Dry, dusty air weighed heavily on the prison one morning. Blazing heat marked every face and slowed the usual bustle in the road of houses near the outer wall, except, of course, for the fluttering of the weaverbirds busily braiding their globular nests. I observed those delicate masterpieces dangling from the tips of the acacia branches while I waited for Joseph-Désiré Bitero and mulled over the surprising remark Innocent had just made about him, in the car: “At heart, that one was really a jolly guy, who smiled at everything and nothing. He enjoyed meeting people. He was nice. He’d share a drink and conversation with any comrade at all.”
Joseph-Désiré Bitero had not been invited to the first discussions I had with the group because I was afraid his authority as a former local interahamwe leader, plus his aura and status as a prisoner condemned to death, might increase the group’s misgivings. So, I knew him only by reputation, but many people had spoken about him.
Shadowed by a tall, thin soldier, Joseph-Désiré Bitero arrived in his pink uniform with a swing in his step, exchanging discreet friendly greetings with every other prisoner he met. I understood Innocent’s remark immediately: Joseph-Désiré, the center of attention, was smiling. He did seem jolly, said hello nicely, and would gladly have offered us a beer if he’d had one handy.
Unlike most of the others in the gang, Joseph-Désiré was
born into a family with local roots going back several generations, on the hill of Kanazi, a half-hour from Nyamata. His parents, he says, “were good farmers. They were neither well off nor badly off. They simply made a decent living.”
Decent enough to encourage him to continue his studies beyond the primary level and to take the competitive examinations for teachers’ training college. “I was a satisfactory student. It was not my decision to take the exams. In my day, the professors and your grades determined which students pursued which professions. In my case, fate chose teaching. When I was a child, I saw teachers as special people, honored at ceremonies, much listened to, well dressed—so admirable. I embraced my destiny without wavering.”
Joseph-Désiré cannot remember anything noteworthy about his childhood with his three brothers and four sisters. “Those years gave me the life of an ordinary little boy. Sickness spared me, school welcomed me, there was enough to eat, I took up the hoe during the rainy season to help out the family. I liked to play soccer and watch the games, too. I lived in the house where I was born and where I expected to die.”
Later, he added this one observation: “I was raised in the fear that the mwami—the Tutsi kings—and their commanders might return; that was because of all the stories old folks told us at home about unpaid forced labor and other humiliations of that sad period for us, and because of the awful things happening to our brothers in Burundi.” Born in 1961, two years after the abolition of the Tutsi monarchy, young Joseph-Désiré grew up in an atmosphere where the hostility to Tutsis was exacerbated by the influx of refugees from Burundi, but he tacitly admits that there was no real fear of tragedy in the region.
Joseph-Désiré received his diploma and became a tall, strapping young man. He married a pretty neighbor from his childhood,
Marie-Chantal Munkaka, who bore him three children. He took an interest in politics early on, much earlier than his pals, certainly through the influence of his cousin Bernard, the burgomaster of Nyamata. “When I wanted to join a party, there was only one: the MRND. It was the party of President Habyarimana, the burgomaster, civil servants, and Hutus like me. After other parties appeared, it never occurred to me to change. I preached the ideas of the president, which seemed most profitable for my Hutu brothers, the ideas that addressed the threat of rebels and of oppositionist political figures. I figured those ideas would prevail because of our majority, the army, and government negotiations. That suited me fine.
“With the new multiparty situation,” he adds, “squabbles broke out, at first with the other Hutu groups. Things got serious among us. The local Tutsis, on the other hand, kept their distance from political feuds. They minded their own business and voiced no troublesome opinions.”
This was a significant admission, because Joseph-Désiré Bitero’s first victims, in fact, were not Tutsis but Hutus from two extremes: pacifists, who favored dialogue with the rebels, and those who were hostile to any negotiations and supported an all-out war.
Joseph-Désiré can be believed when he affirms, “I was born surrounded by Tutsis in Kanazi. I always had Tutsi acquaintances and thought nothing of it. Still, I did grow up listening to history lessons and radio programs that were always talking about major problems between Hutus and Tutsis—though I lived among Tutsis who posed no problem. The situation was going to pieces due to the impossible gap between the worrisome news about the
mess on the country’s borders and the peaceful people who lived next door. The situation was bound to come apart and to go into either savagery or neighborliness.”
The fact remains that Joseph-Désiré’s political engagement was from the beginning zealous and deeply committed. Why this sudden infatuation? the excitement of nascent ambition? the enjoyment or release of an excess of physical strength? the pleasures of power and organization? self-interest? It’s difficult to say.
Let’s simply note that there is no evidence of any event in his childhood, any cause of humiliation or resentment, which might have fed a personal desire for revenge, and that for a young teacher, climbing the social ladder but living on a meager salary, this party in power for twenty-five years, the party of his cousin the burgomaster, was the only pathway to success—unless he tried his luck in the capital or in the army, which was risky for a farmer’s son who had never set foot outside Nyamata.
He himself puts it this way: “It was an absorbing activity that could bring small advantages. We had a good time at the formal political events. We wanted the superiority of power and all its satisfactions.”
