up with tears while I listened to her story. She said that he used to call her a cockroach4 and tell them they were not

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human beings, that they should have died together with their father. It was a long story. When her mum realized what was going on, she saw that they would no longer be able to live with her children. She started sending them to other relatives. Hyacinthe was sent to stay with her aunt near the school where I teach. She was well treated there, but Hyacinthe knew why she had been sent to her aunt. The aunt was impatient and started behaving cruelly. She started showing her ideology of Tutsi and Hutu. The aunt started mistreating Hyacinthe. She refused to buy her washing materials like soap, to the point where she was being kept outside the house during lunch and dinner time. The other children that she looked after (her daughter’s children) would eat and Hyacinthe would be given the leftovers. But the girl persevered. One day, her aunt told her that the other man who had thrown her out of his house was right and that there was no way she could live together with a ‘cockroach’. She told her she couldn’t live with her and excluded her too. That’s how the girl left. She didn’t tell me the whole story but I found out about it all when Seraphine, another pupil, put into practice the example from one of the peace programme stories. She called the girl, asked her what the problem was and offered to give the girl shelter. Seraphine solved the problem while I was struggling over how to help the girl. The girl came to school wearing school uniform, smiling and carrying notebooks, and I wondered if she’d been taken back to her old home. I called her and, when I asked her if she’d gone back to her old home, she told me that she’d agreed to stay at Seraphine’s home. I immediately called Seraphine and said, ‘I know that you’re an orphan and that you live with your cousin. Is he okay with her living with you all?’ Seraphine answered, ‘Teacher, the story we learnt in the Peace Education Programme proved that everything is possible.’ She told me how she’d taken her classmate home and explained everything to her cousin. At the beginning, he struggled to understand but she explained to him that if he was able to take care of her, he should let them share the little they had and, if he wasn’t able to let Hyacinthe stay with them, she would leave too. When her cousin looked at them and saw that they were happy there, he said he was going to work and that they would discuss it later. When he got home, he saw how happy they were together and decided to let Hyacinthe stay. After explaining to me how she managed that, I asked Seraphine what pushed

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her to do this, and she replied that she’d been changed by the lessons she’d had from her teacher. She said that she felt she had to do something in her community and I felt amazed by that. What’s amazing is that Seraphine would take Hyacinthe to visit the aunt who’d excluded her, until her aunt once again viewed her as a child and decided to bring her back home. After that, Hyacinthe’s aunt got to know Seraphine’s relatives and brought Seraphine to their home to show them how she was doing. Both relatives decided to let Seraphine stay with Hyacinthe. As I listened to Seraphine, she told me that now they live together and that she takes some time to go and pay a visit to her aunt, that she is a happy girl now even if she no longer lives with her. I also take time to visit them. Seraphine kept on giving advice to Hyacinthe about how she could talk to the person responsible for the AERG in the sector and tell her about her case.5 She was enrolled and changed schools. Now she is doing well. There is another story that I mustn’t forget to talk about: in the Kwibuka week, because we got these pictures to exhibit and benefitted from the training, I have been talking to the public and encouraging people to know the truth and do some research; I now have tangible facts about our history. I told everyone that I have testimonies from people who have started building peace. I told them that they should feel free to come to my school. In that period, people would come and visit the photo exhibition in the school classroom. That’s why I thought the mobile exhibition from the Rwanda Peace Education Programme was important: because we were able to bring it to rural areas and it has helped a large number of people to help others as well. There are a lot of places in this district that need this peace message. A lot of people haven’t benefitted from this message. Let’s say that, even though I lead a club and happen to give this message to some people, for example this district might have 10,000 inhabitants and only twenty or thirty people would be able to visit the exhibition; there’s a huge number of other people that need to know about it. In my opinion, all teachers should benefit from this training. I am the only teacher trained at this school, but I would love it if all of the others were trained; then they would be able to reach a number of schools and students. For example, if we have 1,200 pupils, every teacher that gives the message will share it on a big scale. The same pupils will also be able to spread that message in their households. Another example is the village leaders: as people who are

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closer to the population most of the time, they would help spread the message once they are trained. They would take a few minutes to disseminate the message in meetings. Apart from the village leaders, we have influencers in communities and villages as well as in the districts we live in. It would be helpful if they were trained, and this would help reach a huge proportion of the population. In terms of what peace means, in my opinion, first of all peace comes from an individual who feels safe; he has no intention of doing any harm towards another. When we feel secure, we also help spread security and peace of mind to other people, and we become a source of conflict resolution in the community; that’s what I call peace. There are people who think they have peace but they don’t. When you have peace of mind, you help others, but when you don’t, you can’t be of any help. In the beginning, I thought I had peace, but I found I didn’t have any until I benefitted from the Rwanda Peace Education Programme. I learned how I could help others in my community spread peace and it’s becoming fruitful.

Seraphine Niyigena Seraphine Niyigena was born in Gisagara District and is a student from Kavumu Muslim High School. She is taught by Virginie, whose story is above, and puts into practice what she learns about caring for others.

I am called Niyigena Seraphine. I was born in Gisagara District, Gikondo Sector, Mbuga Cell, Rwatano village. My father is called Kabayiza Alfred. My mother is called Mukambagariye Sara. They both passed away. I attended primary school, first year through sixth, in a place called Nyakabuye. I attended high school and did O-Levels in Nyanza District, Kibirizi Sector, Rwotso village. Then I studied A-Levels in Nyanza District, Busasamana Sector, Kavumu Cell, Begega village. That school is Kavumu Muslim High School. At that time, I lived with my cousin because I am the firstborn in my family. He worked as a driver. I had a good relationship with the students where I went to school. I wasn’t bothered, I was very happy because it was the family I had. Living with them in harmony made me happy. As soon as I stepped into a classroom at Kavumu

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Muslim High School, the first person to welcome me was Hyacinthe. She welcomed me saying, ‘Come and I’ll show you where to sit.’ She showed me and we sat together. After that, they assigned us seats so Hyacinthe and I did not stay seated together. I saw that Hyacinthe was always quiet. Even though I didn’t talk much either, she behaved in a different manner to me. I loved my teachers. The first reason I loved our teachers who taught us at Kavumu Muslim High School, is that before starting a lesson, they prepared you. They told you something about day-to-day life. That helped us and built me up because, when they started by preparing you, you gained other skills from what they taught you and it helped you understand. Among what they taught us about day-to-day life before they started lessons, they told us how we should behave in life outside school. When possible they gave us examples like: as an orphan child, you should live in a family this or that way. If you live a certain life, you ought to be happy about it. Whatever others do shouldn’t hurt you or make you feel overcome. Instead, you should sit and think, ‘Why did they talk to me that way?’ And then answer them according to what they asked you. They would also add, ‘You’re about to finish school and you are grown-ups. Making decisions is hard but you should leave here knowing that you’ll have to make decisions. Don’t think that there are things that concern you and things that don’t. Understand that whatever happens near you is your concern.’ That also helps us in this life. You don’t just sit and say, ‘I finished school even though I don’t have a job,’ and feel that life ends there. No. Sit and think, ‘Now that I’ve finished school, what can I do for my life to keep going?’ The reason why teacher Virginie was our best teacher, the reason teacher Virginie comes top among those who teach us about life was that first, she was in charge of girls and I think we girls, sometimes, are people who don’t have confidence in ourselves and you find that we give up in everything. Many times, she gave us advice on how we should behave outside school. She was always there for us and she liked spending time with us. She really likes socializing with students. She would go and join students where they were sitting, do what they were doing. She would pick up on the students’ mood and be like a student herself. It made us love her a lot. When you had a problem, you wouldn’t be afraid to tell her and for her to advise you. It made us like her a lot.

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In my life, what I keep in mind that Virginie taught me . . . I was in the Virtue and Bravery Club. We liked to attend the Virtue and Bravery Club on Fridays after class. She would teach us that a virtuous person [. . .] a moral child is virtuous, and the one who is virtuous is also brave. She told us that we had morals, that we should also be brave. Bravery means, if we are sitting here and someone gives a certain idea, we shouldn’t just listen and keep quiet and just say we listened and then do nothing. Saying something in front of people is also bravery. It is great bravery. She taught us to have mercy, to live in harmony with our peers, but most importantly for us to love. Teacher Virginie used to teach us and give us examples using pictures and show us people who were living on good terms, even though they didn’t know each other before; you could see that they were united. I used to sit and think that if someone had a problem it wasn’t any of my business. If they were facing a problem, I wasn’t bothered. It didn’t touch me in the least. Let them go and try on their own. If God helps them, the problems will be solved and if they don’t end, that’s that. But after hearing one of the peace education stories, it helped me a lot. I understood that if my peer has a problem, before doing anything, if there is something I can give them, I first have to make their problem mine. I first put myself in their shoes. For me to live it too, and then see that I must do something to help. I went to school with a girl called Hyacinthe. As I told you earlier, she was always very quiet; this was unusual. But she was smart in class. You’d wonder, ‘How is that girl smart yet she doesn’t study?’ Who used to miss a lot of classes? It was Hyacinthe. Most of the time she would come to class at 10.00 am. I would see this and it made me sad. I used to wonder, ‘My God, what can I do so that Hyacinthe gets out of the situation she’s in?’ I approached Hyacinthe and talked to her. I was overwhelmed by what I’d been seeing; it made me very sad. I approached her and talked to her. At first she told me a little bit and refused to tell me anything else. We continued to live as friends and I kept showing her that I was there for her. I showed her love and she later opened up to me. She was a girl and she used to come to school with such dry skin; it was very sad. What hurt me was that the people we lived with there, who we were supposed to work together to help her get out of trouble, they laughed at her. They laughed at her saying, ‘Why did she come to school without moisturising her skin?’ That shocked me and made me sad. I wondered if there was something I could do. Another part of me would stop me saying, ‘I

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don’t have the capacity, what can I do?’ But I sat . . . I prayed for two days asking God to give me strength and to give me something to do, for Him to help me do something for Hyacinthe to get her out of the misery she was in. I finished the prayers, approached her and talked to her. When I asked her why she came to school without applying lotion, she told me they refused to give it to her. When I asked her why she wore a dirty school sweater she told me they refused to give her soap. They gave her a small piece of soap to wash her skirt and shirt because they did not need much soap. I lived here in Nyanza renting with my cousin. I decided I would divide in half what he bought. I would divide the lotion in two and give some to Hyacinthe. I would divide the soap in half and share with Hyacinthe. It went on like that and when they realized that Hyacinthe no longer lacked lotion and soap, her aunt went back to being angry with her. She would give her a hard time because she wasn’t the one who gave birth to her. She would tell her, ‘Even your mother doesn’t like you! Did she not bring you here because she doesn’t like you?’ That would upset the child. [. . .] When you looked you could see there were other problems. Even though she didn’t like talking about them all, they were there. The aunt knew already, but she would ask, ‘Why don’t you go to your father?’ But she knew that her dad had died. And the family would say, ‘Where is that Tutsi going? Why doesn’t she go to her relatives?’ Yet she didn’t have anyone anymore; there was no relative of hers left on her father’s side. It ate away at her and she also didn’t understand. Even though we were called grown-ups, she didn’t understand. She would sit and wonder; you could see that she didn’t have answers to her problems. After getting to know each other, that’s when I accepted her. When they took her uniform away, it was inhuman. One time she even slept on a cement floor because they had taken away the mattress she used to sleep on. I said to her, ‘I don’t have another mattress, what are you telling me this for? I will give you bed sheets and a mat because that is what I have. Lay the mat on the floor, cover it with one bed sheet and use the other to cover yourself.’ She said, ‘They would kill me! They would burn me together with those things. They keep saying I am the one who will kill them.’ I would tell her, ‘Be calm and pray; God will give you peace. The killing is over; in Rwanda we are peaceful. Stay calm, even though you’re hurting, you’re still alive. All those troubles will end.’ When I told her that it would end, she would feel reassured. But that hope would go

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away when she went home because of the people she was going home to. I just don’t understand how you can go to school, come back home and greet someone and then they don’t answer you. It hurts a lot when you leave people and when you come back they receive you badly; it brings terrible pain. I am lucky that even though I don’t have parents, the family I do have welcomes me; I’m grateful for that. After they chased her away, they took her uniform. She came to class and the students avoided her. We brought it to the head girl and head boy but they couldn’t find a solution. They avoided her and she didn’t have anywhere to go. Out of all those people, she couldn’t even get one of them to listen to her. I kept quiet. Because I was often quiet, they used to say I was aggressive. When they saw me being quiet, they would say, ‘Niyigena, the aggressive one; that girl who doesn’t talk!’ Even though I didn’t talk, they didn’t treat me the way they did Hyacinthe. For Hyacinthe, they said she was humble but they saw me as aggressive. They talked in class. There wasn’t a single person who said, ‘Let’s do this [. . .] let’s at least contribute and pay for her rent.’ None of them said that! I told them, ‘All of you calm down. Give her to me and I will take her home with me.’ One of them said, ‘You’ll take her to your home? Do you have a home?’ I told him, ‘There is no one in the world who doesn’t have a home; everyone has a home. Remember that in the world we are all renting, we have a home, a home where we will go. Let her come, I will take her and she will stay.’ Seeing Hyacinthe come to school without a uniform made me very sad; I even cried. After my tears dried up, I didn’t know what to do. I approached her. When I did, she stayed away from me and she would cry. When she cried, I didn’t know what to do either, so I cried too. We both cried a lot. [. . .] The teacher came to us. Teacher Virginie came and talked to us both. Our tutors at that time came and they talked to us. After talking to us they told us to stop crying. I asked Hyacinthe why she came to school without a uniform. She told me, ‘They took away the uniform because they are the ones who bought it.’ Her aunt told her, ‘I am the one who bought the uniform; I will not give it to you. If you need to go to school, look for somewhere else to get a uniform.’ I was emotional; it hurt me a lot. I told her, ‘I have two uniforms, I will give you one. I will wear one to school and you will wear the other and on Friday [. . .] we are grown-ups, we won’t get them dirty. On Wednesdays we can wash them in the

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evening and we will go to school the next day without any problem.’ She replied, ‘After you give it to me, what if I go home and they take it?’ They didn’t want her to go to school. Looking at it, you could see that they didn’t want her to go to school because they had started saying she is going to get rich [. . .] if she finishes school she will become rich [. . . ]. She said, ‘They will burn it. Don’t tell me to go back. Did they not chase me away?’ I told her, ‘Don’t worry. You will study and you will finish.’ I told her, ‘Come to my home.’ I thought that the people at home would accept it. I thought that those who raised me would accept it. I told her, ‘Come to my home. We’ll share what little we have. If we starve, we starve.’ But of course we wouldn’t have starved. It was impossible. Maybe we would have so much work and not be able to cook, but it wouldn’t have been because we didn’t have food. I told her, ‘We’ll share what little we have, no matter how small. Feel comfortable. Be comfortable around me like I am your older sister. I know you can’t tell my cousin about any problems you might have; you won’t stop being intimidated by him. But tell me whenever you have a problem. I personally will be your advocate; I will go and say I have this and that problem. Whatever solution they give me, we’ll share.’ She came and I welcomed her and took her home with me. I introduced her to my cousin and at first he didn’t agree because mostly I didn’t communicate with girls. No, I didn’t like communicating with girls. I don’t know how it happened with Hyacinthe. It’s God who brought it about, but as time went by it was strengthened by the Peace Education Programme stories. I told my cousin and he said, ‘You want to hang out with girls? You might go off the rails, thinking that you’re grown-up!’ I told him, ‘I didn’t misbehave when I was younger, did I? Right now I’m able to make a decision. I won’t misbehave right now.’ He woke up and went to work as usual and ignored me. When he came back in the evening, I told him, ‘You didn’t give me your answer. I didn’t hear it.’ Then he told me, ‘It’s fine, let her come.’ When he came back from work, he found us all right, eating and laughing out loud whereas he usually found me asleep because I didn’t have anyone to talk to. ‘Let her come and be with others of her age. When she comes of age, we’ll get her married.’ About a month later, her aunt (the one who had adopted her) wanted to know where she lived. When she found out [. . .] and heard that the child was going to school, even though she hadn’t given her a uniform, it shocked her. She heard that the child was going to school with no problem. ‘Where does she

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study?’ ‘She goes to the school she has always gone to.’ She wanted to know where she was. She came to insult me. She came to give me a hard time. At first she came and God protected me: she found I wasn’t there. The second time she came and found me there. I came and very politely greeted her with the manners we had learned in the Virtue and Bravery Club. I approached her and we talked. We kept talking [. . .] then she said, ‘I thought Hyacinthe had left to be a prostitute.’ I told her, ‘She didn’t leave to be a prostitute, we live here. We live together at home and it’s fine for us.’ She didn’t understand, so I told her, ‘Do your research. If you think that I am going to make her misbehave’ (she too brought up the same things as my cousin; she thought I was going to make her behave badly). I told her, ‘Your child will never misbehave because of me. If she misbehaves, it will be her own doing; it will not be because of me.’ The aunt stayed sitting and we talked. She showed some understanding, but still had doubts. Then she asked me, ‘Will she stay with you or will you give her to me so I can take her home?’ I said, ‘The girl is a grown-up; she will choose. She will make the final decision.’ Hyacinthe sat down and completely refused to go back to her aunt’s place. I kept talking to the aunt and she showed us love. She would leave and then come back again to visit. Her humanity was back. Maybe she saw that what she had done had yielded no results? God has a reason for teaching someone: even though she never heard the peace education stories, there are people who talk about them and she understands . . . she understood that even people who are not related and are not family can live together, and can do so in peace. She kept coming. Afterwards I explained to Hyacinthe and told her, ‘Now that they are showing you love, they are your family. I might die tomorrow, or not be able to be here, and it could be the case that my family is not as happy about you as I who gave you hope. Go to her and talk to her.’ She agreed and her aunt requested that she return home. I said, ‘No. Show her that there is no problem between you and her and that it is fine despite everything she did.’ The girl understood and she would go visit her and come back. They loved each other. I later gave her advice. We kept talking and she told me how her parents [. . .]. She told me how her father died. I asked her, ‘Why are you studying like us? We have reasons for studying this way but you should not study badly when you have a way of doing it properly.’ We kept talking [. . .] I

