Surviving the Genocide: An Interview with Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana.

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DB: Where were you in 1993?

 

JCN: In 1993, I was in Rwanda.

 

DB: Where in Rwanda?

 

JCN: Gisenyi, because I was teaching at the Gisenyi High Institute of Management and Computing, called the Institut Saint Fidele in French.  I was working as the chief academic officer. 

 

DB: Can you describe the February offensive of 1993 by the RPF?

 

JCN: Oh, yes, I will never forget that.  I was in Gisenyi at that time.  I heard that the RPF were attacking Ruhengeri.  That's my town, my hometown.  People said many people were gathered into houses.  Then RPF rebels used grenades and threw them inside the houses.  You had women and kids in those houses that were blown up into pieces.  Nevertheless, I was lucky because, at that time, I had to attend a marriage in Ruhengeri.  A friend of mine, ok?  Laurent Uwimana.

 

DB: Ok.

 

JCN: I was in Ruhengeri the day before the attack, on February 7th, that is why, I cannot forget it.

 

DB: I see.

 

JCN: The family I was celebrating with, all of them got killed.  Laurent's girlfriend, parents, and relatives were all killed.

 

DB: You lost so many friends there.....

 

JCN: If you want, I can tell you names, ok?  I don't want to hide anything, it´s about the truth; it's about Paul Kagame´s cruelties.  Many of my friends and classmates were killed over there.  I knew one friend, Jotham Dusabimana, who graduated at Moscow University where I attended.  He went to see his girlfriend in Ruhengeri on February 8th and he never came back.  Ok.  I went back to Gisenyi the day before because I had to work in the office at the College the next day, but I know how they got killed.  Some of them were even crucified like Jesus Christ.  They killed ordinary people to make everyone afraid so they would flee the region.  The RPF needed people to flee so infiltrators could blend in with the displaced people and gather information.

 

DB: So the RPF put people in different camps around the country and then they hid spys with the refugees?

 

JCN: Yes, the displaced people.

 

DB: I see.

 

JCN: There were thousands who were displaced and killed and there is no report on what happened in the Ruhengeri and Byumba prefectures.  Workers sent to investigate were killed by the RPF.  Unfortunately, there is also no report about that incident.  Thousands were killed there.  The RPF separated men from women and put them in separate houses before burning them all down using grenades and high artillery.  Thousands fled to Nyacyonga Camp.  Shortly after the displaced Rwandans gathered there, Paul Kagame himself arrived at the camp and took a machine gun and shot the kids and women in the neighboring market.  Other RPF soldiers killed hundreds of displaced people from Byumba and Kibungo prefectures.  People were crucified and pregnant women had their stomach cut open.  The fetuses were given to their supposed fathers before they were killed by akandoya.1  Many were killed with an agafuni.2

 

DB: Are you saying Paul Kagame did this personally?  He killed those people?

 

JCN: Yes.  Personally...and when I see him getting a visa, going to the U.S.... it's shameful!  When I see Americans.....I understand they don't get the right information from institutions and universities, but, you know... it's shameful.  I cannot believe that such a criminal would be granted a Doctorate of Law degree by a U.S. university....it's not possible.  People who were killed that day in February...who knows about that?  Who knows about them?  Nobody.  Americans know nothing about that.  I would like to let Americans know about the extreme cruelty of Paul Kagame.  He killed willingly and tortured people...he is more a criminal than a statesman.  If I can give a kind of a.... it's serious.  It's very serious.  If someone doesn't believe me, let's go have an independent investigation right now.  It's very easy to get information.  Have it not be under RPF supervision and then go and tell people that you are part of a team investigating what happened in Rwanda.  Right now, investigators only get information from one source, from one side, from RPF leaders and RPF party members.

 

DB: What was Ruhengeri like after the attack?

 

JCN: After the attack...well, there was only wreckage.  People said the town was destroyed one hundred percent.  The prison was destroyed and, ah, the hospitals were also destroyed.  The hospital was run by a group of French doctors and it was a modern hospital as far as I remember, with modern equipment, experienced workers, you know, and after that everything was destroyed.  Many people fled from the hospital to the university, were many students were killed.  Others fled to Kigali and Butare.  That's why the university in Ruhengeri shut down.   Then, Paul Kagame announced on Radio Muhabura, "Those who are now displaced, I'm going to find them and all of them are going to be dumped into Lake Kivu."