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told her, ‘Go find the head of the FARG in your sector and talk to him. Tell him your problems without keeping anything from him. He will help you and you’ll be able to study well. You could go to boarding school and come home here during school breaks when we all miss you. And when the time comes you can go back to school. God will help us carry on in the future.’ She went and he welcomed her and took her into his home. He took her into his home and told her, ‘You can go to school from here.’ Now she goes to school from there. I forbade her ever to be here in Nyanza for more than two or three months and go home without visiting her aunt. If she keeps showing her love, then in time her aunt will also return it and show love to her. This makes me happy. When I’m here, I often see her coming from visiting her, wearing school uniform being accompanied by her, both of them talking, laughing. You can see that there is no problem. Later, I talked to Hyacinthe and she told me that she doesn’t have a problem now. If you saw her, if you saw the Hyacinthe of today, and the one she used to be, you would be surprised if you used to know her. She is no longer the Hyacinthe who was always alone, who used to feel like she was the person with the most problems in the world, overwhelmed by them. No, she is very happy, she gets on with others. The people she used to think were inhuman, she now sees as human. The aunt apologized. She even did it in front of me. She said, ‘My child, forgive me. All that was [. . .]’ It was fraught. I think it was fraught because of the fact that the aunt’s brothers were imprisoned and she blames Hyacinthe for it. But she apologized and they really forgave each other. Thinking about peace, to me, peace means love because when a person has love, peace comes too. If we love each other, peace will come; we won’t lack anything. If we work together, peace will come. Rwandans have a proverb that goes, ‘A little goes a long way when you are generous.’6 Peace brings security, it brings calmness. Peace brings everything. What I can give to the children is first of all the lesson to love one another. To understand that if my friends, their friends, have a problem, they should make it theirs. After making it theirs, peace and love will come and they will work together. There is a saying: ‘For people who are united, nothing is difficult.’7 If we all come together, or when I am no longer able to take care of my children, they can come together and live together and they won’t lack a thing and they’ll live with others in peace. We can teach. There are old women

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who don’t know these things. There are young people out there who have behaved badly. If we go to those people, on their level, for them to listen to us, not dressed fancily, or speaking English or French or any other language to them. We’ll speak the language we find them speaking and they’ll see us as one with them, but we’ll go with a purpose. Today, the advice I can give to parents who still have the mentality of using Hutu and Tutsi is for them to leave all that behind and follow peace. If you look after a child or give birth to one, telling them about Hutu and Tutsi is useless! There’s no reason to tell them that. They tell them even though they lived through it and they know it didn’t benefit them. Why are they still teaching about it now? Let them live peacefully. But we, the youth, will play a role in it. If perhaps you have children the same age as me and you watch what we do at home, we will not be any different from you. We wouldn’t be any different from all the genocide perpetrators. We should therefore be alert. Our minds are open and sound. We can go teach our parents and tell them that there is nothing wrong with living in peace. That a Rwandan is a Rwandan; discriminating based on appearance or on how a person was born is useless. I hear people say, and I used to hear it when I was growing up, that, ‘God spends the day elsewhere and comes home to Rwanda at night.’8 but there was a time when they started thinking that God no longer comes home to us. That is why we should work together and also pray. Praying doesn’t mean going to sit in a church. Let’s not say there are only specific people we know we should help. No. Whoever a person is, we should listen to them and help. Even if it’s someone who is behaving badly, don’t leave them with their problems, even if somebody misbehaves. No. Approach that person and talk to them. Even if they are unable to answer, you have a sound mind; you can do something.

Protais Bizimana Protais Bizimana is a teacher in Ngororero District. He decided to marry a survivor from the genocide against the Tutsi, in spite of opposition from his family. He speaks here about learning about peace-building, and then seeing the impact of what he learnt in his relationships with his wife, family and wider community.

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My name is Protais Bizimana. I was born on 10 April 1987, in the countryside in the former Ruhengeri prefecture, in Nkuki commune, in the former Ryinnyo Sector, in Gashara Cell. I now live in Ngororero District, Ngororero Sector, Kazabe Cell. Well, maybe let me start with the time after my early teens soon after the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. I took that as a normal situation, especially because I wasn’t mature enough to know much about the history of Rwanda. But after I started high school and learned about history, that’s when I started to understand how peace was lost because of the divisionism that was planted by the colonizers, especially the Belgians. This went on, since I lived with people from different backgrounds at school. Some were from the families of victims of the genocide, others from families of genocide perpetrators, others from families that did not commit genocide, but who had friends who’d played some role in the genocide. The situation was like that in my relationships with my peers everywhere, be they at home or at school. I sometimes got confused, like when I was talking with a friend and suddenly another friend came up and discouraged me, ‘But why are you talking to such and such?’ I wondered why that person would say such things! There were times when a person would discourage me and I took some time to think about it. Then I decided that there’s no reason someone should stop me from talking to a friend who I believed had done me no harm. This went on: even at the university I was at, there were situations where you’d be discouraged from talking to a peer. I remember in 2011, I was with one of my classmates who is now my wife, and we have one child. One day another classmate saw us and spoke to me intimidatingly, asking me why I was talking to someone from another ethnic group. Though it wasn’t easy, I went to see him later on to ask him what ethnic groups meant to him, but I didn’t dwell on it since I knew most young people grew up in families that influenced them in that way. I wasn’t discouraged, but I ended up discussing the issue with my girlfriend. I told her about what my classmate had said. She asked me, ‘Well, what do you think about all of this?’ I told her, ‘I’m not influenced by ancient historical issues.’ (I was at university studying History to be able to teach History the right way.) I therefore told her that I had no issue talking to her as a friend since I saw her as a Rwandan just like me. We continued dating. I met that

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classmate again later and he told me clearly, ‘Even though you’ve been a classmate, I swear, if you marry that lady, I will not attend your wedding.’ I told him, ‘Regarding the decision you’ve made not to attend my wedding, I have no problem with that, but you can’t stop me from marrying the woman I love just because [. . .] just based on ethnicity, or Rwanda’s bad history.’ The situation went on like that. I told my family about it and some of my relatives didn’t take it well. Some of them said to me, ‘We just can’t understand how you dare marry a Tutsi woman. We don’t understand how your household will survive; you will never get along.’ I told them about my beliefs. I told them this wasn’t new to me, since we’d been dating for a long time, and my understanding went far beyond the so-called ethnic groups. It wasn’t easy, but we both fought the battle until we ended up getting married. Though the issues went on during married life, thank God the people who had those beliefs during my wedding preparations have now changed, thanks to the harmony they saw between my wife and me. There came a time in 2014 when I was told I’d been selected to attend the peace education programme. I was happy since I believed it was an opportunity to improve my knowledge, which I could use to help those I lived with, my colleagues at work and to help my students with peace-building. There are some examples. I remember one day when I told one of my cousins that I was getting ready for my wedding, and I wanted him to help me with some tasks because I believed he could. He immediately told me, ‘I’m aware that you want to marry someone from a family we do not want.’ This discouraged me because he was one of those I trusted to be able to help me with the preparations; besides, he loved me very much. He later changed his mind and remembered that I had done nothing wrong to the family, I had never misbehaved. So he saw there to be no reason for him not to attend the wedding, even though he couldn’t make any other contribution because of his mindset. Another example is my siblings who didn’t want to go with me to the introduction ceremony on the pretext that it was too far,9 but I could clearly see that the same mindset was the reason behind it. I think these are two examples of challenges I’ve gone through. As for my wife, most of her friends tried to discourage her, asking her, ‘How can you marry someone from a family that is from the same ethnic group as those who killed your parents?’ She was smart enough and told them the truth clearly. She told them that even though it happened, not all the members of

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that ethnic group were responsible and that children from those families can’t be held responsible for their parents’ crimes. Well, after all those discouraging thoughts from our people, I remember there came a time I wanted to ask her to think about ending our engagement. But when I thought about how we had dated, how we had helped each other at school, I found it difficult to imagine finding someone else I would love, and she felt the same. So we overcame all of that and decided to get married. The peace education training was held over three days. I learnt a lot from it. I was mostly helped by stories about the people who did their best to fight for peace-building and to make peace possible. I was surprised that the people who did this were very young children, and it gave me hope that I’m able to do better because I am a grown-up and have the means to build peace among Rwandan citizens. After doing the training, I learnt some lessons that will help me in my future life. We started with the way Rwandans lived together before the introduction of the colonizers. That’s how I came to understand that the Rwandan community lived in harmony before the colonial system came in. We then understood that the so-called ethnic groups were actually a classification of living standards. The Belgians used the classification to establish ethnic groups. After understanding the origin of the ethnic groups, I understood how the colonizers introduced segregation among Rwandans and started to divide them. We also learnt how the genocide was planned and implemented, and how it was stopped. We learnt afterwards about the plan to rebuild the country that had been destroyed by the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. The new thing I learnt from the training, especially as a teacher, was how to use the school subjects I teach to build peace, starting with the students who come through my classes. After attending the training, many changes occurred in my life, though I already lived in harmony with my wife, not thinking about the historical background of our country. Between me and my neighbours, and my workmates, we used to have issues and sometimes I didn’t pay attention to it, but now, after the training, even when I have an issue with a colleague, if I have wronged them, I apologize to them. Where there are issues between colleagues, I try to find a way to unite them, or when students have an issue, I create an opportunity for them to be reconciled by using what I gained from the training. At the school where I teach, I have established a club called Peace Education

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Club, which has around eighty members so far, and we meet twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays after lunch. It is a group of children who are so enthusiastic because I started the club using teaching materials about young children who did heroic acts. It was even better because I constantly gave them the example of children from Nyange School, a school in Ngororero District.10 This wasn’t new to the children since they already knew about the story and some of them had been to that same school. In fact, today children are willing to have an impact on the lives of their friends who are not members of the club, and it is a well-liked club. It’s no longer possible to have our meetings in one classroom because the classrooms are too small. The impact was visible after discussing the peace education programme materials. I even remember one day when we were making a summary of one of the stories, there was one girl in the second year who asked, ‘But if children can take such actions, can’t we also join the peace-building process, can’t we take care of our peers’ problems?’ Then they had an idea. The students decided to collect money from their little savings, and I joined them as a teacher. We managed to pay for lunch for one child who was deprived. Besides, since the club is recognized by the school management, the management decided to pick a group of children who could solve issues that arose among other children before they were brought to the attention of the school management. This group is called ‘The Council of the Wise’, as the school staff also have the same type of council (a council that deals with problems that arise between teachers and their colleagues). It doesn’t deal with the most serious issues, but with those issues that arise between children before they are taken to the level of the school management. This has shown me that I might be able to help them have an impact on the lives of other students or teachers. My message to my fellow teachers, is that they should first of all understand the history of Rwanda. That way, when they’re teaching, they can help the children, help them to change their bad attitudes. When some teachers come to class . . . they only give out knowledge without shaping character. In fact, they should strive to change the children’s understanding about the history of Rwanda. As for the parents who have a negative mindset and are planting in their children genocide ideology or any other kind of divisionism, I would urge them to remember that those children in whom they’re sowing those bad thoughts are the future of Rwanda. They should therefore make sure that if one

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of the children becomes a leader in the future, they will lead the people based on the correct history of the country. My message to the youth and young children in general, about the bad mindset they come across in their parents, is that they should rather look far beyond the bad thoughts they find in their parents, which they got from the past, and see the peace-building process we are currently in. Then this will help them towards a peaceful future.

Gira Ukuri Gira Ukuri (Let’s be Truthful) is a unity and reconciliation group for survivors and perpetrators, based in Karama in Kanombe Sector. Here, Protais Niyongira who is the leader of the association, and some of its other members, describe how it has changed their lives.

Niyongira Protais My name is Niyongira Protais. I am an old man of 61 years of age. I survived in Bugesera in a place called Maranyundo, but since the end of the genocide, I despised that place and decided to come to live in Kigali. I was built a house as a person who survived genocide. It was built by the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. They built our house alongside one for a perpetrator but unfortunately he died. When he was still alive, we lived together in harmony; his wife was pregnant when he died. She later gave birth to a baby boy and she was blessed and got a job too. I’m the one who has been raising that child up to now. His mother is normally at work and the child stays here until his mother comes back from work. I was blessed to become the leader of the association Gira Ukuri (Let’s be Truthful). My role in the association is to approach citizens and advise them on how to live together. As survivors and ex-prisoners, we come together and talk; we talk about things that rebuild Rwanda and we leave behind the things that destroyed it. This association has helped me achieve many things: the first thing the association has taught me is love. I am now the kind of person who loves everyone very much, irrespective of their ethnicity. Another thing the association has helped me achieve is that I have now become a hero among the

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people who demanded to have their possessions back. I didn’t demand my possessions back, I said, ‘God has given me a place to live, those who committed crimes have done so, but it is over. If I go and ask them for my possessions, I won’t be any different from them.’ I never asked for my possessions back. The message I would give Rwandans – I am especially telling those who still live abroad and who still think of Rwanda as it was in the past – I would like to tell them, if they are listening, that Rwanda is no longer the same. What they used to call a Hutu, what they called a Tutsi and a Twa, is no longer there; we are all Rwandans now. One thing this association has helped us achieve is that we have moved on from where we were because, when the genocide had just ended, we felt like we would never rebuild ourselves or look at someone and identify with them again. But we have truly moved on, because now you look at someone and you see yourself in them. And time has passed. Twenty years is a long time for people to live together. Before, you felt like you couldn’t talk to anyone, but we got that out of our system thanks to the good of the association. We have meetings, you see. When you like to meet up with someone and talk, you achieve a lot, and the other person also goes back home feeling liberated. I think there is no more discrimination among people: we are all Rwandans, and so are our children. Another If I can assist my colleague, what he said is true. The first thing we felt was fear when we learnt that those people who had done the unspeakable in the genocide against the Tutsi were being released from prison. But after we joined this association, bit by bit we started feeling at peace in our hearts. There are those who understood the message quickly, and there are those who understood it later. But now, as an association, we are one; we are all holding the same rope. In short, we are no longer afraid. We are free to talk to the administrators; they speak and you also speak, they campaign for you to become a leader and people support you and vote for you. Honestly, there is no problem. Another What I can add is that when you look at the things that took place in our country, people shouldn’t even be getting along with each other, living together or even sharing good times together. I think other countries should

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look at us and take us as an example. For a person to have had a wife killed by someone in their home, that same person killed your family, killed your children, killed your siblings and tomorrow they come and ask you for forgiveness and you forgive them, and you no longer have issues between you – other countries should look at us and learn from us. It was unexpected that one person would sit with another and walk together, but you look at the person and feel that there is no problem with them. When you have good news, you invite them over; when they have good news, they do the same and when you are facing a tough situation, we all share it. What this association has helped me achieve is that, never in my entire life did I think I would talk to the people who were involved in the killings. But when the association was founded, I slowly started letting go, especially because it affected me so much and I would feel unwell, but my brothers were close to me and comforted me. Then they granted forgiveness and those who killed were released from prison, and I saw them come back in their right mind, and they . . . they had left their bad hearts behind, maybe in prison; I don’t know, don’t ask me. But in my life, I never thought I would . . . If they were to come to my funeral, after I’d died an ordinary death, I felt like I would come back to life and chase them away so that they wouldn’t bury me. Now everything is over; now we talk to each other, we share good times together. My God, even when I gave my family a proper burial, many of those who had killed were very much involved in supporting me. It was all over, but before I had buried them, I was very anxious and I didn’t like anyone, but when I buried them, I felt it was all over. And now I can think normally, I feel like we are all the same, I feel like there is no problem anymore. What happened, happened, but I continue encouraging Rwandans to keep on asking God to give us more strength. Another My message to other people is that they should have love, like the kind we had, because no one should keep living in grief. They should all have love, and those who still have negative thoughts should have love, because doing bad things is pointless. Another Another thing we wish for in our association is for genocide to never happen again. Another And for it to be put to rest far away from here.

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Tubane Mu Mahoro Mukankusi Marie Marie Mukankusi is a female survivor and farmer, who is part of the unity and reconciliation association Tubane Mu Mahoro (Let us Live Together in Peace). Here she speaks about hiding and surviving during the genocide, and the relief and change she has experienced through this group since.

My name is Mukankusi Marie. I was born in 1966 and I am a farmer. I have children but I don’t have a husband. Before the genocide, I lived in Remera Sector, in Mabanza commune. The genocide killed my entire family; I am the only one who survived in the family we had. Before the genocide, we had no problems with our neighbours; I thought we were all the same. But I was shocked to see the genocide happen, and to see our neighbours doing terrible things to us. We lived together in harmony before. Life was good, but it changed suddenly. We were at home when I heard the radio announcing that Habyarimana had died. At that moment I saw, opposite where we lived, a place they called Buhinga in Ritsiro, I saw them starting to set fire to houses. We thought it would not reach our house, but in a very short time it also reached us. Then they started killing people. After that we realized that things had changed and that your neighbour was the one who came and killed you and took your belongings. We started hiding, thinking it was a simple situation, but it later turned into a very serious situation to the point where you didn’t know where to go. The only way people survived was by being rescued by God – it was a dire situation. I was at home during the genocide; I was actually married to a Hutu man. So I was at home, and my husband came and told me, ‘Right now as we are talking, get out of here. Your people are bothering us, we don’t want you in this family.’ I thought he would never do such a thing, so I waited until he was gone. That’s when my mother-in-law came and told me, ‘Right now as we are talking, get what you can take with you and leave because they are going to kill you.’ I was resting because I had a baby who was three days old. I asked her, ‘Where will I go?’ And so I went and hid myself in some reeds and at that very moment, the perpetrators came with a man looking for me but they didn’t find me. I started asking myself, ‘What am I going to do?’

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A do-gooder came along – I am calling him that because he did good things for me. He was gathering grass for cows. It was around 6.30 pm and he asked me, ‘Marie, things are becoming more dangerous, and they will find you here and kill you. What do you think we should do?’ I asked him, ‘What should I do?’ And he told me, ‘They’ve gathered all the people at the commune, find a way to get there and they will protect you from there.’ So I headed there. On my way, I met another person who was being chased and he asked me, ‘Where are you going?’ I told him and he said, ‘Don’t go there. Follow me, let’s go.’ For two weeks, my in-laws didn’t know where I was. We were living in the bush; we slept there and spent the days there. Later I said to myself, ‘This is getting me nowhere, I’m going back home. They can kill me there and everyone at home will know that I have been killed.’ Our neighbours started using dogs to hunt people down. Wherever you were hiding they came and found you. It was God who kept me. There was a girl that we were hiding together with; they found her, we had seen each other and they asked her, ‘Is there someone else with you?’ She said, ‘No.’ Then they killed her, but not before they had raped her. I said to myself, ‘There is no worse death than that, even though I survived today, I am going back home.’ I reached home at 11.00 pm. There was a man who was my friend, he took me to another man’s house. We went there at night and he said to the man, ‘Come out, I want to talk to you.’ He told him, ‘I’ve brought a woman with me. Find a place to keep her safe for me.’ The other man asked, ‘Where shall I put her?’ They went and talked to the man’s mother, she was very old. They told her that they’d been told no one should go into their kitchen, so she didn’t see me. They put me in the kitchen and locked me inside. I spent a week and a half in there without them being able to get to me, not even to give me water to drink. But the time came and they let me out during the night and told me, ‘All the people are no more, even those you knew are no more.’ That’s what happened. After the genocide, life was bad, it was very bad. I’m saying how life was for me then. I didn’t want to look at any Hutu, and I didn’t even want to see them because I saw cruelty in them. I found my home changed; people had died. So I went back to where I had been but there was no peace. I fell sick because of the tragedies I had seen, I started having chronic headaches. When the headaches came on, I would not be able to go anywhere and I would go

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temporarily blind, I could hear people’s voices but not see them. Yes, I was in the hospital a lot. Life after the genocide: people were living in their own grief like that – you would pass by a person and not greet them because you thought they had no humanity in them. But we came up with an idea to form an association because when you went out, you still met the same people who killed your loved ones. The person who brought us together in our association is called Cyrille. She thought, ‘How can I bring these people together?’ I don’t know how she thought of it in her heart, but she would come and invite you to a meeting. Everyone responded to her invitation and when we got there we found all these different people: survivors, perpetrators, others. At first, we were reluctant, but as days went by, you started feeling like you couldn’t miss that meeting, because there were things she told us that made you feel like your heart had taken a step forward. A time came and she said, ‘We shouldn’t be coming to the meeting just to sit here; let’s find something to focus on.’ We talked about it and decided that, in the second week of the month, every person would bring 1,100 Rwandan francs.11 We collected it all and gave it to one of our members so that they could buy a farm animal and we put 100 Rwandan francs in a box. We bought animals for each other in that way, animals such as goats. I took a long time to accept the perpetrators in the group. I went just for the sake of going, and after the meetings, I couldn’t even remember what was said. But as I told you before, as days went by, I felt the need to move forward. A time came when I understood I needed to live with others, with those who killed my loved ones and those who had deeply hurt me. They would come to the meetings and say, ‘We have confessed and accepted our crimes, even now we are here asking for your forgiveness for the crimes we committed against you. When we look at you we feel ashamed, but we are asking for your forgiveness.’ Unity and reconciliation is good. It brings relief to your heart because – I told you before that I used to have chronic headaches – but as days went by, and as I kept talking to them, those things that burdened my head lessened. Yes, you can’t forget what happened to you, but you can experience relief. You feel relieved in your heart and you say, ‘We will live together. I don’t expect to find any other people, we will live with them.’ When they have a wedding, they invite you and you attend; when you have a wedding you invite them: that’s

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how it is. Those we live with in our association, I think we all have the same understanding, because there isn’t anybody who shows that he keeps something else in his heart, something he doesn’t talk to us about. When someone has a problem, they go to the others and say, ‘I don’t feel good about this,’ and the others try to make them understand that they need to move forwards. I would say to other people that the path I can show them is one of reconciling with perpetrators because there is no other way. Whether we like it or not, we are neighbours, we will be neighbours. They are people all around us. I would tell them, ‘If you can, follow your conscience, and reconcile with those people.’ I would encourage them to reconcile because there is no other way. It can be challenging to get other people involved. But bit by bit – since it’s not something a person accepts immediately when you tell them – you keep telling them and teaching, since teaching is ongoing and we are hopeful that many of them will come and we will join hands. Our goal is to include as many new members as possible, for us to live together with them. Vengeance is for God who will judge everyone according to their deeds. And as you go on talking to others, you learn something new and it helps you develop. Because there are people who don’t talk and remain clothed in grief – and that is what the perpetrators wanted anyway: for us to stay sad instead of developing, to have our grief increase. So, I encourage those people to try really hard to pick themselves up and try again, to leave the ruins and to rebuild themselves, then those who hurt them will feel regret and ask, ‘Why did we do it?’ Because they are happy when you are sad, but when they see you living with no sadness, walking forwards, they will say, ‘We did all that for nothing.’

4

Let’s make bricks and build for them Reka tububakire

This chapter focuses on another prevalent indicator of post-traumatic growth – the pursuit of new opportunities. Rwandans’ agency is illustrated here in seeking opportunities for education, farming and physical building, which reflects the ‘rebuilding of selves’ that many speakers allude to. The theme of rebuilding is a common way that individuals describe reconstructing their lives. Examples of building projects in local communities thus have added poignancy, since they reflect people’s commitment to recovery, healing and reconciliation. The individuals who share testimonies in this chapter embody a determination that often comes in the face of ongoing challenges. They demonstrate incredible resilience, from surviving the genocide to seeking new opportunities personally and professionally. The chapter opens with the extraordinary account of Marie Claire Nkima, who came close to death multiple times during the genocide. She describes how she escaped the Interahamwe several times, and her sense of being divinely protected. Marie Claire is honest about the burdens of life after genocide, and at the same time determined to keep moving forward. Next, members of the association Abaharanira Amahoro describe their lives after the genocide. As a group of survivors, perpetrators and relatives of perpetrators, they show how people with diverse backgrounds and expectations can find common ground in joint initiatives. Genovieve Kangabe describes how members of her association went from not being able to make eye contact with one another to producing crops together and winning a national prize for a play they performed. Josephine Dusabimana shares a remarkable story of initiative and courage. She rescued several people during the genocide and tells her story of extending kindness in the face of opposition. The chapter concludes with testimonies 137

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from two more groups (Gira Ukuri and Inyenyeri), which describe the range of activities they are involved with and what they have achieved. These stories demand that Rwandan individuals are seen and heard beyond the constraints of the ‘victim’, ‘survivor’ and ‘perpetrator’ labels. The tone of pride and determination in this final chapter concludes the collection of testimonies, and is echoed in the poem that stands as the Afterword to this volume.

Marie Claire Nkima Marie Claire Nkima lives with her husband and four children and works for AVEGA. This is a remarkable story of survival. Marie Claire was in Kayumba when the genocide began, and she lost all members of her family apart from one brother. She escaped death multiple times and here recounts those experiences.

My name is Nkima Marie Claire. I work for AVEGA. My father was called Nkima Gervais. My mother was called Mukarensi Marie Gorette. I was born in 1970. I was born in this commune, Kanzenze, the place they used to call Kayumba’s mountain. The effect the genocide had on my family is that we were utterly torn apart because of that tragedy and the loss of many people. We lost many families that depended on us, we lost friends, we lost neighbours, and we lost everything that we owned and our homes. In general, we lost everything. We were a family of eight children and only two of us survived, with no parents. Before the genocide against the Tutsi, the relationship that I saw between my family and neighbours . . . I saw that we used to invite each other round; when there were weddings we would invite each other. I had a very sociable parent in my father. I never even once heard that he had a conflict with a neighbour or shouted at someone. No, he was the kind of person who lived in harmony with others. When we had ceremonies we would invite them. You know that long ago people used to make beer.1 He would invite the people who were close by while we made beer and they would all drink together. We lived on the main road where everybody passed by. People from the south going to Nyamata would feel welcome, the tired ones would pass by our home and, if there was tea, they would have a drink. Those who arrived dirty and said ‘I

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want to bathe,’ would bathe and smear themselves with lotion. Whoever found us stirring porridge would sit with us and we would share it. It was in the 1990s that I started seeing that things were changing. From the first day that soldiers came, on 1 September, people’s faces changed. The way we knew them changed. There were some neighbours I saw [. . .] we were sitting at home and some Hutu who were our [. . .], I remember a man called Apollo, one day I saw him passing by our house and he did not greet anyone. I saw another one pass by, angry. I saw that the way we used to live, laughing together, their faces had changed. I saw it even at the schools we studied in. I used to study and go back home, which was nearby. I saw that the students I studied with had changed. They started saying that they had put us on [. . .] they started making lists with our names on, saying that we were cruel and we were poisoners. Hutu made lists for us wanting to [. . .] they were saying that we were poisoners and that we were going to kill Hutu. On that list, I know they told me that one of the students I studied with would avoid me, that I was on the list and that I might kill that student. Our professors’ faces changed. During sports lessons you would start getting zeros that you didn’t get before. You would find the same in other courses [. . .] we started seeing changes being made. Even our neighbours started feeling insecure. I remember some families used to come and sleep in our home, scared of sleeping in their own homes, so that they could sleep in groups of as many people as possible. On the hills where they lived, things were not going well. At that time we started seeing changes in the relationships we had with others, which we had not seen before. And then in April the genocide began; on 7 April. On the 6th, we were at that school, me and other students were preparing for our national exam. I had spent the night with a fellow student called Umuhire Gorette. We had rented a hostel to study; we were finalists. At night we studied. We would read up to 3.00 am and spend the next day sleeping. I remember we used to study psychology. We would read in peace and at 3.00 am we would sleep. That night, the plane crashed and people heard it. People started panicking, but we were oblivious. In the morning there was a man who came at around 9.00 am while we were still sleeping. When people outside started running, he knocked on our door saying, ‘Are you sleeping? Open the door for me so I can tell you something.’ We opened the door and he asked us ‘Do you know what’s happened?’ We asked him what had happened. He said, ‘Habyarimana’s plane

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crashed. He is dead; they shot him. Everyone is running and you are sleeping?’ It was like our hearts jumped out of our chests. We hurried and left. I remember because my home was nearby. I went home and people were running into each other, but there was still confusion and no one was killing anyone yet. I went home. I think I went with that girl. When I got home, as soon as we sat down to talk about what happened, we heard screams in the neighbourhood. We went off running with our parents and came back here to Nyamata. When we got here, we split up. That girl and I stayed in Nyamata and the others kept going. We stayed in Nyamata near the shops with other people. We spent the night there. I never saw my parents again. We spent the night with a lot of people. I remember there was a pregnant lady who was almost due [. . .] there were so many of us! We all slept there but then we heard bullets and screams. There were screams in Nyamata but morning came. On that morning we came with that girl down here to Gatare. When we arrived we went into that girl’s older sister’s house in Rwiririza. Her older sister was called Rose. We went in [. . .] before we got there we heard screams. The war had officially started. There was a house nearby owned by a Hutu man called Nsabyumuganwa. He had around four bathrooms and we went in one of them. We found another girl called Titi in there. She is also no longer alive. The three of us went in. It was around 1.00 pm. We entered and closed the door but the other doors were open; there were four doors. When we closed the door, the killings began. We were looking through wooden doors as they shot people. I remember there was a woman who was carrying a child on her back in front of the bathroom; she was running and a bullet hit her and she fell. We stayed there until 3.00 pm but they didn’t know we were there. There was a Tutsi man called Sebazungu who was a shopkeeper, and his wife called Patricia; they had just been killed but they had a lot of stuff. The Interahamwe killed them and went to steal beer. That’s the main thing that I saw. They went to steal the beer and unfortunately for us they said that the bathrooms we were in were going to be their storage! They stole the beer and stocked it in the first bathroom and it got full. They stored it in the second one and filled it, and I think the third one too. At around 6.00 pm, there was only ours that was left to be opened and we heard them say, ‘Let’s stop there, we’ll carry on tomorrow. Open those beers and let’s drink.’ They sat in front of the

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bathroom – our bathroom. They were drinking at 7.00 pm, at 8.00 pm and they started getting drunk at 9.00 pm. Then they said, ‘Is there anyone in that bathroom we left?’ Others replied, ‘No. You went in the first and second ones and found no one. Could there be someone in that one?’ Around 10.00 pm, when they were completely drunk, we were still inside with the door closed! Then they said they were going to stop, go and rest and do it again the next day. We heard them get up and get out. Afterwards, they [. . .] they said that the boys who were in that man Nsabyumuganwa’s house should stay and watch over their things, that they would come back the next day. When they left, we got out of the bathroom and went to Nsabyumuganwa’s house. We found two boys there. They looked like people who were not experienced in killing. When they saw us they asked, ‘Where were you?’ We answered, ‘We were in that bathroom.’ They said, ‘You people will live for a long time!’2 We then told them that we wanted to go to the church. We got out of there and walked all the way up here. The morning came and we still hadn’t reached there even though it was only ten minutes away. We would take two steps and see the Interahamwe’s torchlights as they walked. We would take three steps and hear soldiers’ footsteps and we would hide in the bushes. I remember we reached a field with many trees. We slept in this field. We stayed there for a long time and at around 4.00 am we crept together and, thank God, we managed it, and found ourselves entering this church. When we got there, we found people inside. You could not find anywhere to put one foot in front of the other. Those who got shot on the way were brought here, those who had been cut with machetes and so forth. We went in and found the place full. I think it was on the 8th or 9th. We spent the whole day there and it was bad. There was a priest whose name I don’t remember who was there shutting down the water and electricity. We were there with no electricity and no water. There were a few people who had some food and a bit of water in cups. They built an oven and cooked food. I think we spent all day there on the 8th or 9th, 10th and 11th. The 10th was filled with meetings. You would see community leaders; soldiers would go to the priest and have meetings. The morning of the 11th is when they attacked this church. We were here. They first went into CERAI,3 which is opposite the church. They went in in the morning. There were people cooking food and tea. My mother was here in the church. I remember her

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telling me, ‘Let me go there and see if I can find food to give to the children.’ She went in and those people were inside. In no more than five minutes, a grenade went off and killed them. It was my mother and my brother Eric who they liked to call militant. They were killed in there with another teacher called Duruchis who was the wife of [. . .] I think her husband was called Gahutu. Those are the ones I know, but everyone who was inside was killed. My brother didn’t die immediately because, after the grenade went off, they went to evacuate those who were still breathing. They brought my brother and he said to me, ‘Do you know who is killing us?’ (they had cut him all over). I said, ‘Who is it?’ He said, ‘It is Gasitari.’ After thirty minutes, they came. Buses filled with Interahamwe and soldiers came. I cannot tell you how many, whistling, singing, banging the buses. When the Interahamwe got off the buses, they were followed by military cars that brought people and put them there, including a few leaders they had brought here. They got off and all of us entered the church in large numbers. There were so many of us that we couldn’t even breathe. Those who were in front closed the door. They got out of the cars and we saw them organize themselves. There was a leader among them, one I heard them calling commander, but he was not a military commander, it was just a nickname, ‘eminent Interahamwe’. He seemed to go among them and give them instructions. We saw them get together and those inside the church said, ‘It’s over. Those who pray, pray. Those who have money, tear it up so that they don’t take anything from us.’ People started praying; the born-again believers, the Catholics, the [. . .] everyone sang, others stood in front of us having a discussion. After thirty minutes, we saw them split up. The first thing they did was shoot. The bullets fell here above the iron sheets on the roof and then fell back in. They hit people. When it started, I was standing at the altar with that girl I used to go to school with, Gorette. I was standing with her and her older sister who we had gone to find: Rose. She had a baby. The whole church was full and we were standing there. I suggested, ‘Why don’t we go over to those benches and lie under them, maybe we could survive?’ Gorette said, ‘Claire, don’t you see that it’s over?’ As I was talking, they were shooting. I remember I took a big step and I stepped on a baby. I said, ‘My God, this child.’ I kept moving as I spoke, forcefully pushing through people but they were shooting up high. I lay under the benches and put my head there.