 

DB: He announced this on the radio personally?

 

JCN: Yes, he did.  I remember it well.  Many others can confirm what I say because they also heard the broadcast.  He wanted to kill them all.

 

DB: Now, you were still in Gisenyi at the time, correct?

 

JCN: Yes.

 

DB: You left Ruhengeri the day before the RPF came?

 

JCN: You mean Ruhengeri?  I left the evening they attacked!  4:00 P.M...ok.  I went back to Gisenyi because I had to work at the university the next day.  That evening at 9:00, the same night I left to go home, the Byumba Prefecture was attacked by the RPF.  The next day, they arrived in Ruhengeri Prefecture.

 

DB: Can you describe what happened to you after the attack on Ruhengeri?

 

JCN: After the attack, I was really shaken up and I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't go there and my people, my friend who I mentioned, Jotham and his girlfriend were reported killed.  Laurent's girlfriend told me that her parents were killed that same night.  I could not believe I was there.  I knew that Jotham would never be back.  Those images still cause me to hallucinate sometimes.

 

DB: He was from Gisenyi also?

 

JCN: No.  He was from Ruhengeri, from Jenda, from the countryside just like me.  The RPF also killed Philippe Gakwerere, the Inspector of Mining along with his family during these attacks.  They killed a classroom full of students in Musanze School.  Women and children were killed in Nyamagumba.  In Nyarutovu Commune, over several days, hundreds were killed.  They even killed patients at the hospital in Kinigi Commune.  Many died in Ngarama in Byumba Prefecture. 

 

There was another guy, Barengayabo, President of the Appeals Court; he was killed with his wife and children on February 8th.  One time before that, he escaped death because he spent the night in another town.  That's why he was able to survive.  Then he went back home, I don't exactly know the details, but I had information from Seth Sendashonga about it because he was a friend of mine after he fled to Kenya.  He called me and asked me to work with him.  The day he was killed by the RPF, when I learned he was killed by RPF in Nairobi, I had told him that I was not comfortable to go out of the country.  After that, when he got killed, I couldn't sleep.  I learned so much from him.  I still have some of his documents here.

 

DB: Why did Mr. Sendashonga leave the RPF?  I mean, he had been with them for quite some time....

 

JCN: First of all, Seth Sendashonga was a Hutu who was believed to be one of the main RPF figures before and after the RPF seized power.  I asked him the same question.

 

DB: Right.  He was a Hutu.

 

JCN: Yes, and it was very difficult for me to trust him.  When he first called me, I told him, "I heard about what you said all the time when I was in the refugee camps near Goma, so I don't want to get involved with you.  I cannot trust you."  He told me, "Jean-Christophe, I understand your position, but you cannot say that what I said and what I have done was really wrong.  I really believed we (RPF) were bringing democracy to Rwanda, but I found out that it's not possible under Kagame's rule.  That's why I left and I tried to save myself after I found out I was tricked.  It is not possible to implement democratic objectives so I decided to find another way to liberate our country."  That's what he told me.  He was a brilliant mind.  He prefaced the RPF membership's Umuryango.  Before he died, we met every day in Nairobi in different places and worked on ways to bring democratic values to Rwanda.  To reach this goal, we have to first inform the international community about what happened.  He even told me he was originally supposed to be the president of Rwanda.  That's what he wanted me to understand.

 

DB: Did you believe him at the time?

 

JCN: (Pauses) Yes.  According to the job he did for RPF and after I realized his determination to tell the whole truth, yes, I did believe him. 

 

DB: Do you think they promised him the presidency to get him to work for them?

 

JCN: Yes.  They promised him, but once his job was finished, he became disposable to Kagame.  Paul Kagame did not want him to be president.  Paul Kagame said, "I will use those Hutu to reach my goal."  After that, Paul Kagame publicly announced that everybody is nothing, but he meant Hutu are nothing.  Once his Hutu allies are useless to him, they are thrown into prison or killed.  He knew too much information.  Seth was killed on May 14th around 4:00 pm at the Nairobi round-a-bout from the Gigili U.N. headquarters.  I was not there with him, but we were supposed to meet that very same evening.  If I was with him...I don't know what would have happened to me.