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They threw those grenades upwards for about thirty minutes and they killed some people inside. They stopped after thirty minutes and had another discussion in front of us. The meeting went on for a while. They were going to change tack. They sprayed pepper inside for almost a whole hour and everyone collapsed. After an hour of spraying, with people throwing up and others dead, they stopped and had another discussion. That discussion was about bringing grenades inside. After an hour the grenades came. A grenade would hit a person. That is how people kept dying at every stage. After the grenades, after another hour, they stopped. At last, so the Interahamwe could enter, they sprayed pepper again until no one could raise their head. I was still under the bench with others surrounding me. They said, ‘Now we can enter.’ You could see that they were scared to come in while we were still alive, while there were still cockroaches with weapons. They entered with weapons. When I was able to open my eyes, I saw some with axes, some who had machetes, some who had clubs, some who had arrows and soldiers who had guns. They entered and the other commander said, ‘Now everyone do whatever you want and whatever you can.’ They started from the side, slashing people. It sounded like a butchery! They slashed! At around 2.00 pm. . . I cannot lie to you that I heard anyone scream. Maybe it’s me who forgot but what I saw is that, by the time they entered, everyone was dead. I didn’t hear anyone scream, I didn’t hear anyone say, ‘Have mercy on me.’ It was just slashing, hearing machetes and bones. When it got to around 2.00 pm, they told their wives to come and steal, to remove people’s clothes. They stopped slashing. At that point, blood had reached [. . .] the women started pulling off kitenges. They had sacks they were putting stuff in. I got scared when they came in. I was under the bench and thought, ‘Where can a person hide? What can a person do?’ I don’t know how I thought of a hiding place where I could survive. I don’t know how an image of Jesus came to my eyes; I saw Jesus wearing a dress and a sash. That is what came to my mind and I said, ‘Jesus, would you please let me into your sash?’ As I was under the bench while they slashed like crazy! ‘Please let me enter your sash and you wrap me up with it, for I know that none of these people here can get in. Please let me in.’ I felt within me as though I had truly gone in, I felt Him wrap me up. I said, ‘Now I am in (they were still slashing) if you let me go and this sash lets me go, they will kill me but I know

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that if you don’t let go, no one can touch me.’ That prayer came to me and I felt it was with me. They came to take people’s clothes and I felt them get to me, starting to pull. I think I was wearing trousers. I felt them and I had not died. In my heart I said, ‘Jesus, have you let me go?’ When I said that, I felt the others let go of me. They moved on to others and took their clothes. When they got halfway, the other one in charge said, ‘Do it again. Let me tell you, we killed the people on top but remember there are people underneath the bodies. I want us now to remove people from underneath because they are there.’ I felt very afraid and I thought, ‘It’s over.’ They started pulling people out, killing them, those who were under bodies that had fallen on them. They got to me. There was a lady on top of me who looked like a Hutu and she was carrying a baby on her back. They told her, ‘Woman, tell us if you are one of us and we will let you go.’ She kept quiet. They asked her three times and when she did not speak they struck her with a machete and she fell on top of me. When they said to bring out the people from underneath, it was around 5.00 pm. They had started at around 11.00 am. They got to me and said, ‘Here is another one that was under others.’ They pulled me – they pulled me out of there. When they pulled me out, I sat down between these benches. I was sitting like this with my eyes closed but, as you can understand, I had blood all over my body. They all came and formed a circle around me. The one with the axe. I never forget the axe because I thought they were going to strike me with it and I felt this was the worst of all. Those with the axe, the ones with machetes, soldiers . . . There were also a lot of people who spoke Kirundi; a lot of Burundians. They had a discussion and said, ‘Don’t you see that this person is alive?’ And others would say, ‘I think it died.’ Another one took me and held my neck like this and said, ‘Don’t you see that this thing is alive and it is even blinking?’ I heard them say, ‘But Gasitari, doesn’t she seem alive?’ I think it was the other Gasitari who killed my mother who recognized me because it was that person called Gasitari who seemed to protect me and convinced them that I was dead. I went back to the prayer, ‘Jesus, have you now let me go and they’re going to kill me?’ They discussed and span me around for like ten minutes. One of them would say, ‘Look at the eyes,’ and would do this. They would say, ‘Don’t you see that she is blinking? A dead person cannot even sit.’ When I said the prayer again I said, ‘Jesus, is it really over?’

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Then I heard . . . it was at 6.30 pm, I heard the commander blow a whistle loudly saying, ‘All of you stop and we will go home.’ They were very obedient. All those who were around me went out running and I was left sitting in the church. After ten minutes they passed here and ran. Other people came from all over here and said that anyone who felt like they had breath left in them should speak, so that they could get them out. I [. . .] I don’t remember what I did; I saw them come to me. They got me out. They pulled me up to the front of the church here. Someone else that I saw them pull out was that little brother of mine but he was in very bad shape, almost dead. When some people were cleaning him, I [. . .] he looked like he was reaching his final breath. They looked for clothes for me to wear. After a few minutes, I don’t know the screams we heard [. . .] people ran immediately and I also ran leaving him behind. When I got out of the church, there is no one else I can tell you that [. . .] until today I have not seen anyone that I met to talk about how we were together in the church, talk about this history; I could not find anyone. I don’t know if I alone got out, yet there was a multitude of people. That ended; it happened in one day. They started from nine in the morning until six in the evening. We [. . .] we went to the schools and as soon I got there, they had already given me clothes to wear, it was around 8.00 pm. I saw everyone leaving to search for bushes to hide in. Some people I didn’t know came to me and said, ‘We’re going to Burundi.’ I did not know Burundi; I did not even know the back of the church. I told them, ‘I’m coming with you.’ I looked at a young man among them and thought to myself, ‘I must stick with this one because I don’t know the way.’ After a few minutes we heard screams. When all of them ran, I also ran in the group going to Burundi. When we reached the district, we found soldiers shooting. We split up but I was holding onto the boy. I saw that he was ours and that there was no problem. We went down and got to Nyiramatuntu and circled around. Because we didn’t know the way, we found ourselves in the morning back at the same place where there used to be a high school. In the morning we left, saying we were headed south to a place called Musenyi. We walked for some time; I stayed with that boy only. We reached Musenyi. That was on the 13th. When we got to Musenyi we lived in a banana plantation belonging to the Hutu from there. As we were on the plantation, they would come and get bananas to eat and as they walked they would say,

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‘Are there any Tutsi in there?’ and whatnot [. . .] After around four days, he said ‘No, we will die here, let’s cross these papyrus plants.’ We started through the swamp. I remember we got there after a week, at around 6.00 pm. Entering it, it was raining a bit. We saw Hutu on this side and that with machetes in the papyrus plants. We went back somewhere in the middle of the papyrus plants. I had a cough because of all the rain . . . I started coughing and heard Interahamwe here ask, ‘Who is coughing?’ They would answer each other saying, ‘Maybe it’s our people up there.’ After a while I would cough again and the ones on this side would also wonder about it and get confused. When night came, we headed to the papyrus plants. It took us three days to finish crossing it. The boy was tired. We had a machete. Sometimes he would be tired and we were unable to find the way, so I would take the machete and cut stuff, making a way for him. We crossed the swamp and after three days we arrived in Nyiramatuntu. You had to walk at night because it was impossible to do so in the morning. We found hundreds of Interahamwe. It was where they had all assembled! He told me ‘Whatever happens, if we don’t get away from them, they’ll find us tomorrow and kill us here. So let me ask you: do you feel brave?’ I said, ‘Have you not seen it? I am really brave.’ He said, ‘We are going to pass through them.’ He was wearing a coat that reached to his feet and he said, ‘Do you see the coat I’m wearing?’ He also had a machete, ‘Do you see that I have a machete? We are going to pass through them as though we are also Interahamwe so that they don’t see the difference between them and us.’ It was dark at 2.00 am. He asked me ‘Do you know how Hutu sit?’ I said I didn’t know. He said, ‘Hutu sit with force, they cough and spit. When we get there in the middle I will sit and you also have to sit. I will be turning this machete around like how they’re doing. I will put in all of my strength and they will see that we’re with them.’ I said, ‘You won’t leave me.’ I felt like if he left me I would not find my way. ‘You won’t leave me. If we are to die, we will die, and if we are to survive, we will survive.’ It was us two in a field full of them. We passed through and they also passed by us. He started coughing and spitting; I also tried. I did not have the strength to do it but we passed through them and they were as many as this grass. We passed through all of them and thanked God. We arrived at the hospital and he said, ‘Let me tell you Claire, I am tired’ [. . .] First I asked him, ‘Where are you from?’ He told me that he was from Karambi, Matthew’s family. I knew Matthew’s place but I did not know that boy. He said,

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‘There is a small forest up there in Kayumba like that one we’re looking at. I am tired of living in the bushes, I am going up there.’ I told him, ‘I cannot run. I will stay and live in the bushes.’ We said goodbye and when we reached the ADPR hospital he left.4 What I found out is that he was not there for even two days. He failed to get away. After we separated, I started my life alone. It was around 8.00 pm; I was looking across a field of cassava and saw a woman with three children. I said, ‘Thank God I have found other people I can be with.’ I went to her. When I got to her she started crying saying to me, ‘I had eight children. They have killed five, now look I only have three left.’ As she was still telling me about it, Interahamwe who were standing nearby said, ‘Look, there’s a group of people there.’ They came running and when they did, I jumped out. When I jumped out, a little girl came out too and we ran together. They ran after us. We ran for about 100 metres and we were ahead of them, but they were about to catch up. One of them said, ‘Why are we running after these little girls when there are many boys back there. These ones won’t even make it far. Why don’t we start with the other ones?’ They all went back to kill the woman and her children. I was running with the little girl and we saw a bush and went in. So began the life of moving around with a child. I was not going to leave the child; she was a girl without a mother or anyone. We lived in the bush, for how long? For about four or five days; I don’t remember. I would lie there with bullets flying everywhere. One time we got tired walking to Kayumaba and I didn’t know what to do. I saw a grass-thatched house nearby. I saw a girl weeding a field. The old man was called Deo; I think that is what I heard them say at the time. I said, ‘I’m dying,’ as I approached. The old man saw me and the little girl and he signalled to us. I said either way I’m going with the little girl. When we got there I was limping from thorns. He said, ‘Why don’t you sit and remove those thorns?’ I said, ‘All right.’ He said, ‘I had a Tutsi wife. They killed her at the church.’ I felt like there was a little bit we could both relate to, that they killed his wife. He called the girl who was weeding the field and told her, ‘Why don’t you take them inside the house, give them water to drink and remove those thorns from them?’ The girl was singing gospel songs. She took us inside with the little girl. When I got inside I found more people that they had hidden. There was a man called Kizibera, a woman and her daughter, a boy called Werabe and there were people under that old man’s bed. She put us there too. The girl brought a needle

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and started removing my thorns but while we were there, we would hear screams. In the evening I wanted to sleep. The old man said, ‘No, you will not sleep in my house. All of you here will sleep outside.’ We went outside and slept in his banana plantation. I slept with the little girl. The child stuck with me and I had become like a mother to her. Others slept at the side of the house. They brought us food, yams and other stuff to eat, everyone in the bush they were in. We were there for almost a week. We left when the Interahamwe found out that that man was hiding people. We would spend the day inside his house but go out at night. On that day, I felt afraid to go inside the house. I went outside and sat behind his kitchen. The little girl came and sat there with me. Around thirty minutes later, many Interahamwe came and stood in front of the house blowing a whistle saying, ‘We want everyone hiding in this house.’ They had entered the house when I went outside. When I heard that, we jumped the fence as we were behind the kitchen. The little girl and I ran. We ran and when we got a bit ahead they ran after us because there were many of them. Again I said, ‘My God, have you let us go?’ That is what I kept telling myself. Then I heard their leader call them telling them to go back and first kill the ones in the house and that there was no reason to go after the ones outside. They went back, entered the house and killed them. They did all kinds of terrible things. You can imagine finding people in a house and sending them out, what they could do. They did everything they wanted in the field and killed them. I was once again just with that little girl. Where did we go back to? I went back to the bush with my little girl. There were reeds. We went and lived there. Those reeds had sweet potatoes planted by them. They would come to pick the sweet potatoes. They would come saying, ‘My God, if I found a Tutsi in here . . . Why don’t we hunt in these grasses, we cannot fail to find Tutsi here. But if I found a Tutsi in here I’d burn them.’ They would say those things. When they said it twice, I told the girl, ‘It’s risky here. We should leave.’ At around 8.00 pm we got up and left. We walked, wandering together, and found ourselves back in ADPR here at the hospital. At 2.00 am we found ourselves among a group of Interahamwe, Hutu – around ten men. With the little girl I said, ‘It’s over.’ There was nothing else to say. They said,‘Stop there.’ There was a teacher, I think called Mukamasabo, who used to teach at APEBU,5 who’d been killed at the same place a few days back. They killed her brutally! She was a big, tall person and when they saw her

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they celebrated. I fell among them and they said, ‘Sit there.’ We sat among men at 2.00 am. They asked, ‘Where are you from?’ I said my father’s name. When I said it, I heard one of them say ‘Oh Goooddd!’ He used the name they used to call me at home saying, ‘I know this one. I was a servant at their home. They were nice people. Their father never did anything to us. He was like a Hutu, (that is what he said: ‘He loved everyone. He did not know Hutu from Tutsi, so I lived there many years’). I did not even know this person. It was at 2.00 am. We were dead. They were all surrounding us: ‘Have mercy. These kids will not go beyond there anyway. Let them die tomorrow,’ but they treated us well. He ran off and brought black tea in a cup and told the others, ‘Let no one touch them. I know them. Give them that tea and when they’re done they can leave.’ I drank black tea with the girl. Then he said, ‘Now go, you will die elsewhere.’ Yet again, we had escaped from the hands of Hutu face-to-face with all the things they needed to kill us, but he said he knew my father and he let us go. There are times I count as having personally survived. When we were at the old man’s house, there were times he would tell us to go outside during the daytime so that they didn’t find us in the house. I went to a banana tree, got the leaves, covered myself in them, stood in them and called it hiding. Then I saw an Interahamwe wearing a cap and holding a machete come and stand in front of me where I was like this. He asked, ‘Are you hiding?’ I felt dead. He said, ‘Tell me, is this hiding? You’re lucky: you have met one of your kind. I came here as Tutsi and they don’t know. I took the machete so that I can have peace. Leave this place.’ Hear that! It was God. If he had been Hutu, I would have been in trouble. He said, ‘I left them no more than three minutes ago.’ I ran out and, when I got ahead, I went to another bush. After three minutes they indeed got there. When they got to the banana tree, the way when you sit the grass sort of gets flattened and whatnot, they said, ‘This grass, someone left here just now. Look for them! They can’t have gone far from here.’ They cut down all the banana trees that were here. They went through all the bushes. The other one looked at them and kept quiet and they could not find me. Hear that! I say this is another thing to thank God for. The child and I saw another house and after an hour I heard a knock on the door and people saying, ‘Give us all the people you have here.’ They knocked on the living room door. We were lucky they did not go to both doors. We went

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out through the back door and entered their kitchen. When we got inside, I found there a young boy who used to be my neighbour. He was called Théogène from Nzakamwita’s family. He said, ‘Claire, you’re still alive? Those people who knocked are going to kill us all. Come and we can go back outside.’ We went back outside. We ran towards some bushes close by. They went inside the house and asked, ‘Are you hiding people?’ They answered. ‘Honestly, no.’ Where we were, close by was a house that belonged to a commander or a soldier [. . .] he was from here in Gako. There were people hiding in that house: there was an old man, an old woman, three children and a pregnant woman. The maid who worked in that house saw that things were tough, especially for the woman. They had put her posters on trees everywhere saying that whoever could find her would be rewarded. The maid hid them: the old man, the old woman, the children and the pregnant woman. Where I was hiding with the little girl, I would see the old man go to the toilet at dawn and go back in. At the last minute, which I think was the last day of wanting to survive, as guns were being shot here all night, when Interahamwe had started fleeing, as we were there in the bush in the morning at five I said, ‘Why don’t I go to those people in that house?’ I went. We heard guns and ran. The little girl ran this way and I ran that way, and we lost each other and I did not see her again. At the last minute I lost her. I went to that house where the old man was and begged, ‘Please open the door for me.’ The old man looked at me through a hole in the door and saw that I was a refugee, opened the door and I went inside. After I got inside, the sound of guns and people running away, others running with cows, jerricans and [. . .] I entered the house. I struck bad luck when I entered that house: the woman went into labour. I entered after thirty minutes because Hutu had started getting scared and had come to sit at the front porch of that house. They believed it belonged to their leader who was an important soldier. With their weapons they sat there saying, ‘We are dead. The cockroaches have come. It is over.’ Then the woman went into labour! At some point she forgot that we were in a war and she started making a noise. 10.00 am came, 11.00 am came. The people had become a crowd saying, ‘Even though we’re going to die, if only we could get one Tutsi to take out our pain on.’ At 1.00 pm, I was very afraid and I started to regret what brought me into the house and I went to the old man and said, ‘Please let me out.’ He asked, ‘Where will you go?’ He had a bible and he

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was praying and he said, ‘Don’t worry, these are our last minutes. The guns I hear are from the RPF forces, not these people.’ People were sitting at the door, the woman was in labour. After a while, the old woman came to me and said, ‘It seems like this woman is about to give birth. When she does, there is a machete there. I will immediately cut the cord, but you should also carry the baby and cover its mouth because when babies are born they cry. If it cries, those people will kill us all.’ I said, ‘All right.’ At around 3.00 pm, the woman started to kneel and we approached her; the woman with the machete to cut the cord and I was going to take the baby. What happened was God’s mercy; when the time to give birth came, I don’t know where the RPF forces were, but they shot a gun to frighten people. When they did, the woman got scared and the baby came out and I held it like they had said and covered its mouth. All the people who were outside ran away from the bullet. We stayed in the house and I couldn’t do it and the baby cried. The woman could not even hear anymore; she was unconscious. The old man was confused and praying with the bible. The soldiers that had been shooting heard a baby cry, came running and knocked. We were scared to open. The old man said, ‘It’s over. If we are to die, we will die. Let me open the door.’ He opened it and in came soldiers with much compassion and [. . .] we almost fainted because when they came in we thought they were Rwandan army soldiers. At last it was the end. They comforted us, took the baby and [. . .] we were rescued like that. During that time, what I feel hurt me the most is, I had my mother’s family. She had four or five siblings and they all died, and my mother died and their children also died. That means there is not one person left from my mother’s family. That is the one thing that left something of a mark on me because it was a family that I loved. They all had children. The children died and their parents died too. My mother’s immediate family, her siblings, no one survived. That is the thing that tugs at my heart a lot. Something else that hurt me is that when the war ended, I was the one there at CERAI, I found that where my mother died, her kitenge was still there. I don’t even know how I saw it and I screamed. When I screamed, someone took it and did not give it back. Her clothes were at the place where she was killed; I found her clothes there. Those things come back to me and it hurts. Another thing that left a mark on me is, for all those things to happen and someone is left just like this, you are just there, looking at