 

DB: One of the more memorable things to me was when the ICTR witnesses like Mr. Sendashonga starting getting killed outside of Rwanda, even in Europe and the international community did nothing publicly to investigate the murders.  Specifically, I'm actually referring to Mr. Juvenal Uwillingiyimana, who was killed in Brussels.3  Later, they found his naked body in a canal.

 

JCN: Oh yea, I remember, yes, a tragic story.

 

DB: He was executed differently in that his hands were cut off.  What was the significance of that?  Was it a message?

 

JCN: Ok, yes.  I don't know if you have details on Kagame's strategy... I told you that the genocide was negotiated.  Since the genocide was negotiated, it had to be labeled.  You must have a label, a definition.  You have to maintain it, you have to prepare, and you have to do whatever you can to reinforce that label, that definition among the targeted people.  Ok.  In that context, the RPF and Paul Kagame asked Rwandans to testify against their own relatives and against the former government so that every single testimony refers to the genocide as the definition the RPF wanted the world to see; that only Hutu extremists killed Tutsis. 

 

Paul Kagame's strategy has always been to recreate what happened to fit into his scenario, to have people testify and say that these people on trial at the ICTR are guilty and thus they have to be thrown in prison for life or be killed.  Most importantly, genocide must be recognized as a terrible crime and the perpetrators must only be Hutus. 

 

The prisoners had to accept they were guilty and some of them were even released after they gave false testimonies against other, more well-known prisoners, political and government officials.  If a prisoner refuses to accept their guilt, especially a well-known prisoner, the RPF sometimes paid people to give false testimony against those who refused to cooperate.  Some prisoners who said nothing or refused to declare their guilt were tortured until they admitted their guilt.  Also, they were threatened by ICTR investigators, "If you don't do this, your wife and your kids will be killed, and then you will be killed too."  This is just what happened to Uwilingiyimana.

 

DB: So the removal of his hands was part of the torture he endured to force him to cooperate.  Was that the message to the Rwandan community?

 

JCN: To the Rwandan community, it means that, if you are asked to testify against your friends, parents, whatever, you have to do it.  If you don't cooperate, you will be killed.  Nobody can deny that the RPF has death squads flourishing in Europe.  I am afraid the European countries are not able to protect us against these RPF death squads.  They even let RPF killers come and search for those who are saying anything other than Kagame's scenario.  We say that we cannot...I just want to emphasize the fact that I will never accept the scenario as told by the RPF.  They know Paul Kagame cannot tolerate opponents, especially those who challenge him about the genocide.  He wants everybody to see the genocide only how he defines it.

 

That guy Uwilingiyimana, he worked closely with Habyarimana.  I mean, he was a former minister in Habyarimana's administration and was believed to be his close friend.  People also said he was close to the so-called "Akazu"4 meaning that he knew everything and was an important figure.  You should know that the term Akazu is really just another label to characterize and qualify the enemy so his testimony would back up the idea that the genocide was planned only by Hutu extremists.  He was called to testify and was told to accept the RPF's version of the genocide story.  He was told to confirm that Hutu planned the genocide in advance and killed Tutsis.  He refused.  He said he would never accept this.  After they found out he was not willing to change his mind, they unfortunately decided to torture and kill him. 

 

The people guilty of threatening Uwilingiyimana were from the U.N. and working for the ICTR at the time.  They were two Canadians, Richard Renaud5 and another guy named Rejean Tremblay,6 along with a Belgian guy named André Delvaux.7  Later, I saw on T.V. Tremblay and another person I don't want to mention here together with Louise Arbour,8 and they were talking about how they were working with the ICTR to track down Hutu and force them to testify.  It was incredible!9

 

DB: Now, so I get this correct, the ICTR workers investigating Mr. Uwilingiyimana were the ones on the T.V.?

 

JCN:  Yes.  This plan started with a guy named Akayesu who was being tried in Arusha.10  He was forced to testify to things in which he himself did not believe in.  He also was forced to sign a document.  If he did not sign it, he was told he would be killed.  The investigators told him that he would be released or get a very short time of imprisonment if he signed it. 