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yourself. I feel that is what hurt me. Staying in this world or behaving well so that you can create another family: it is a difficult thing to do. When they found us in that house with the woman who had just given birth, they entered and we were beside ourselves with fear thinking that they were Habyarimana’s soldiers but they immediately introduced themselves, ‘Fear not, it is us.’ We saw compassion and they carried us. They also carried the baby. When you lifted up your eyes, you could see that their faces really were different; you could see that you were looking at a fellow human being. Before, you saw people as animals. Even though I was grieving, I thought to myself, ‘I have been rescued.’ Life was difficult and expensive but I had just been rescued and felt like nothing on earth interested me anymore; whether I got food or not, it did not hurt me. The place I would sleep at, the things I would do [. . .] there are people I could get a house with and we would sit in it together. Sometimes there were people who would go to these hills to [. . .] they called it [. . .] to look for food. I did not go anywhere, I said to myself I would never go back there [. . .] I felt like, apart from sitting, I did not have any other direction for life and I felt like I had no interest in anything else; I was just there. I felt like I had nothing to say; I would just stare. I never got the chance to know the ones who killed my loved ones. The one who killed my mother, except for that fellow Gasitari who had arrived, I cannot tell you anyone else because the people who came were from Burundi and the [. . .] I wasn’t there where the children died, I never got to know who killed my father in Ngenda. So I don’t know what I can tell you that I think of them. I even try to not think about them. I do not spend time on them, I do not love them, I do not hate them, I do not talk about them, they do not waste my time; I am living my new life that I built. Every time I think about the genocide, I feel grief rise in me. Even though someone can try to hide it, try to stand strong, the genocide against the Tutsi was a tragedy, grief, pain, disgrace; it is so overwhelming you cannot find a name for it. Yes. All the people who killed my loved ones killed them far from me and I could not know who touched who. I was not able to get the names of the ones who came home. I used to work in IBUKA6 and would hear about the people who were beaten with machetes, people who [. . .] I felt like I was still suspicious of them

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and apart from that, it is hard to start something new but easy to redo something you have already done. Today, I am not convinced that things are over. Even when I see them, I distance myself from them. They do not know it, but I never trusted them again; I don’t know if the trust will come. I cannot single out one person to accuse but I put them all in that category7 and I don’t know how it will end. I’m grateful to God. He got me through a very difficult time but he got me through it with peace and at the end I was Claire. My body is whole, thank God. May He never remove me from that sash He put me in because the journey is still long. Since then I have taken many steps. Because the genocide took place before I finished school, I went back and finished school. I went to university and graduated. I got a home, I got children, I work and we’re starting to think about building a home, and we have already started with the house. We try to make the most of it, we got the place cultivated, we [. . .] I feel like I have made progress; I have grown. We manage. We are no longer occupied with just ourselves like before, because now we have children we look after who have different problems. I feel we have made progress. Yes. I thank God for [. . .] others have a lot of things that stayed with them: there are some who are sick, some have [. . .] all the things I went through, all the times those people almost got me, it was God [. . .] God’s hedge protected me and I was able to pass through them without getting caught. I feel [. . .] there was grace upon me. I met those people many times and fell in their hands, but I found myself leaving in peace. Yes, I have hope for tomorrow, even though it has that grief and pain in it. Hope is there because all of those things that I have achieved are helping me to manage my tomorrow: I am giving birth, my children are my family, I work and plan; it is a lot of things. I have lots of things that I am planning to the point that tomorrow no longer scares me. We were all burdened but there are some who are more burdened than others. They face more severe consequences including sickness, those who stay with children fathered by perpetrators, children who live alone and so forth. But what I can say is that everyone has their pain and the weight of the consequences of the genocide on them, what I can say to each and every one is to keep going because we have to move forward no matter what. Nothing can take us back and there is no reason why we should. We also should not stop

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where we are. Everyone should try and use the strength left in them, surely everyone has at least a little bit in themselves. And we should continue to be there for the people who left, we should not let them fade or be forgotten. And nothing should ruin their progress just because they’re not here.

Abaharanira Amahoro This testimony is given by members of the association Abaharanira Amahoro (Peace Seekers). The association is composed of genocide survivors, those who participated in the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and those who did not.

Mukankaka Françoise This is the unity and reconciliation association Abaharanira Amahoro. We have different activities: farming vegetables, potatoes, cassava, maize and beans. Even though they have not started growing yet, there are beans there. We have some old women who are genocide survivors and no one to take care of them. We give some of what we harvest to orphan children who are genocide survivors who also cannot help themselves. We sell the rest for money and we put it in the bank or we divide it among ourselves depending on the problems that we have. My name is Mukankaka Françoise. I was born in 1972. I am a member of the unity and reconciliation association called Abaharanira Amahoro. I have four children. I got married after the 1994 genocide. Now I am a cleaner at the genocide memorial in Cyanika. I’m in our association as a genocide survivor. But we have different groups. There is a group of genocide survivors, a group of those who encouraged their parents to confess and accept responsibility for their crimes, there are those who participated in the genocide and there are those who were left behind by history.8 I was one of the people who encouraged others to confess their crimes and accept responsibility for them when this was still Karaba District. I used to go into different sectors encouraging families of people who participated in the killings and encouraging the survivors to give forgiveness to those who came to ask for it.

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For someone who doesn’t know our association, I would tell them that our association has positive outcomes. For example, where we were living, where our association works, our houses were in ruins, and now I can happily tell all Rwandans who are listening to me that our association has changed things, because I couldn’t even talk to people where I used to live. Now, we spend time together, working together. For example, in our association, we cultivate crops. We do a lot of activities. We build houses for survivors, we help old women because there are some of them in our association, and we help those who were left behind by history. We are in a very good place. We’re encouraging people. Even though some people have confessed and accepted responsibility for their crimes, we still hold meetings and encourage other people to confess and accept responsibility for their offences, and we still encourage the survivors that it is necessary to forgive despite what they feel. I would then tell them that our association has achieved something for the members and our district. We have planted a tree of peace. We’re the ones who planted that tree. We planted it in partnership with the sector, genocide survivors, those who were left behind by history and those who confessed and accepted responsibility for their crimes; we’re happy when we see that tree. There are times when we come here during meetings and we take a photo of it with a genocide survivor and someone who has confessed and accepted responsibility for his crimes. We can say that that is a good thing that we have achieved. When we have more funds, we plan to look for more plots of land here and there. We have a place in mind where survivors’ houses were ruined and there are many orphaned children who cannot live there. We want to rent the place and farm there.

Kanamugire Venuste My name is Kanamugire Venuste. I was born in Cyanika Sector, Gitega Cell, Gasharu village, Nyamagabe District in the southern province. I represent the survivors in this sector. On a monthly basis, we have activities that we all participate in and we are able to thank the government of unity for where we are now, having met with those people who hurt us and to still be together now. As the government of unity had encouraged us, we were able to approach

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those people who had hurt us and committed crimes against us. That’s why we came to this sector of Cyanika. We came as a group and we started this association. In 2008, we had just recruited those who had been left behind by history and those who had hurt us as a way to rebuild ourselves. I became president during that time and I’m still the president. We were able to increase in number as more people joined after seeing the benefits of our association. We were able to hold meetings. The meetings take place where we farm because we go there together. We’re currently farming beans, carrots and maize. What I’m personally grateful for, as well as those who I represent, is the government of unity for bringing us together, because they played a role in it so that we meet the other people and are one again. We cultivate for each other, but there are also people who work together. We sell the harvest. What the association helps us with is that we are able to meet and talk to those people and not be disgusted by each other. Basically, we are one. We take what we harvest to the market and other people are able to buy it. Another thing is that people see us together. Before they used to think we would never approach or talk to them, that we could never be united, but now we are on the same page.

Stefan Mugemangango My name is Stefan Mugemangango. I live in Gitega village, Gitega Cell, Cyanika Sector. I was imprisoned in 2007. At first they had sentenced me to seven years, but Mukantaganzwa said that those who admitted and accepted their responsibility for their crimes would serve a sixth of the total sentence, which was sixteen months – a year and four months. I obeyed everything.9 My confession was that I had gone with a group of attackers and I saw people die, that is, being an accomplice. I understood that when I got my confession paperwork. I explained it and they wrote it on paper. When they started Gacaca, I explained things as I had seen them. I didn’t leave anything out. I even told them what they didn’t know, what the survivors didn’t know. I told you I was an accomplice because people died while I watched. If they had not killed them, I would have done it. This is the act of complicity that I am talking about.

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After joining this association, I found that they taught good things and I genuinely enjoyed it and the animalistic heart I used to have gradually faded. I thank the government of unity of Rwanda. As Kagame taught us, I found it very pleasant; we have been enlightened. Yes, because when I look at you, I feel like I see myself in you. For example, I now know that I am Rwandan and the genocide survivors also now feel that they are Rwandans as well. There is no more ethnicity, since it was the cause of people turning against each other. Before I confessed, I used to feel really bad and ashamed, but ever since I confessed and accepted responsibility for my crimes and asked for forgiveness, I have felt very relieved in my heart. We are always together, with those I hurt; we talk. I don’t have land but they loan me small plots to cultivate. That is how far our unity and reconciliation has gone. They help me and I help them. I tell them what is bothering me and they help me and I help them with their problems; we help each other. That is a very positive step that we have taken.

Twagirashema Anastase My name is Twagirashema Anastase. I was born in 1982. My village is Birambo. I joined this association to encourage those who killed to confess and accept responsibility for their crimes. This was after hearing the announcement given by the president that the offenders that he or she offended should unite, ask for forgiveness and be forgiven. I approached my father where he was in prison and advised him to confess to the ones he hurt and ask for their forgiveness and to be forgiven. We talked, but it was difficult at first. He did not understand it very well and I went back another time. He agreed and confessed, and the ones he hurt forgave him. They now live in peace. I felt relieved in my heart. The association has helped us achieve a lot. We cultivate beans, maize, potatoes and cassava. We all help each other and are united. We are now united; whether it is the offender or the offended, we live in harmony. The reason I needed to encourage others to confess is because when I passed people, they would say, ‘Look, the daughter of Ngendabanga that Interahamwe has passed by.’ Their words stuck in their throat and they were suspicious. It doesn’t happen anymore and now I’m doing well.

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Abunze Ubumwe Abunze Ubumwe (The United Ones) is a unity and reconciliation association. Here Genovieve Kangabe describes what they achieve in their association.

Kangabe Genovieve My name is Kangabe Genovieve. I was born in 1977. I’m married and I have a child. The association Abunze Ubumwe was created in 2007 and gathers together genocide survivors and ex-prisoners who have confessed and accepted responsibility for their crimes and pled guilty. At that time, the association had no name. We were trained by the ‘La Benevolencija’ project,10 which taught us about unity and reconciliation, resolving and ending conflict, as well as helping survivors who showed signs of being heavily affected. Once we had been trained, we decided to join together and form an association and to call it Abunze Ubumwe, which means ‘the united ones’. We work in Bukomeye Cell, Taba village in Mukura Sector. We have twenty members. We are one eye.11 Although there are lots of us, we work together without any issues among us towards a common goal. We had gone through difficult times because of the genocide against the Tutsi. At that time, there were a lot of suspicions and troubles on both sides. Even though we only focused on genocide survivors before the ‘La Benevolencija’ training, afterwards we realized that the training was for both sides. That’s what made the authorities sit down and talk – they thought, ‘If we bring these people together, it will result in something.’ And indeed, it did. At first, there was no eye contact between people. There was division. There is no denying that. Although we had all been brought together, everyone felt like they belonged to a certain group, because they weren’t on the same page as each other. After knowing how conflicts start and how people categorize themselves into different groups that lead to harm, hence the genocide, and after recognizing the signs of troubled people, discussions arose and we found out that both sides felt troubled. That was when we decided and said, ‘Let’s help each other learn and spread this message that we’ve been given.’ Even though we had all received this message . . . no one can teach others before they’ve taught themselves. We decided to heal ourselves first and then heal others. That’s how the association was created.

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For me, the others know my testimony. My journey was long and sharing it has freed me. It also gave me hope to live and to see that my life goes on. That’s how the association has helped to improve my life. The other thing is that I no longer keep things to myself; now, we’re able to talk about them. When we talk and open up in the association, we’re able to heal ourselves and to heal others. When I stand up and talk about my journey, giving a testimony – for example, when we commemorate – everyone hears how I talk about it and how I’ve accepted it and how I am able to say . . . I used to have a goal that even my grandchildren would know how bad the Hutu were. That is the goal I had. Now, my life has direction. This is what the association has done for me. When people here ask to hear genocide survivors talk . . . they listen to me because they’ve also been through what I talk about and this helps them to be free as well. We partner with ‘La Benevolencija’. They’re also the ones who brought us together and gave us a name for our association. We were selected to represent the Southern Province in Kigali in 2011 in a play. The prize was 200,000 Rwandan francs.12 We came first in the whole of Rwanda. What Rwandans can learn from us is simply to work hand in hand towards a common goal. Another thing they can learn is to be free and to liberate themselves, and to work towards development, because when you are repressed you can’t see progress. When you are free and understand what happened to you and accept your neighbour, all of this works together to bring about development and direction. The association has been able to achieve a lot: they gave us a field down there as a way of bringing us together to carry out our activities, including farming a chosen crop or vegetable. We’re now growing maize in eight plots. We also have a savings account. The genocide happened, but there was something that caused it. Poverty has a way of creating conflict. That’s how we’re able to progress.

Josephine Dusabimana Josephine Dusabimana rescued people who were being hunted during the genocide. She lives on the shores of Lake Kivu in Gitesi. This is a remarkable story of rescue, where Josephine took great risks for herself and her family when she courageously helped people escape.

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My name is Dusabimana Josephine. I was born in 1957. I was born in Congo, but I left Congo at a young age between the ages of ten and twelve. Ever since, I never returned to Congo. The time came in the year 1975 when I got married here in Gitesi. The genocide happened when I was in Gitesi, it was called Bwishyura Sector, Kibuye Cell and the village was Kibuye as well. During the genocide, we lived in difficult conditions, we were living near a forest-like area. Whenever people were crawling away, they would crawl towards our home. At that time, to receive a Tutsi at your place meant that you were accepting the same death as them. That’s why people were afraid, why they refused to take people in and would sometimes even chase them away. The killings continued. When the genocide started, we thought this was a war against everyone, so everyone wanted to look for ways to flee. As for the leaders, can I really call them leaders? They were just authoritarians, they were ruling in a bad way. They said that every Hutu should remain at home while Tutsi should go to the stadium, the church and some other area where they could be protected. Some immediately made plans to go where they had been directed; that is why a lot of them died there. The few who were not able to reach there would hide in different places if they could. I was at home when I saw a man called Fidele who asked me where the road was that leads to Higiro’s place. I asked if he wanted to go there and he said yes. I said, ‘Don’t go.’ Higiro was my brother-in-law and their fathers were siblings. I said, ‘Don’t go there,’ and he replied, ‘What should I do then?’ I told him not to go there as people are full of hatred. I told him to come to my house instead and not go to Higiro’s place. Higiro was his employee. He entered the house and sat on the floor and I immediately shut the door and went back outside to do my usual household chores like washing dishes. After a short while, I went back inside the house. When I entered, he told me he was very thirsty. When I asked what he wanted to drink, and said, ‘Water?’ he said he needed a beer. I told him he could only have it if I went down to where they sold it. He gave me 400 Rwandan francs to go and buy it. I shut the door again. On my way, I saw a person looking shocked, watching people running after others while they were being butchered with machetes. I said, ‘Pierre, why are you standing here looking at Tutsi being killed and yet you are one of them?’ I told him to go past the sorghum field to reach my home, to open the door carefully and that he would meet another person

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there. I told him to go and sit with him because I was going to buy a beer for him. He did what I told him, and he reached my home and went inside. At the place where I was going to buy a beer, they asked me when we had started drinking alcohol. I said I had and they said that I must’ve become rich. I said that there’s no problem if we just drink a little. I paid for two beers and went back home. When I got there, I pushed the door open slightly and served the beer to the two men. They couldn’t use a bottle opener, as we didn’t have one, so they figured it out for themselves, and then I went back outside. My husband was still alive. He came home. I said to myself that if I told him it was me who brought those men to the house, he would shout at me. Then I told him that Fidele and Pierre were looking for him. When he asked where they were, I said they were inside the house. He opened the door and greeted them. After shaking hands with them, he brought them out of the living room because it was too small. I went to look for food as they were hungry. They spent the night there, and spent a week staying inside the house. I went out . . .The killings had intensified! A lot! My husband said, ‘This war is showing no sign of ending, one day we might be caught with those two men and be killed.’ I then told him that my father had a boat and that it was located at Mariri. I said that it was at my cousin’s place. I decided to leave in the morning to go and check if the boat was still there. I found the boat was still there. I then asked how the boat would reach our place, and he said he didn’t know. I told him that I needed to give him some people that he could help me rescue. I said they were uncles and not Tutsi. I asked him if he could help them with transportation. He then asked me how he could take the boat in the storm by himself and take those men up to Congo. Then he said that he would look for other men to help him take the boat. I asked how we would manage and he asked if they had money. I replied that they did not. I said to him that I would write an invoice or a note saying that I had sold my goats to him, as he had to take care of them. I told him that if possible, he could give me the money and we would sign that they were sold in order to help me move those men. He said that was no problem. After writing the note, I left and told the men at my home that the boat was ready and said that they had to make a plan to leave during the night. They agreed. The night came and we had to accompany them to make sure they arrived safely. I then thought, ‘What if the person who asked me to give him money then kills these men?’