 

Everyone should also know about the hate speech of Paul Kagame given this April in Murambi.  He said he did not kill enough Hutu in 1994.  He actually admitted he is trying to think of a way to carry this out again.  Then, only one or two weeks after his speech, there were killings in southern Rwanda near Butare, in the previous Mbazi Commune, and in other places.  Then, his speech transcript was censored and changed on the Internet.  Other places removed the audio file of his speech from their websites.

 

DB: I didn't see any reports about the killings.  I did not know about that.

 

JCN:  I have heard the killings were carried out by Jean de Dieu Mucyo.  No reports have been given about it in the papers.  In the same context as Akayesu, there are men and women who are specially trained to give false testimony, like the well-known Kimisagara accusers.  There are men and women from Kimisagara, Bugesera, and Kibuye who are brought to Kigali to be specially trained for that.  This started after Hillary Clinton came and offered a reward for the first rape conviction at the ICTR.  Suddenly, all these women came forward to the ICTR to testify and then Akayesu was convicted for rape and many others followed! 

 

To know exactly what I am talking about, ask the defense attorneys in Arusha.  They will tell you all about these women's false allegations.  For instance, they will say, "Oh, we were raped by this man for one, two weeks, etc."  After the cross-examination session, it's obvious they are lying.  Some of them will even admit it, but then they cannot to go back to Rwanda.  This is a matter of fact.  Do you realize that?  Sometimes, when asked about conflicting facts in their testimony, these women reply, "I am sorry, I have forgotten," or, "It wasn't my idea."  If they testify otherwise though, there is a problem.  This problem is real but it is minimized by ICTR prosecutors who maintain the genocide was planned and executed only by Hutu extremists.  This is why the ICTR, through its prosecutors, is under RPF control.  The ICTR has become the main source of money for the judges and attorneys who had a chance to get a job there.  They are there to get rich.  It is also about getting a reputation, about being known.  The thing is, the prosecution must be done according to the will of Paul Kagame.

 

There is one man who I owe much respect because said he couldn't do his job under such conditions.  That's why he resigned on September 30th, 1996.  A former ICTR judge named Richard Goldstone from South Africa said on the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) that what is happening at Arusha has nothing to do with the rule of law!  "Nobody can talk about ICTR partiality.  If we are going to reconcile Rwandans, we have to work under the rule of law.  All crimes that have been committed between January 1st and December 31st, 1994, must be prosecuted, including RPF crimes committed against Hutus.  We have to investigate and find out why so many people died and find out exactly what happened."  That's what he said. 

 

From my side, when I came back to Rwanda for the second time in 1996, on the 17th of November, I personally saw people getting beaten, imprisoned, and killed by the RPF.  My brothers and my sisters died in these conditions.  I'd like to give you the names of some of my family members who were murdered by the RPF.  Domitille Uwimana, who was working for the Red Cross, was raped for one week at the gendarmerie headquarters in Gisenyi before she was killed along with her one-year child named Nshuti.  My brother, Charles Kizito Bwanakweli, disappeared on January 23rd, 1997.  Diane and her sister Fifi, six and eight years old, and my other brothers Nshimiye and Ndagije, sixteen and seventeen years old, were also killed.  At Mukamira Centrum in Nkuli Commune, the RPF massacred my cousin Josephine Mukagatare, her six children, and her husband Serushago.  They killed my cousin Dativa, her mother, her three sisters, her brothers Emmanuel, Dusabe, Ntabugi, Kazehe, and her father Aloys Kanyabitaro.  Rose was killed by the RPF on the morning of April 7th at Remera, in Kigali town.  My uncle, Stanis Baganizi, was together with his wife Theresia, a tutsi woman (umugwabira) and their four children were burned alive in their house at Nyundo, in Gisenyi.

 

DB: Where were you in Rwanda?

 

JCN: Ruhengeri.

 

DB: So, you came back through Goma?

 

JCN: Yeah.  I was living near Goma in the camp at Mugunga on Lake Kivu.  The camp was attacked by the RPF and we had to flee to Sake.  Then we were forcibly sent back to Rwanda on November 14th, 1996.

 

DB: So you left Congo at the time Mugunga was destroyed.

 

JCN: Yes.  I was living there at the time the massacres started.  I fled to Sake where I stayed a couple of days before coming back to Rwanda.

 

DB: What happened in Mugunga?  Can you describe what you saw?

 

JCN: Well, what I saw there...was just like, um...I have never been in the Sahara Desert before, but I think the day the RPF attacked must have been like that.  It was very hot, a very hot afternoon.  In the beginning, you know, there was intense artillery falling on the camp.   I don't know how to describe that, I'm not military.  I am not a soldier.  Before the attack, it was so hot in that camp we didn't know how much worse the situation could possibly be.  The roads were crowded with crying children and anxious women. 

 

First of all, before the attacks, I saw people in Mugunga who looked like journalists, white journalists, approaching us.  They came to us and said that they wanted to know how we were doing and they asked if they could help somehow.  They said they were working for an NGO but did not specify what organization they were working for.

 

DB: How many of them were there?

 

JCN: I saw three.

 

DB: Did they have any accents?  Did they sound British, American, South African...

 

JCN: American accent, yes, there was one American there.  British accent, yes, there was also one British guy.  But South African I can't say because I don't know.  I'm not sure where the third guy was from.  I don't believe they were journalists or NGO workers.  They were wearing khaki shorts with small khaki shirts that had four pockets, two on top, two on bottom.  At the same time, I couldn't pay too much attention to them because I was in panic.  We knew the RPF was approaching the camp and a bloodbath was about to happen.  I had to decide very quickly if I wanted to go back to Rwanda or move ahead into the huge Congolese forests and mountains.

 

DB: What did they say that made you suspicious of them?

 

JCN: After they left, many people were shot and others were mutilated.  When the RPF arrived at the camp, we didn't know where exactly the rifles were shooting from and I don't really know which side those ground troops attacked from.  So many people got killed.11  I saw wounded people being helped into a Toyota vehicle.  Many of them were mutilated and their arms and legs were blown off.  There was so much blood on the road.  The vehicle went towards Sake, where there were medical facilities.  I am sure that those people who went there as NGO workers wanted to collect information so they could help the RPF attack the camp.

 

DB: Why did you go to Sake?

 

JCN: The first people who left Mugunga and went to the Rwandan border right away ran into the RPF and were killed.  I couldn't pass through.  I just wanted to go with the crowd because I thought I would have a better chance to survive.  I had to wait until later.  If they found out I was somebody who knows something, I mean that I was educated, I would be killed.  I couldn't leave Congo that way.  I even had to wear very dirty clothes so the RPF soldiers wouldn't think I went to school.

 

DB: So most of the intellectuals decided to stay there in Congo?

 

JCN: Yes. Unfortunately, many of them got killed.  I can't say for sure who survived the RPF mass-slaughters.  I know many of my friends got killed, including a classmate of mine, Banzi Wellars.  He and his wife never returned to Rwanda.  They were educated in mathematics.  Those who survived the forest...there were many massacre sites in Congo were thousands of Hutu were killed.  I know so many who died, but I won't talk about them because there is not enough time for that.  Many of the people who were butchered in Kibeho and in the Congo were teachers from Butare University.

 

DB: So they went into the forest and decided to take their chances and those who survived the forest ended up at the Tingi-Tingi camp.

 

JCN: Not only at Tingi-Tingi, but also later at Ubundu, Kisangani, Mbandaka, and many other sites where Hutus were slaughtered by RPF soldiers.  There is one lady who lives in Switzerland who knows exactly how refugees were butchered by RPF soldiers.  My people are ready to testify but most of them have not had an opportunity to do so like me. 

 

When I left Rwanda, I was with my wife and our daughter, Vanessa.  She was the only child we had together.  I told my wife I knew I would be killed by the RPF so I have to go to Congo without her.  I was with a friend and my brother-in-law, Dr. Deo Twgirayezu.  By the way, he's also ready to testify publicly.  He lives in exile in Europe.  He's suffered so much because he lost almost his entire family to RPF massacres. 