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I then called Pierre to talk to him just outside. Once outside, I asked him how I would know that they had arrived safely. I said that Hutu had become cruel and that I doubted they’d get there safely. Pierre asked, ‘How can we let you know?’ Then he told me to give him something to keep with him or he would give him something to bring back to me. But what should I give him? He said that he left home like this and he had nothing other than trousers and a jacket that he had put on, no coat, but when he put his fingers in his pocket, he found a tennis ball. He said that if they arrived safely, he would bring back this tennis ball and that it would be the proof, and I agreed. He took them and they arrived safely. He brought back the tennis ball and gave it to us and that is how we knew the people arrived safely. God helped us. After three days, other people came. The first one to arrive was a man, then two girls arrived after him, and their father was a school headmaster. One of the daughters told us that he had just been killed at the stadium and that they had left home after putting a motorcycle in a pit and covering it with soil. I told her to forget about material things. They stayed for a long time, as we had no transport to help them. We were hearing screams from the hills, people being killed, people humiliating others, children were scared. When one of the people hidden in my house asked me if I’d heard when the genocide would stop (because I was the only one going outside), the man kept silent and I wondered what to tell them. I was worried that they would also be scared if I said it would go on for longer. Then I told the children that I’d heard the war would stop within three days, only three days and it would be over. One of the children asked me if they would still be alive in three days. I replied to him that they would still be alive and that nothing would harm them. Then there came a time when we also got scared and my husband took me aside and said, ‘You and your Tutsi will bring trouble. Once they come to kill them, I will say that it’s you who brought them and they will kill you, or I will also leave this home and let you stay with them alone.’ Then I asked him, ‘How can we turn away the people escaping who come to us? How can you react as a human and also as a parent?’ He then said, ‘Now things are becoming serious, do you know what is going on outside?’ I replied, ‘Yes, I do.’ I said that I had eyes and I could clearly see what was happening but that we had to be patient. I said that I would look for ways to move them from here and that, even if they drowned in the storm, that would be better than being killed

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here. I decided I would go to my family home the next morning to look for a boat. I decided to go home even though it was a long way. If I could count the time it took me to get there, it would probably be around four hours; it would take less time for someone who walks faster. I got home and my father asked me what brought me there; I said I am just here. When asked if the people had been killed, I replied that they were Hutu and that they even had Hutu IDs. Then he asked me again what had brought me there. I said that their uncles came home to hide there too and that I was looking for a way to take them in a boat and send them to Zaire [DRC]. He replied that all the boats had been taken and there was not a single one left, and he said he was also worried about how he would go back to Kibuye. I said, ‘Oh my God, what will I do when I get home?’ I started to wonder how I would tell my husband that there’s no boat and I was worried he would turn on me. I was just thinking and saying to myself, ‘What will I do?’ He offered me some paddles. He asked how I would take them with me; I thought I would just carry them on my shoulders for I did not know how that was done. He then asked what I would tell the militia if they came across me with the paddles on my shoulders and asked me what I was going to do with them. ‘Where will you tell them you’re going?’ I replied that it wasn’t a problem. He then sent my sisters to cut some potato leaves from our compound and they brought them. He took the leaves and the ropes, measured the paddles alongside them to see their length, and whenever he could see one of the edges he hid it using the ropes and leaves. They tied it tight and told my brother to try and take a small boat and paddle slowly in order to take me some of the way. Once I got home, I met some women sitting in front of the house, but I wanted nobody to know what I was doing as it could have consequences for me. I greeted them and exchanged a few words to avoid them finding out what I had on my head. I excused myself in order to go and put them behind the house and came back to chat with them. I came back and started telling them that I had been planting and my crop was filled with weeds so I wanted to plant it elsewhere. I went around the back of my house and put my paddles on the ground, opened the door and greeted them as if I was whispering. When they asked me if I had found the boat, I quietly said that I had (but I had not found it). They said, ‘Oh, praise God.’

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Then I took a bucket, as if I was going to fetch water, and went down to Lake Kivu; I stood up and started thinking. God turned my eyes: next to me was a metal boat owned by a man called Kanyenzi; he was the youth coordinator. I stared at that metal boat, went down near the lake and found a padlock on it, locked together with a chain, and I said to myself that at least I had found something. I went back home and put the bucket down and entered the house. My husband asked me if I had found a boat and I replied that I had. I said that I had brought the paddles. He asked me if I would be carrying people on the paddles! He asked me how I would manage to get through the banana plantation without being caught and killed. I replied that I would go and cut those banana trunks and show them how to use them to sit on and go. I thought I had spoken to him in a rude tone and that he would take it as disrespectful, that he’d go out and tell the militia where the people were and that I’d see them coming. I said to myself that maybe he would think I had disrespected him. I called him and talked to him with a smile and showed him respect. When he asked me how I would manage, I replied that I already had the boat and when he asked me where it was, I replied that I’d found the Kanyenzi boat but it was tightly locked. He asked me if I had found our family boat. I replied that all the boats had gone. I said that the Kanyanzi boat was tightly locked with a chain and a padlock. He sucked his teeth and asked how we would manage that boat. He said that he didn’t want to involve himself in my activities and that he didn’t want to be killed by the lake. He said that a man called Mbanzabigwi would shoot him as he had a gun, and that he didn’t want me to involve him in this. He then said that he would give me a saw to try and cut the padlock by myself. He said that that’s the only thing he could do to help me. I said no problem. That evening, I told my sons to come and I gave a knife to the oldest and told him to come to Lake Kivu with me. Then I told the younger one to jump in the lake and swim at the same time, laughing loudly so that no one would notice what we were doing. I told the oldest he should start cutting the chain and whenever he felt tired, the younger one would come and help him out and he should head to the lake; I would be cutting too. We would be swapping with each other until the chain was cut. The older boy replaced his brother and laughed as planned, diving and swimming with energy and the younger brother laughed loudly so his noise drowned out the sound of the metal that

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we were cutting. The kids were swimming happily, and after a long while cutting, I took the chain, cut once, and it was broken the second time. It was not me who cut it; it was God. As I had no strength to cut that thing, it was only God. I told my boys in a whisper that we should try pushing it slowly from the hill towards the lake and if it reaches the water, we’d be lucky and if we didn’t make it, we would be in trouble. We pushed and it was as if it was stuck to the hill. We pushed, failed, pushed, then took a break in the meantime. We pushed again and it got to the shore of the lake. We pushed again and again, and finally it was at the water and I thanked God. I told my boys we could go back home. We set off and when we were nearby, I told them to go and get the paddles and walk by the lake, trying to hide from the lights near the road so as not to be noticed and get shot. The kids did what I told them but after taking the boat near TRAFIPRO,13 they immediately headed to their aunt’s. They went there and stayed there, she served them food and they forgot to come and tell us that they had taken the boat near TRAFIPRO. Their father came back telling me that the kids I had sent to bring the boat had been shot. I asked, ‘Is that true?’ He said yes. Without wondering how he knew it without moving from the house, I replied, ‘If they shot them then they shot them; the others who are being killed are also human beings. Do you have a problem with that?’ I thought it was true even though I hadn’t heard gunshots and even though he hadn’t moved from the house. Then the other people got scared and I told them they shouldn’t be scared. If the kids had been shot, there was nothing we could do about it. While we were still chatting, we heard the kids knocking on the door. I asked who it was and the oldest replied that it was them, they were home and I was amazed. I couldn’t get angry at their father for having lied to us. I told the people to get ready to go. As they were hungry, I had roasted some soya and put it in a black plastic bag, gave it to them and told them that they should eat it as well as drink water on their journey. I told those girls that things were serious and that they had to help and paddle fast in order to get to Congo before morning, and if they did paddle slowly, they might get caught at the Rwandan coast. I also told a man called Rutaremara to make them paddle faster and all of them agreed. My kids and I accompanied them to the lake and the man that was with them told us to stop and pray. He prayed for a really long time and when he was done, they got in the boat. I helped them push it. I told the man to let the boat

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glide in the water for a while near the hill. I asked him if he knew how to paddle like he told me; he said yes. They left and God helped them arrive safely. The other man informed me that when they arrived, before they even had any food, they found somebody who bought the boat for 6,000 Rwandan francs. He continued saying that the money helped them afford food and that afterwards, one of the girls found her aunts who lived in Goma and they took her in. The other girl got married to a man whose family had fled to Congo in 1959 and the family had taken care of him till he came back to Rwanda. That man offered me a cow as a sign of gratitude. Another thing that happened is that there was a woman who was shot at my home together with her child. We have no idea who informed them that she was in our home. If my husband had not been there, I would have suspected him. He stayed there and when I was going to cook, I called her to come and warm up by the fire in the kitchen. I told her that when the night comes, the killers go back to their homes. She came and her clothes were wet because it had rained on her. I gave her mine, wrung hers out and put them on the door to dry them (but she was killed later on in my clothes). We came to the living room from the kitchen to eat. I told her to come over and try to breastfeed the baby and give food to the children. We ate together with her and my husband while the children were sitting there on the mat. When we had finished eating, she started feeding the baby and immediately, we heard armed men knocking on the door. When asked who they were, one replied that he was called Ntamitarizo, so my husband opened the door quickly. The man had only keys in his hand and his colleague had a gun. She coughed. Ntamitarizo greeted my husband, the children, and me, but when he saw the woman, he asked where she was from. The woman was scared and the armed man repeated the question. My husband replied that the woman was my sister-in-law. When asked where she lived, I replied that she had been hospitalized and the man demanded her ID. I replied that she was not able to take her card with her to the hospital so she didn’t have it with her. They were even taking people from the hospital in order to kill them. The other armed man did not say anything; he was leaning against the wall without saying anything. Then he said that his wife had been killed. He ordered my husband and me to get out. My husband went out, and he told him to bring a

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chair. The man went out and took the chair. When I stood up, he said that he didn’t mean me, and he ordered me to sit on the floor. My husband went out and was standing near the door. The other woman also went out, holding the baby because she was feeding him. Then my husband was ordered to go back inside the house and bring a chair. He came in and brought it, they placed it in the middle of the door and they ordered the other woman to sit on it. She was shot twice and those two bullets went straight inside the house. The blood splattered inside the house and they killed her. Then my husband was kicked and fell from here to there. He died after a few years. I think he had a recurrent pain where he was kicked and he had surgery on his chest. He was stitched up with a suture but it did not heal and he passed away. I also rescued an eleven-year-old child who was stuck in a bush, and he was so hungry that he looked like he was eight. When I found him, I took him to my home and lived with him till my husband told me to think of somewhere else to take that child. I told the boy not to be scared and he replied that he wouldn’t. I told him that if he was scared and ran away, he would get killed and that he should only let me talk to them. He agreed. I gave him the school uniform of one of my children who was about the same age. I took him with me and we walked till we reached my birthplace. I spent a month with that child. I told my family members not to keep the child inside the house. They should let him walk and play with other kids, for no one knew him in the area and I told them he was my sister-in-law’s child. His father was a Tutsi and was killed, while his mother was a Hutu. The child was taken somewhere else to protect him and I told them that they should let him go and take cows to look for grass. After the genocide, life continued. It continued. The current situation is better! Life had stopped during the genocide. The message I would like to give is that [. . .] especially for those that had a heart as if it was one of animals, is that they should change and understand that there is nothing to gain from making yourself behave like an animal. Probably they have problems either in Rwanda or abroad, wherever they are, they have problems. Their hearts condemn them every day. My message for them is to have love; they should understand that it’s good to love and that it’s beneficial. Loving gives you dignity, you don’t feel ashamed every day; they should understand that they are humans. The way I can link this is that if all

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Rwandans had been taught about Ndi Umunyarwanda, people wouldn’t have been killed in such a way. A few would have been killed, or many even, but not so many. At that time . . . those people were not truly Rwandan. I would class them as animals. Because if they had wanted to, since they had the ability, they would have rescued others.

Gira Ukuri Gira Ukuri (Have Truth) is another association, and Agnes Umuziga is its president. Here she talks about the opportunities for developing relationships and other areas of life that have emerged from their association.

Umuziga Agnes My name is Umuziga Agnes; I am a genocide widow. I was born in 1956. I live in Karama and the genocide happened when I lived in Karama. I am the president of the association Gira Ukuri. I am its president here in Karama Cell. Our association is called Gira Ukuri. It was created after the tragedies that befell this country. It is an association that came when we needed it, because it was a period when people who had conflicts with each other needed a place to meet and resolve their conflicts. It is an association that started in the period when the President of the Republic had granted forgiveness to those who had confessed and accepted their crimes. When they came back to their villages, in the sectors where they lived there was hatred and suspicion among us. You would see the person who killed your loved ones and not want them to even greet you. Sometimes you would get scared and think that he had come back to kill. But because Gacaca had started, I was fortunate to be trained in the Gacaca courts. They taught us the laws that would govern Gacaca; there they taught us that when a person confesses and accepts his crime, he is forgiven. When I heard that, I thought to myself, ‘How will we live with those people?’ So I took the decision and said, ‘What if I created an association so we can meet and talk? Since they say that they confessed and accepted their crimes . . . we can meet and talk, and find out if it is really true.’ That is how we started to connect.

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There was a pastor named Deo. He often visited to pray and he would tell us, ‘Forgiveness is what is important, after all that happened; we lost our loved ones but let’s not lose our souls too.’ We listened to his teaching and it helped us. So, we formed this association and in our meetings we asked ourselves, ‘What should we do?’ We thought it was a hard thing to do, but it became possible. I was blessed to meet the person sitting next to me, who is a survivor from Bugesera. She did not have a place to live, she used to rent houses but she didn’t have money, and she would live with people but they would kick her out with her children, so the administration of our sector gave her this plot of land. And another man who lives down here, whose land was taken over by a health centre, so the administration also gave him land right here and that is how those people met. I can say it was God’s will for them to meet. As for plots of land, I also went to Karama, which is found in Kanombe Sector. They told me, ‘Go to the leader of the sector and if possible get him to sign the land papers and bring them.’ So I went and told the leader and he said, ‘Those sites have been given away, the district has given them away. One of the sites belongs to Rutegera Faraj, who is an ex-prisoner, and the other belongs to Protais Niyongira who was a survivor.’ So I went back and told them and they said, ‘That is very good.’ We started serving God here; we would meet with survivors and ex-prisoners. We asked ourselves, ‘Brothers and sisters what should we do?’ And we said, ‘Let’s make bricks and build for them.’ We started the activity of making bricks. The men among us who were exprisoners cut the bricks, and we, the women who were survivors, carried the mud to where the bricks were being made and they made bricks. We started like that and we enjoyed the activity. A few days later, God blessed us and we got a sponsor. These two houses that you see, we only made their bricks, and we found a sponsor from abroad, he came and helped us; he provided iron sheets and cement and he even provided the materials for the interior of the houses too. Our activity was blessed, it became an activity of unity and reconciliation. It was inaugurated officially, the district and the sector administrators came and they saw the activity was good. We carried on, we lived with each other, and our suspicions started to disappear. If you, a survivor, had a problem and you were neighbours with an ex-prisoner, then he would come to your house and help you out. And when they in turn had problems, we helped them. So we lived like that. Because we were taught and were part of the same association, we loved

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each other and we got back to our normal lives. The survivors were given goats, and ex-prisoners were given goats. Then we said we would hold meetings to see how the goats were doing; if they gave birth, then we would rear more of them. That is what our activity is like. It was an activity of love and we all loved it. We also discuss and ask one another, ‘Where is the problem?’ Especially, when the month of April is approaching, in the period of remembering our loved ones, we wonder and ask ourselves: ‘Do any of us have a problem? How are things?’ That is what we look at and discuss when we meet. I began telling them that it was hard for us to sit together and talk, but we told ourselves that life goes on even after what happened. So we would meet and talk and we all saw that there was a solution in doing that. Personally, this association has really helped me achieve many things, this association has helped me advance a lot. I felt like my soul found peace and this association taught me forgiveness. I felt the need to forgive. The things that I thought were impossible became possible to me. In general, what this association does for its members is . . . for survivors, those people who confessed and accepted their crimes, told the truth and showed us where the bodies of our loved ones we had lost were. I can say that that is the first important thing the association did for us. Another thing is that the animals given to the members of the association benefitted their lives. The third thing is that, even now we have activities we want to do, we will be able to do them using our strength, and keep living together so that we’re able to support ourselves more financially. It is a very big step that shows what Rwanda is like, because it was hard to believe that you would ever be able to talk again to the person who killed your loved ones.

Inyenyeri In this testimony, four members of the association Inyenyeri (Stars) share about the activities and teaching they carry out together.