 

Ok.  We had some money we were going to share and I said to my wife Catherine, "Go home ok, I'll never see you again.  I know I'm gonna die, but what I can do...maybe you will be safe, I don't know, but please try to survive."  That's what I told her.  I was in tears of course.  I kissed her for what I thought was the last time.  After that, I left and when I arrived at the border between Rwanda and Congo at Gisenyi, an RPF soldier guarding the border there asked me, "Where are you going?  Where are you staying?"  I told him I was going to Butare.12  He looked at me with anger and said, "We will find you anytime."  There were thousands of people crossing while I was there. 

 

If you had any kind of document that showed you were educated, you could not survive.  I saw many people who went to Congo before me that were killed.  I also had some diplomas for my students.  I hid them under a big stone before I left.  Like so many of my fellow Rwandans, I had to destroy all my remaining documents, including my identity card.  Our cloths were so worn...you could not imagine that we had not moved anywhere before this.

 

There was one place at the border where the RPF separated some of the men from the women and they were led away.  I don't know where they were taken but I never saw any of them again.  There was one lady from the Red Cross working there who called me over and said that I should not cross the border, it was too dangerous.13  She took me to her place where I stayed with my wife and child in Gisenyi for the night.  Those who crossed over on that day, many of them got killed.  We couldn't find any of them on our way back to Nkuli Commune.  That could have been me.

 

As a matter of fact, in 1996 and 1997, RPF military officers serving in Ruhengeri Prefecture that killed people were promoted.  As a reward for killing people in Ruhengeri, the RPF promoted soldiers to different positions in the ministries.  People like (Deus) Kagiraneza were promoted to command the Ruhengeri Prefecture.  (Gerald) Gahima, (Diogène) Bideli, (Charles) Zilimwabagabo, and many others killed thousands of Hutu in Ruhengeri.  The RPF arbitrarily arrested people and put them in Ruhengeri Prison.  Later, they were killed and their relatives were not even allowed to bury the body.  You know Zac Nsenga?  He represented Rwanda as the Ambassador to the United States.  He was in Ruhengeri killing people also.  As a promotion, he was given the post of Ambassador to Washington DC.  It's incredible!

 

One time, Paul Kagame came personally to Ruhengeri and he called everybody to meeting.  He blamed the local population for supporting the ex-FAR and Interahamwe.  He even called on some of the attendees to stand up and explain why they were supporting the militias.  He told them they would be held responsible for what would happen to them.  He personally ordered the RPF soldiers there to kill everyone present at the meeting and he left after that.  Hundreds of people were killed that evening.  The killing occurred in Nkuli Commune, on the hills near the Gatovu secondary school.

 

When I came back to Rwanda in November 1996, there were no military troops; no RPF soldiers were in the military camps.  All of them were spread out across the country.  You had twenty-five to twenty-six RPF soldiers in each commune.  They had permission to kill any anyone they even suspected of disagreeing with the RPF.  The other soldiers were known as the Local Defense Forces, or Abakada.  They arrested, killed, looted, and terrorized Hutus throughout the country.  They started training with the RPF in 1995 up to 1998. 

 

General Nyamwasa was the chief commander of military operations in Ruhengeri Prefecture.  He organized all the massacres in that area.  Throughout that prefecture, you had one hundred to four hundred soldiers total with twenty-five here, twenty-five there, twenty-five there, and they killed people every day after a few interrogations.  They would shoot a friend of yours or maybe your brother and the way they killed him was so incredibly horrible that you couldn't recognize him anymore.  After that, they told us the people they killed were Interahamwe and they said the killings were proof for those who wouldn't accept that we had Interahamwe living among us.  They said, "This is the sentence for all those who committed genocide."

 

We didn't even know who the Interahamwe really were.  In reality, it was every single Hutu!  We were all just told the Interahamwe were evil and were the enemy.  We all knew that tomorrow any Hutu could be accused of being an Interahamwe, a common enemy that had to be destroyed, by anyone if they wanted us dead.  We lived in constant fear.

 

After that, we had to get food from the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) because when we returned to our houses after arriving back from Congo, we found they were occupied Tutsi returning from Uganda that supported the RPF.  The UNHCR representatives told us they were going to give us papers that could be used to move from the countryside through the commune to go and get food.  As I said, when we got back from Congo, all of our homes were forcibly occupied by Tutsis.  You had no rights to reclaim the house that belonged to you.  No.  Anyone who said anything was accused of being an Interahamwe and was put in prison or executed.  Those who asked RPF officials for their property back were also killed.

 

DB:  Where were you at this time?

 

JCN: In Ruhengeri Prefecture.  My family lived in a plastic sheet outside and we could say nothing about it.  We had to worship those who had stolen our houses.  It was slavery.

 

DB: Ok.

 

JCN: Because our homes were taken away by the RPF.  We had to sleep outside and the UNHCR did nothing to help us.  All they did was give us those papers.  You had to use them during your travels inside the country.  At the same time, that permit was proof you were a returnee from Congo, and that meant you were a refugee, an enemy who fled.  It made it very easy for the RPF militias and the Local Defense Forces to identify you and kill you.  Many of the returnees were reported missing.  Others were imprisoned and still others were killed.  That's why I refused to travel anywhere and you know what, I still hate the UNHCR for that.  I was forced to stay there in the countryside and couldn't sell anything that belonged to us for food.  Everything we had there was taken for the Tutsis' enjoyment.  We needed to buy documents such as an ID card, but this was not possible.  We weren't considered Rwandan citizens.  We were treated like second-class citizens by everyone, even the U.N.  So the only way to travel was to get an identity permit with your picture on it (Attestation d'Identité Complete) otherwise we were exposed to imprisonment, disappearances and killings.  There was a soldier at every checkpoint for population control on the way to Kigali.  Even in Kigali, we were checked every day, every morning, and every night.14

 

When we came back to Rwanda, people in Gisenyi who wanted to go to Cyangugu could not go through Goma as a shortcut and cross the border back into Rwanda at Bukavu.  The RPF didn't allow us to do this.  Instead, we had to walk through Ruhengeri, then Kigali, Gitarama, then to Butare, Gikongoro and finally Cyangugu.  We were forced to walk the entire way by the RPF.  Do you understand?  Many of the people who walked those hundreds of kilometers died on the way.  There were UNHCR vehicles parked along the entire path, but they did not help anyone.  It was so many kilometers to walk!  Five hundred kilometers!?  Six hundred kilometers!?  Maybe even eight hundred kilometers?!  I don't know exactly but we did exactly the same thing as those people who fled into the Congo forests!

 

 

Footnotes

 

1 Note: Akandoya is a Ugandan word meaning to tightly bind both arms behind the victim's back with such pressure that the ribs break.

 

2 Note: An agafuni is an old used hoe.

 

3 Note: Juvenal Uwilingiyimana, a Hutu, was the former Minister of Parks.  His naked and maimed body was found in a canal in Brussels on 17 December 2005.

 

4 Note: The word Akazu means "little house."  In this context, it refers to a tight knit group of Hutu Bushiru, an area that included the Karango Commune President Habyarimana was born, and the Giciye Commune, where his wife Agathe Kanziga was from.  She was reportedly well-connected and her "clan" wielded tremendous influence within the government.  They were all Bakiga, which is a term generally referring to Hutu living in north-central and northwestern Rwanda (Byumba, Ruhengeri, Gisenyi).  Bakiga resisted the Tutsi monarchy and were political opponents of the Hutu living in southern Rwanda, where Rwandan President Grégoire Kayibanda was from.  Recent ICTR testimony by Jean-Marie Vianney Nkezabera, a member of the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR), said the Akazu did not exist and were a creation of the political opposition parties to isolate President Habyarimana and discredit his leadership abilities.  ("Akazu, Opponent's Invention (Witness)," Hirondelle News Agency.  8 March 2007.)

 

5 Note: Chief of Investigations at the ICTR.

 

6 Note: Chief of Legal Proceeding at the ICTR.

 

7 Note: Mr. Delvaux was a police inspector at the time.

 

8 Note: Louise Arbour was the Chief Prosecutor of the ICTR at the time.  During her tenure, ICTR judge Richard Goldstone (South Africa), Judge Honoré Rakotomana (an ICTR Prosecutor) and Mr. Alphonse Breau ([then] Director of Investigations) asked Australian lawyer Michael Hourigan to investigate the shoot-down of President Habyarimana's plane.  After completing his investigation, he concluded the RPA was responsible.  When he presented his findings to Ms. Arbour, she abruptly shut down the investigation without warning.  (Affidavit of Michael Andrew Hourigan.  Filed at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.  27 November  2006.) 