Mudenge Boniface My name is Mudenge Boniface. I had a tough past. Everyone has their own story. After what we went through during the genocide, I fled to the Congo, but

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I came across the people who killed my loved ones. Some had fled abroad and were afraid to return home, so we took the first step to avoid following in their footsteps. We had no interest in avenging them, all you get from that is consequences yourself. We tried to bring together all the people who were returning home and to support those who were already here in this sector called Bugeshi, which is close to the Congolese border. We would live together and we would not retaliate, because there’s good that comes from that. It was then that we all started working together; and when one of the survivors would get angry and want to make a bad decision,14 we would approach him and give him advice. We would be informed if someone was attempting to spread the genocide ideology among our Hutu brothers who had returned home, and we would also approach such people and give them advice. We started solving our problems on our own – like the problem of our possessions, because our cattle were taken and our houses were destroyed during the genocide. During the Gacaca courts, they even started to tell us the truth about where the killings had taken place and so on. Many of the difficulties were solved during that time. After seeking advice from the elders, I said to myself, ‘What if we create an association in which we can share teachings, as this is really important? A group where we even try to help and teach those who have the wrong mindset.’ This way, we could even teach them about unity and reconciliation, because many people didn’t know anything about those ideas. There were even a few of our own people who returned to Rwanda after fleeing to the Congo in the 1950s and wanted to take back the land they had sold before the genocide. We explained to them that this would perpetuate the genocide ideology and that they must all work together. We’re lucky to have the new government of unity and reconciliation, which is trying to work for the common interest of all Rwandans. Even those who wanted to take others to court were encouraged to sit together and solve their problems themselves. When we presented the idea of creating our association, it was well received. I remember in our first meeting, we wanted to choose a name. Yeah, so that’s when I spent all day thinking about a name for the association. I thought to myself, what if we call it Izuba [Sun], because it will enlighten Rwandans? Or what about Ukwezi [Moon]? But then I said, ‘No, the moon does not shine as brightly as the sun.’ And then it came to me – what if

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we called it Inyenyeri, because stars shine with different strengths. There are big stars and smaller stars, but they all come together and shine to form a beautiful night sky. Therefore, I said to myself, ‘Let’s call it Inyenyeri, and we’ll teach our neighbours the real Rwandan spirit so that they will all become stars in their communities.’ The issues of land and cattle were already almost resolved in our association and people’s mindsets had been changed. Well, one of our greatest achievements in this Bugeshi Sector, as well as in the sectors of Mudende, Busasamana, Kanzenze and Kabatwa, is the resolution of disputes about property that had been damaged in the 1994 genocide. It was resolved when the Inyenyeri association began operating. So, it all ended like that, and all issues in the sector were resolved. All of them resolved in a good and peaceful way indeed. Some of our work has included supporting families. Our children, the children of Rwanda, had adopted the mindset of those who had fled to the forests in the Congo. With the support of the parents, we have sensitized those who were in the FDLR and they returned home. There is a young man called Azariya – his home is just here behind the sector – he returned with around fifteen guns and three soldiers. Today, he is still alive and proudly working. In the last few days, he was even the driver for the Honourable Anne-Marie.15 Other people who visit the association are impressed with our work. We never stop teaching because we live near the forests of the Congo. We now have plots of land. We have one-and-a-half hectares of land where we grow maize and potatoes, and we have divided this between our members. In our association, we have poor widows who are unable to support themselves, so we approach them and visit them, and there are children in need to whom we give money so that they can go to school. There are two cooperatives; one is called ‘Impuhwe’ and is formed of those two groups of people, orphans and widows.16 With the support of the Ministry of Agriculture, we have built a harvest storage facility. It is located in the cell of Mutovu. There is also another cooperative called ‘Dusugire’.17 Dusugire runs farming training and shows villagers how to grow selected seeds, maintain the fields with manure and prepare manure, etc. This cooperative was created for the two groups of people I mentioned earlier. We started this cooperative before starting the association. We work together on different development activities.

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Sarah Nzabakurikiza My name is Sarah Nzabakurikiza. I live in Bugeshi village. I live in Bugeshi Sector, in Kabumba Cell. I have five children and a husband who passed away. Although my husband has now passed away, he had stolen our neighbour’s possessions. We agreed that my neighbours would help me, because I had nothing, not even a bed, to rest my head on. I was in a bad situation. The association Inyenyeri looked at my living conditions – how I didn’t have a place to stay and the roof leaked – and they decided to build me a house. I now live in the house and it no longer rains on me, but I would still spend days crying because I had nothing to eat. It was the villagers who helped me. They gave me food and clothes and now we all live in peace together. When they had work to do, I would help them. We are really living together in peace now. I would wish for the association Inyenyeri to last forever and I thank them a lot because they helped me out of a very bad situation. May God protect them. May they always have the compassion to help those who are in distress, like I was. About unity, one thing I would say is that we should show great patience, perseverance and love each other. For example, now I see a person and I see him as I would see myself. What was done is over. It is in the past. Our children should love each other too. They should look at each other and understand that they are all people and should not look at someone else as if he were not a human being.

Abdullah Bizimana My name is Abdullah Bizimana. Both my parents are alive and they have six children. I was born in Kabumba Cell, Kabumba Sector, Bugeshi District. I’m one of the genocide perpetrators, and I was previously in prison where the guilt overwhelmed me and I decided to ask for forgiveness, but I didn’t have the strength to ask the family I had hurt. That was when the President of the Republic urged everyone to admit their crimes and ask for forgiveness. When I got home, I found the elders whose families I had killed and my own relatives living together and I asked myself, ‘What did I see? What am I looking at? This is an opportunity for me to ask for forgiveness.’ When I went home, I joined the association and they welcomed me and forgave me. They helped me find work

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and the times when I was hungry and had nothing to eat I would go to them and they would give me potatoes. Whenever I went to Mudenge or Kagiraneza they gave me food, so I thought the Inyenyeri association was wonderful. We share so many things. We grow potatoes together and I’m part of the dairy cooperative. That means that I’ve been blessed with jobs to do. The good that I find in Inyenyeri is because of how I was welcomed into it. After being welcomed into the association, I came to ask for forgiveness. I had trapped Kagiraneza’s family in his house and burned it down. The Inyenyeri association was here, and it helped me to ask for forgiveness and he forgave me. Now we work in the fields together. When I don’t have cows to graze, he’s always willing to give me some of his, and vice versa.

Elias Kagiraneza My name is Elias Kagiraneza. I am a father of five. I live in the Kabumba Cell, Bugeshi Sector. Bugeshi Sector was ranked first in the country for unity and reconciliation activities, and received a trophy from the President of the Republic of Rwanda himself. It was very difficult to teach unity and reconciliation, but the government helped us. I’m a Christian from the Adventist Church and I read the Bible a lot. I realized that holding onto resentment wouldn’t help me and I decided to forgive Abdullah Bizimana. He confessed his crimes, and told us how he killed them and we were able to bury them. Our hearts were at peace. After he was released from prison, he joined the association Inyenyeri. We felt like we wanted to help, so that everyone could witness the power of forgiveness, because we weren’t going to do what the others had done and kill each other. Now we live together in harmony, we share everything, we are neighbours and our wives work in the same field. We carry out development activities: you can see here, we have milked about 5,000 litres, and we grow potatoes and so on. We help our brothers and sisters. You can see this old woman and that one; we helped them build their houses and we taught them about reconciliation. What we want to do is to teach other survivors that holding on to resentment will serve no purpose as it leads to nothing. We recovered possessions worth 119 million Rwandan francs even before the Gacaca courts had started.18 We did it by ourselves in our own way. I think that what it should teach Rwandans in general is that, since one of

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the biggest problems left to solve from the genocide is the issue of stolen possessions, survivors should learn to let go. They should learn to have a forgiving heart and let go of their disagreements about possessions. But, we should also not forget that those who did wrong should ask for forgiveness. They should all participate in the Ndi Umunyarwanda programme as we hold hands to fight evil, because we hear in the news about other places where killings take place because of those things. Here, since 1994, there has not been one genocide survivor who has ever claimed to be harmed. We live in harmony, we attend talks on development, we marry each other, we offer cows to one another and we are farmers who have no problems whatsoever. This is the message I would give to the whole country – that we should all live together in harmony.

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Afterword I speak for a people Malaika Uwamahoro

Twenty-five years ago – we were surrounded, by fears – our hopes, immersed – in tears – but collectively, we decided, to change gears, and steered – away from anger and danger. Made enemies? our peers! made strangers? our neighbours! and now, instead of harm? we do each other favours! Together, we make headlines in papers – and the same world that had forsaken us – Now, remembers us. . . in a different light. 177

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Today I have the honour, to speak for a people – who decided – their pain – would not be in vain – who turned their hatred into sacred lessons –to learn from – a people who believe that change – doesn’t come from thinking and acting the same – I speak for a people Who took their broken fractions – and patched them – to make a whole, for the spaces between them – that once were holes – Whose Focus on maximizing a death toll – evolved to increasing life expectancy – I speak for a people whose mentality – transformed in 25 – years!!!!! Moved from a system – perpetuating genocide ideology to one making policies – that allow for peace –

Afterword

to live within our borders corner to corner. I speak for a place that is so beautiful – That it dares you dream – and defies the impossible! I speak for a people who – lost one million innocent souls — in one hundred days – and even after all this loss – A people – still willing to get up! I speak for a people who had to save themselves – from a world, that was willing to watch them live, in a man-made hell – A people – who know – it is not enough, to wish a nation well – when they scream for help, – knows that, debating on vocabulary – and endless bureaucracy hinders, real strategy – and is merely. . . a distraction

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to taking action, at the priceless cost – of brilliant-innocent lives! I speak for a people who value the meaning of a life – who want more than just to survive – Who want to spend their lives living! Instead of killing . . . I speak for a people who have chosen to light candles of hope over burning of fear – A people who have made pathways out of roadblocks – A people who have replaced – hate speech and propaganda with dialogue and conversation. A people who decide, every day, to choose unity and reconciliation. I speak for a people, from a nation – who still mourn for their lost loved ones, Every beginning of April – whose hearts still ache – but who became so acquaint’d with fear – that they became unafraid – Even as we remember, with sorrow in our hearts – I speak for a people – Whose minds remain focused – On a promising tomorrow –

Afterword

Who know – there’s no place, for the ways of yesterday – today – I speak for a people – who honour the memories – of those loved and lost – during the genocide against the TUTSI. These, these are the people – That I have the honour – to speak for – Today.

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Glossary Aegis Trust UK-based non-profit organization with offices in the US and Rwanda that is committed to genocide education and prevention. The Aegis Trust built and manages the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda and the Genocide Archive of Rwanda. AERG (Association des Etudiants et Elèves Rescapés du Génocide) Association of student survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi. Afande Swahili term of polite address usually used by a soldier to his superior. In the Rwandan context, ‘afande’ indicates a soldier who fought with the RPF to stop the genocide. Amabuku ‘Ethnic’ identity booklets introduced by the Belgian colonizers in Rwanda. AVEGA (Association des Veuves du Génocide Agahoza) An association formed in January 1995 to help widows, orphans and other survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi. Esther Mujawayo-Keiner was a founder member. Bakiga (Kiga) or Abakiga (People of the Mountains) An agro-pastoralist people located in north-eastern Rwanda and south-western Uganda, who have a reputation for being hardworking, strong and determined. Cell The five districts of Rwanda are divided into 416 administrative sectors that in turn are divided into 2,148 cells. The cell provides basic local services and helps the population achieve sustainable development. CDR (Coalition pour la Défense de la République) Hutu extremist party. DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) Formerly known as Zaire, the DRC borders Rwanda. FAR (Forces armées rwandaises) Rwanda’s national armed forces were formerly known as FAR, but were renamed RPA (Rwandan Patriotic Army) after the RPF came to power. They were later renamed as RDF. FARG (Fonds national d’Assistance aux Rescapés du Génocide et des massacres) The Rwanda Genocide Survivors’ Fund set up by the Rwandan government in 1998. FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda) A Rwandan opposition movement formed from exiled ex-FAR soldiers and former Interahamwe, with a political wing based in Europe and a military wing based in the DRC. Gacaca A system of community justice based on a traditional Rwandan dispute resolution system in which a community gathered to discuss and resolve conflicts.

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Inkotanyi (Fierce Warrior) A term used to refer to RPF soldiers and also Tutsi in general. Interahamwe (Those who Work/Fight Together) A Hutu paramilitary organization formed by the youth of the MRND party. They carried out the genocide against the Tutsi, along with another youth militia: the Impuzamugambi and the FAR. Interahamwe tends to be used more broadly to designate those génocidaires who were not part of the armed forces. Inyenzi (Cockroach) The pejorative term used to designate Rwandan Tutsi during the genocide. Kinyarwanda The national language of Rwanda. Kitenge East African cotton fabric printed in various colours and designs. Kwibuka (Remember) The annual 100-day commemoration that takes place each year in Rwanda. MRND (Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement) The ruling political party in Rwanda at the time of the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 (under President Juvénal Habyarimana). Ndi Umunyarwanda (I am Rwandan) A programme launched by the Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Commission that aims to strengthen unity and reconciliation through the promotion of ‘Rwandanicity’. RDF (Rwandan Defence Forces) The national army of Rwanda. RPEP Rwanda Peace Education Programme launched by the Aegis Trust. RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) Now the ruling party in Rwanda, the RPF was formed by Tutsi refugees exiled from Rwanda. Having invaded Rwanda on 1 October 1990, the RPF signed a peace agreement in August 1993 with the MRND government. Some months later, on 6 April 1994, the genocide began and was finally stopped by the RPF in July 1994. RTLM (Radio Télévision Mille Collines) Rwandan radio station that broadcast from July 1993 to July 1994. The presenters, including Valérie Bemeriki, were instrumental in inciting the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and were subsequently convicted of crimes of genocide. Rwf Rwanda francs (1,000 Rwf is roughly equivalent to £1.00 sterling). TIG (Travaux d’intérêt général) Community service for prisoners in Rwanda. Ubushera Non-alcoholic sorghum beer or wine. Umuganda State-organized community service in which all Rwanda citizens participate on the first Saturday of every month.

Notes Foreword 1 Mujawayo-Keiner now lives and works in Germany where similarities between the Holocaust and the genocide against the Tutsi are no doubt strongly felt. Some scholars criticize such comparisons as inappropriate or irrelevant. For a discussion on the tension around the use of Holocaust references in the Rwandan context, see Hitchcott, Nicki (2015), Rwanda Genocide Stories: Fiction after 1994, Liverpool University Press, 154–6. 2 Here Mujawayo-Keiner alludes to the Hamitic hypothesis, which identified the Tutsi as Hamites who came from outside Rwanda, more specifically from Ethiopia, and were therefore closer to Europeans than the Bantu Hutu. See Mamdani, Mahmood (2001), When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 79–87. 3 The mention of Nyabarongo river recalls the infamous 1992 speech made by convicted génocidaire Léon Mugesera in Kabaya when he recounted telling a Liberal Party pro-Tutsi member: ‘Let me tell you that your home is in Ethiopia, and that we will send you back along the Nyabarongo river so you get there quickly.’ See Fletcher, Narelle (2014), ‘Words That Can Kill: The Mugesera Speech and the 1994 Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda’, PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 11.1, https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/ article/view/3293/4368 (Accessed 14 August 2018). 4 The ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’ were first published in Hutu Power newspaper Kangura in December 1990. They are transcribed with a brief discussion in Berry, John A. and Pott Berry, Carol (1999), Genocide in Rwanda: A Collective Memory, Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 113–15. 5 Mujawayo, Esther and Belhaddad, Souâd (2004), SurVivantes: Rwanda dix ans après le génocide, La Tour d’Aigues: Editions de l’Aube. 6 The Aegis Trust is discussed in the editors’ introduction, p.18. 7 Gacaca is the traditional Rwandan form of community court that was reintroduced in Rwanda in 2002. For more on Gacaca, see Clark, Phil (2011), The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 8 Post-traumatic growth is discussed in the editors’ introduction, p.10. 185

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Introduction 1 We would like to thank Paul Rukesha of the Genocide Archive of Rwanda for his comments on the introduction. 2 Clark, Phil (2011), The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Doughty, Kristin (2016), Remediation in Rwanda: Grassroots Legal Forums, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; Ingelaere, Bert (2016), Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice after Genocide, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press; Longman, Timothy (2017), Memory and Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3 Jessee, Erin (2017), Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics of History, London: Palgrave Macmillan; Prudhomme, Florence (2017), Cahiers de mémoire, Kigali, 2014, Paris: Classiques Garnier. 4 Kimonyo, Jean-Paul (2017), Rwanda, demain! Une longue marche vers la transformation, Paris: Karthala. 5 Hatzfeld, Jean (2005), Dans le nu de la vie, Paris: Seuil; (2003) Une saison de machettes, Paris: Seuil; (2007) La stratégie des antilopes, Paris: Seuil. 6 See Hron Madelaine (2011), ‘Gukora and Itsembatsemba: The “Ordinary Killers” in Jean Hatzfeld’s Machete Season’, Research in African Literatures, 42 (2): 125–46. 7 Whitworth, Wendy, ed. (2006), We Survived: Genocide in Rwanda, Laxton: Quill Press; Williamson Sinalo, Caroline (2018), Rwanda After Genocide: Gender, Identity and Post-Traumatic Growth, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Gilbert, Catherine (2018), From Surviving to Living: Voice, Trauma and Witness in Rwanda’s Women’s Writing, Montpellier: Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée. For a critique of the Whitworth collection, see Williamson, Caroline (2016), ‘Posttraumatic growth at the international level: the obstructive role played by translators and editors of Rwandan genocide testimonies’, Translation Studies, 9 (1): 33–50. 8 Ng, Lauren C. et al. (2015), ‘Proposed Training Areas for Global Mental Health Researchers’, Academic Psychiatry, 40 (4): 679–85; Pham, Phuong N. et al. (2010), ‘Sense of Coherence and its Association with Exposure to Traumatic Events, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Depression in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 23 (3). 9 Munyandamutsa, Naasson et al. (2012), ‘Mental and physical health in Rwanda 14 years after the genocide’, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 47 (11): 1753–61; Williamson Sinalo, Caroline (2018), Rwanda After Genocide; Blackie, Laura E. R. et al. (2015), ‘The protective function of personal growth initiative

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among a genocide-affected population in Rwanda’, Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 7 (4): 333–9. One of the earliest histories of the genocide in English is Prunier, Gérard (1995), The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide, London: Hurst & Company. Prunier revised some of his analysis in 1998. For other accounts of the history of the genocide against the Tutsi, see Braeckman, Collette (1994), Rwanda: Histoire d’un génocide, Paris: Fayard; Des Forges, Alison (1999), Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, New York: Human Rights Watch; Mamdani, Mahmood (2001), When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton: Princeton University Press; Semujanga, Josias (2003), Origins of Rwandan Genocide, Amherst, NY: Humanity Books; Guichaoua, André, Webster, Don E. trans. (2015), From War to Genocide: Criminal Politics in Rwanda, 1990– 1994, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Jessee, Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics of History. Lemarchand, René (2009), The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. See Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, 88–102. Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, 72–3. Ibid., 62–3. Reyntjens argues that the number of Rwandans who ‘disappeared’ from the population in 1994 is between 1,050,000 and 1,150,000, but exact numbers remain difficult to assess, given the entangled nature of the genocide, revenge killings, death caused by disease (especially cholera), and escape and exile to neighbouring countries. Reyntjens, Filip (1997), ‘Estimation du nombre de personnes tuées au Rwanda en 1994’, Afriques des Grands Lacs: annuaire 1996–1997, 178–86. Eltringham, Nigel (2004), Accounting for Horror: Post-Genocide Debates in Rwanda, London: Pluto Press. Malagardis, Maria (2014), ‘Procès Rwanda: le baiser de la mort d’une ancienne alliée’, Libération. Available online: http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2014/02/25/ proces-simbikangwa-le-baiser-de-la-mort-d-une-ancienne-alliee_982910 (accessed 30 January 2018). For a good example of the way in which the narrative of the genocide against the Tutsi has been politicized, see the discussion of the screening of the BBC documentary (2015), Rwanda: the Untold Story in Reyntjens, Filip, ‘Briefing: The struggle over truth – Rwanda and the BBC’, African Affairs, 114 (457): 637–48. The massacre at Nyamata Church has also inspired writers of fiction. See Hitchcott, Nicki (2015), Rwanda Genocide Stories.

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21 Grayson, Hannah and Hitchcott, Nicki (eds) (2019), Rwanda Since 1994: Stories of Change, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 22 Global Development Institute, Twitter feed. Available online: https://twitter.com/ GlobalDevInst/status/861581112434446336 (accessed 23 April 2018). 23 Allison, Simon, ‘Like it or not, Rwanda is Africa’s future’, Mail & Guardian, 7 July 2017. Available online: https://mg.co.za/article/2017-07-07-00-like-it-or-notrwanda-is-africas-future (accessed 25 April 2018). 24 ‘The World Bank in Rwanda’, 7 March 2017. Available online: http://www. worldbank.org/en/country/rwanda/overview (accessed 25 April 2018). 25 Thomson, Susan (2013), Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in Postgenocide Rwanda, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 26 See Blackie, Laura E. R. and Hitchcott, Nicki (2018), ‘ “I am Rwandan”: unity and reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda’, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, 12 (1): 24–37; and Benda, Richard (2019), ‘Promising generations: from international guilt to Ndi Umunyarwanda’, in Grayson, Hannah and Hitchcott, Nicki (eds), Rwanda Since 1994. 27 See for example Clark, Phil and Kaufman, Zachary D. (eds) (2008), After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond, London: Hurst; and Staub, Ervin (2006), ‘Reconciliation after Genocide, Mass Killing, or Intractable Conflict: Understanding the Roots of Violence, Psychological Recovery and Steps toward a General Theory’, Political Psychology, 27(6): 867–94. 28 www.rwandan.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk. 29 Seligman, Martin E. (2004), ‘Foreword’, in Linley, P. A. and Joseph, S. (eds), Positive Psychology in Practice, Hoboken: Wiley, xi–xiii. 30 Joseph, Stephen (ed.) (2015), Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life, Hoboken: Wiley. 31 (2013), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th edn), Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. 32 Pham, Phuong N., Weinstein, Harvey M. and Longman, Thomas (2004), ‘Trauma and PTSD symptoms in Rwanda: implications for attitudes toward justice and reconciliation’, Jama, 292 (5): 602–12. 33 Munyandamutsa et al., ‘Mental and physical health in Rwanda 14 years after the genocide’. 34 Schaal, Sussanne, Weierstall, Roland, Dusingizemungu, Jean-Pierre and Elbert, Thomas (2012), ‘Mental health 15 years after the killings in Rwanda: Imprisoned

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perpetrators of the genocide against the Tutsi versus a community sample of survivors’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 25 (4): 446–53. 35 Lopez Levers, Lisa, Kamanzi, Desire, Mukamana, Donatilla, Pells, Kirrily and Bhusumane, Dan-Bush (2006), ‘Addressing urgent community mental health needs in Rwanda: Culturally sensitive training interventions’, Journal of Psychology in Africa, 16 (2): 261–72. 36 Calhoun, Lawrence G. and Tedeschi, Richard G. (1991), ‘Perceiving benefits in traumatic events: some issues for practicing psychologists’, The Journal of Training and Practice in Professional Psychology, 5 (1): 45–52. 37 Joseph, Stephen, Williams, Ruth and Yule, William (1993), ‘Changes in outlook following disaster: The preliminary development of a measure to assess positive and negative responses’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 6: 271–9. 38 O’Leary, Virginia E. and Ickovics, Jeannette R. (1995), ‘Resilience and thriving in response to challenge: An opportunity for a paradigm shift in women’s health’. Women’s Health: Research on Gender, Behavior and Policy, 1 (2): 121–42. 39 Tedeschi, Richard G. and Calhoun, Lawrence G. (1996), ‘Posttraumatic growth inventory: Measuring the positive legacy of trauma’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9: 455–71. 40 Tedeschi, Richard G. and Calhoun, Lawrence G. (2004), Posttraumatic Growth: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Evidence’, Psychological Inquiry, 15 (1): 1–18. 41 Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie (1999), ‘Rebuilding Shattered Assumptions after Traumatic Life Events’, Coping: The Psychology of What Works, 305–23. 42 Pals, J. L. and McAdams, D. P (2004), ‘The Transformed Self: A Narrative Understanding of Posttraumatic Growth’, Psychological Inquiry, 15 (1): 65–9. 43 Joseph, Stephen (2011), What Doesn’t Kill Us: The New Psychology of Posttraumatic Growth, New York: Basic Books. 44 Joseph, What Doesn’t Kill Us. 45 Linley, Alex. P. and Joseph, Stephen (2004), ‘Positive change following trauma and adversity: A review’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 17 (1): 11–21. 46 Prati, Gabriele and Pietrantoni, Luca (2009), ‘Optimism, social support, and coping strategies as factors contributing to posttraumatic growth: A metaanalysis’, Journal of Loss and Trauma, 14 (5): 364–88. 47 Tedeschi, Richard G., Shakespeare-Finch, Jane, Taku, Kanako and Calhoun, Lawrence G. (2018), Posttraumatic Growth. Theory, Research, and Applications, New York: Routledge. 48 Grayson, Hannah (2018), ‘Articulating Growth in Rwandan Terms: Adapting the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory’, Studies in Testimony, 1 (1): 4–30. 49 Neuner, Frank et al. (2004), ‘A comparison of narrative exposure therapy, supportive counseling, and psychoeducation for treating posttraumatic stress

190

Notes to pp. 16–23

disorder in an African refugee settlement’, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72 (4): 579–87. 50 Robjant, Katy and Fazel, Mina (2010), ‘The Emerging evidence for Narrative Exposure Therapy: a review, Clinical Psychology Review, 30 (8): 1030–9. 51 Adler, Jonathan M. et al. (2015), ‘Variation in narrative identity is associated with trajectories of mental health over several years’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108 (3): 476–96. 52 For a discussion of Ndi Umunywaranda, see the essays by Benda and Williamson Sinato in Hitchcott and Grayson (eds) (2019), Rwanda Since 1994. 53 Joseph, Stephen (2018), ‘After the genocide in Rwanda: Humanistic perspectives on social processes of post-conflict posttraumatic growth’, The Humanistic Psychologist, 46 (3): 245–57. 54 Grayson, Hannah (2017), ‘A Place for Individuals: Positive Growth in Rwanda’, Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, 3: 107–30. 55 https://www.aegistrust.org/ and http://www.genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw/ index.php/Welcome_to_Genocide_Archive_Rwanda. 56 Harms, Louise (2015), Understanding Trauma and Resilience, London: Palgrave. 57 Ibid. 58 Denborough, David (2005), ‘A Framework for Receiving and Documenting Testimonies of Trauma’, International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 3 (4): 34–42; Denborough, David (2006), Trauma: Narrative responses to traumatic experience, Adelaide: Dulwich Centre Publications. 59 The influence of the Rwandan government can sometimes be heard in the stories presented in this volume, particularly those collected from members of unity and reconciliation associations. See Blackie and Hitchcott (2018), ‘I am Rwandan’, 26–7 for a discussion of methodological implications relating to those particular stories. 60 Blackburn, Pennie (2005), ‘Speaking the Unspeakable: Bearing Witness to the Stories of Political Violence, War and Terror’, International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 3 (4): 97–105. 61 For a discussion of Twa identity in Rwanda, see Laws, Meghan, Ntakirutimana, Richard and Collins, Bennett (2019), ‘ “One Rwanda for all Rwandans”: (un)covering the Batwa in post-genocide Rwanda’ in Grayson and Hitchcott (eds), Rwanda Since 1994. 62 Eltringham, Accounting for Horror, 72. 63 Burnet, Jennie E. (2012), Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory, and Silence in Rwanda, Madision, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Notes to pp. 23–47

191

64 Hintjens, Helen (2008), ‘Reconstructing Political Identities in Rwanda’, in Clark, Phil and Kaufman, Zachary C. (eds), After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond, London: Hurst, 77–99.

1 We moved from there to here 1 During the upheaval of the 1959 revolution, large numbers of Tutsi were driven from their homes as violence spread over the country. Some resettled to the south of Kigali, in the region of Bugesera, which would later be the setting of intense violence during the genocide. 2 More than 1,000 Tutsi were thrown into the Nyabarongo River during the genocide. See Melvern, Linda (2000), A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide, London: Zed, 189. 3 Kinyarwanda urwina: a hole in the ground where bananas are dried to make beer. 4 One form of anti-Tutsi discrimination before the genocide involved not allowing school pupils to progress to the following year. 5 Esther’s own story can be read in the Foreword to this volume. 6 FARG is a para-state organization, the Genocide Survivors Support and Assistance Fund. 7 The Rwanda Peace Education Programme was launched in 2013 by the Aegis Trust in partnership with Radio La Benevolencija, the Institute for Research and Dialogue for Peace and the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation, and is funded by the Swedish International Development Authority. 8 The Belgian colonial regime introduced ‘ethnicity’ listings in identity cards, which fixed and hierarchized what had previously been fluid socio-economic categories. 9 Valérie Bemeriki began her career as a journalist writing for two MRND newspapers. As she describes, she was asked to apply for a position at RTLM when the radio station was created in 1993. After broadcasting anti-Tutsi propaganda before and during the genocide, and travelling around Rwanda to incite further violence, she fled with RTLM colleagues to the DRC in July 1994. In 1999 she was arrested in South-Kivu Province, and in 2009 sentenced to life imprisonment. 10 For further information on the ethnic policies of the Second Republic, see ‘The Second Republic: Redefining Tutsi from Race to Ethnicity’ in Mamdani, Mahmood (2001), When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

192

Notes to pp. 53–90

11 The complete audio of Sindikubwabo’s speech can be accessed via the Genocide Archive of Rwanda. 12 At the beginning of the genocide, RTLM journalists were given rooms in the Hôtel des Diplomates, as well as vehicles with drivers and military protection (Melvern, Linda (2006), Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide, London: Verso, 208). 13 The United Nations Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to prosecute genocide criminals in Arusha, Tanzania. 14 Prisoners undergo education training in preparation for being released. Bemeriki participated in some of this training, the content of which is difficult to establish.

2 One wall cannot support a house 1 About £35,000. 2 Perpetrators often refer to the genocide as a war. 3 On 1 January 2003 President Paul Kagame issued a decree granting the provisional release of genocide suspects and prisoners on admission of their crimes and requesting forgiveness. This was partially aimed at decongesting the country’s prisons. 4 RCN (Réseau Citoyens-Citizens Network): RCN Justice et Démocratie is an NGO promoting independent justice. 5 Most households owned a radio in 1994. In Chapter One, you can read about the genocide from the perspective of one of the journalists of RTLM. For further information on the role of the radio during the genocide, see Thomson, Allan, ed. (2007) The Media and the Rwanda Genocide, London: Pluto. 6 In Kinyarwanda, ‘old man’ or ‘old woman’ can refer to any older member of the family: father, uncle, grandfather, mother, aunt or grandmother. 7 A large number of priests and church leaders were complicit in the killing of those who took refuge in their church buildings. For further information on the complicated role of religious organizations, see Longman, Timothy (2010), Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 8 In 2006, as part of an ongoing decentralization process, Rwanda’s twelve provinces were replaced with five, and its 106 districts replaced with thirty. Some retain the same original names. This explains why some speakers refer to places with their former names. 9 ‘Wounds’ here refers to emotional and physical wounds; ibikomere in Kinyarwanda.

Notes to pp. 91–127

193

10 This phrase, kwiumvanamo in Kinyarwanda, represents a deep empathy in which people see the core of the other person as being the same as them. 11 For further information on the genocide in Bisesero, see Matthews, Jenny (1998), Resisting Genocide: Bisesero April-June 1994 (Witness to Genocide), London: African Rights. 12 Cows carry huge cultural significance in Rwanda. Traditionally, cows were a symbol of wealth, and were exchanged to symbolize friendship and gratitude between people. 13 Grégoire Kayibanda, Rwanda’s first president, established the Parti du Mouvement de l’Emancipation du Peuple Hutu (Parmehutu) to spearhead the revolution. He was overthrown by Juvénal Habyarimana in 1973. 14 TIG (travaux d’intérêt général) is community service work undertaken often as an alternative to imprisonment. Individuals who have confessed their involvement in the genocide, and shown remorse for their crimes during Gacaca, can perform unpaid work in building and repairs, and are given civic education lessons alongside their work before being reintegrated into the community. 15 The Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) was formed out of the RPF and FAR in 1994.

3 We are all holding the same rope 1 Before 2002, Rwanda was divided into prefectures, communes and sectors that were in turn divided into cells. In 2002 and 2006, the districts were reorganized as part of a national programme of decentralization. 2 The Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement (MRND) was Habyarimana’s political party. 3 The Bakiga are a people group from northern Rwanda with a reputation for being strong and hardworking. 4 This was a common insult in anti-Tutsi hate speech, as Valérie Bemeriki describes in her testimony in Chapter One. 5 AERG is an association for students who survived the genocide. 6 The original proverb in Kinyarwanda is ‘Ahatari umwaga uruhu rw’urukwavu rwisasira batanu’. 7 The original proverb in Kinyarwanda is ‘Abishyize hamwe nta kibananira’. 8 The original saying in Kinyarwanda is ‘Imana yirirwa ahandi igataha i Rwanda’. 9 Here Protais refers to the traditional introduction ceremony (Gusaba) where a woman introduces her future husband to her relatives and friends. Traditionally, the ceremony would involve giving a dowry to the woman’s family.

194

Notes to pp. 129–174

10 At this school in Nyange, three years after the genocide on 18 March 1997, armed attackers demanded the students identify who among them were Tutsi. The students defiantly replied, ‘Twese turi Abanyarwanda’ (‘We are all Rwandans’). Six students were killed on that day, and many others injured. 11 About £1.00.

4 Let’s make bricks and build for them 1 Urwaga is an artisanal beer made from fermenting bananas. It is most popular among people around the Kivu and Kibungo regions of western Rwanda. 2 A form of declaring a blessing of long life on somebody, as the speaker is amazed at their survival. 3 This is a vocational college. 4 This was a hospital run by the Association of Pentecostal Churches of Rwanda. 5 This was a private school in Nyamata. 6 Ibuka is the umbrella association for all survivors’ organizations, and works to perpetuate the memory of the genocide while providing support for survivors. 7 Marie Claire means that she could not point to a single person to accuse, but thought of all Hutu as belonging to one category. 8 A common way of referring to the Twa or Batwa people in Rwanda, similar to the quasi-official category of ‘Historically Marginalized People’ introduced in the 2003 Constitution. 9 Domitille Mukantaganzwa was the Executive Secretary for Gacaca jurisdictions. 10 La Benevolencija is a Dutch NGO working in areas of conflict management and healing. 11 This saying means ‘We see things in the same way.’ The original Kinyarwanda is ‘Turi ijisho rimwe.’ 12 About £176.00. 13 This was a large cooperative called Travail, Fidélité, Progrès. 14 Here Boniface is implying people wanting to take revenge. 15 Here Boniface is referring to Anne-Marie Kantengwa who was a member of the Parliament of Rwanda between 2003 and 2008. 16 ‘Impuhwe’ means ‘compassion’ in Kinyarwanda. 17 ‘Dusugire’ means ‘let us sustain ourselves’ in Kinyarwanda. 18 About £105,000.

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