 

After her tenure at the ICTR was completed, she was promoted to the Supreme Court of Canada and is currently the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.  At the end of May 2007, she visited Rwanda and lauded their rebuilding efforts, but said the gacaca trials are progressing too slowly.  ("UNCHR Chief Happy With Reforms, Advises on Gacaca," The New Times.  27 May 2007.)

 

9 Note:  According to a note left by Mr. Uwilingiyimana before he died, Mr. Delvaux, Mr. Renaud, Mr. Tremblay, Stephen Rapp (an American who was serving as Chief of Prosecutions at the time), and Chief Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow visited him on 5 October 2005.  He says in the letter his life was threatened by Mr. Tremblay and Mr. Delavaux if he didn't cooperate and incriminate Protais Zigiranyirazo, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, Edouard Karemara, and Michel Bagaragaza.  (Letter to the Prosecutor of the ICTR.  Juvénal Uwilingiyimana.  5 November 2005.  http://www.internationalcrimesblog.com/Nov5_letter.pdf.)

 

There have been other allegations of witness intimidation and tampering.  One witness stated he was threatened to testify in support of Protais Zigiranyirazo and Tharcisse Renzaho accused Rwandan officials of intimidating defense witnesses.  Several of the witnesses will no longer testify in the trial because of threats.  ("The ICTR Orders an Inquest on an Eventual Pressure on a Witness," Hirondelle News Agency.  4 April 2007;  "Renzaho's Defense Accuses Kigali of Witness Intimidation," Hirondelle News Agency.  17 May 2007;  "An ICTR Lawyer Denonces (sic!) the Threats Made to his Witnesses," Hirondelle News Agency.  12 June 2007.)

 

10 Note: Jean-Paul Akayesu was a teacher, school inspector, and MDR party member.  He was also mayor of the Taba Commune.  One woman who testified against him was killed with her family in mid-January 1997.  Officially, the murders were committed by Hutu insurgents. 

 

11 Note: The RPA attacked Mugunga from the northeast and the east in a strategic pincer attack.  (Then) Colonel James Kabarebe led the RPA unit that approached Mugunga from the east and (then) Colonel Fred Ibingira led the RPA's 7th Battalion approaching from the northeast.  (Génocide de Mugunga.  R94.org.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW8j-o3JPrY.)  RPA soldiers approaching  from the east stole vehicles from the United Nations High Commissionner for Refugees (UNHCR) and forcibly loaded Rwandan medical patients at NGO clinics into the vehicles and moved them to Nkamira.  The NGOs were also prohibited to distribute food to returning refugees.  ("Rwanda: Human Rights Overlooked in Mass Repatriation."  Amnesty International.  AFR 47/002/1997.  14 January 1997.) 

 

12 Note: At that time, it wasn't safe to travel through Rwanda to get from the north to the south because of RPA roadblocks.  Many refugees who wanted to travel south to Cyangugu or Butare went through Goma, travelled south to Bukavu, and crossed back into southern Rwanda rather than taking the traditional route through Kigali and Gitarama.

 

13 Note: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) branch in Rwanda, under the leadership of Philippe Gaillard, stayed in the country during the genocide, saving thousands of lives in the process.

 

14 Note:  One individual I interviewed in Rwanda who was working in Kigali during 1995 described a similar situation.  RPA checkpoints were all over the city and the soldiers checked for identification at each one.  This individual walked to work every single day through several checkpoints.  Every day, this individual saw Hutu bodies with gunshot wounds stacked on the side of the road next to the checkpoints.  They commented that well-dressed individuals and those known to earn higher wages, both Hutu and Tutsi, were often killed, but the vast majority of the victims were Hutu.  At night, people were dragged out of their homes and killed.  In the morning, bodies riddled with bullets were found near the side of the road.  The RPF told everyone the killings were caused by Interahamwe and ex-FAR hiding in the Nyamirambo Sector.  The individual also said many Tutsi in the city were publicly accusing individual Hutu of genocide.  Those who were accused were taken away by RPA soldiers and never seen again.  (Private Interview.  Rwanda.  2006.)

 

 

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