Joseph-Désiré impressed everyone with his imposing presence at meetings and his relaxed good humor in cabarets. He bought a modest house built of fired brick in Gatare, the Nyamata neighborhood favored by educated people and civil servants. His wife, Marie-Chantal, found a position at the maternity hospital. On any given day, with the same easygoing manner, Joseph-Désiré would spend time both with Tutsi pals and with rabidly anti-Tutsi Hutu fanatics.
Talking about the Bitero he knew back then, Innocent says: “Basically, Bitero started out a good guy, well spoken, who did not seem at all dangerous. He had no thought of doing harm. Aside from his being in the other camp, it was fun to pop a bottle
with him. Without the tumult of war, he might have remained the man he was.”
For Joseph-Désiré, the tumult began in 1991, when the inkotanyi attacks and the political wrangling led to a vast increase in public virulence, and new orators began crisscrossing the country. It was then that Joseph-Désiré discovered the joys of militancy in his party’s youth groups. “My job was to enroll young Hutus, to keep them from going astray into crime or into the wrong parties,” he explains. “I urged them to listen to the president’s speeches; I organized gymnastic exercises, games, and meetings to explain our policies. But the war took a wrong turn. The Rwandan army could not hold the front, and we suspected a cover-up of their defeat. That fanned the politicians’ brutality and thirst for vengeance. We militants were intoxicated by orders, and we acquiesced.”
The word “acquiesced” is a euphemism, because two years later, in 1993, Joseph-Désiré was elected president of the party’s youth organization. “I don’t know why people elected me. I don’t know what they saw in me. I think they felt confident because I was educated and very eager. They knew I never hung back.” The presidency entailed specific duties, including leadership of the town’s militias, the interahamwe—a word Joseph-Désiré has a hard time saying. “It’s too complicated, because the meaning of the word interahamwe shifted in the time between my nomination and the massacres. When I accepted, I had no thought of killing, except perhaps if a pressing need arose. I mean, I had no thought of killing for killing’s sake.”
True? false? When did that idea germinate? When did it take root? He lies in response to this last question, since he denies all premeditation before the assassination of President Habyarimana. “His death shook us up, panic drove us into the killings, and I found myself right in the middle of the genocide.”
Among accounts of this gestation period, the one given by Christine—a native of Kanazi, like her neighbor Joseph-Désiré—is categorical: “In the cabarets, men had begun talking about massacres in 1992. I remember clearly, because of the uproar around the political parties. After the new parties first met, interahamwe committees sprang up in the communes, and the current was shut off between us. The president of Nyamata commune was Joseph-Désiré. He visited all the Hutu homes, explained the threat of the inkotanyi from Uganda, and checked to see that the tools behind sacks of beans were well sharpened. I remember distinctly because one day his foot tipped over the cooking pot in the courtyard—that was during the dry season before the killings.”
In other words between December and March, which supports Innocent’s point when he says of Joseph-Désiré: “From January on, three months before the genocide, his character was completely transformed. If I went into the local cabaret we both went to, he’d stop talking until I left. He knew perfectly well he was going to kill me.”
Of all the men in the gang, Joseph-Désiré is the only one who concretely envisaged the genocide beforehand. Two months in advance, he began to examine the machetes. During the night after Habyarimana’s assassination, he met with the functionaries of the town. On the first day of the killings, he was conspicuous in the main street, waving his machete, and then he led the way into the church.
Moreover, he admits, “I had the privilege of being a leader; I had to set a good example. I was eager for approval.” During the next eight weeks he deployed his formidable energy everywhere at once: in the evening at organization meetings, in the morning in the Nyamwiza marshes, in the afternoon in Kibungo, in
Ntarama, or on the streets of Nyamata, talking, debating, arguing, enrolling all the local Adalberts and their gangs.
He did all this without neglecting his family or his wife, Marie-Chantal, who shares with us this heartwarming picture of a war criminal: “He came home often. He never carried a weapon, not even his machete. I knew he was a leader, I knew the Hutus were out there cutting Tutsis. With me, he behaved nicely. He made sure we had everything we needed. One day he even had his stepfather’s second wife escorted to Kabgayi because she had Tutsi blood.
“Actually, he was steeped in bad politics but not in bad thoughts. He was gentle with the children. I did not want to ask him about the trouble that was spreading everywhere. To me, he was the nice man I married.” She adds, “Today, when he sends a note from prison, he does not dwell on the change. He appears cheerful, makes no demands, sends advice and encouragement, hides his suffering.”
To explain his return from Congo and the inevitable death sentence awaiting him, Joseph-Désiré says, “I knew about the overcrowded prisons, I knew many prisoners were dying. But I wanted to return to Rwanda so my family could get a chance for a normal life on our land. I didn’t want my daughters to end up as dirty beggars in forests far from home.”
His trial began two and a half years after his return, on May 26, 1998, in Nyamata. On the witness stand, Joseph-Désiré’s attitude was stupid, odious, and untenable, yet rather bold and resolute.
He had pleaded guilty, but his confession hadn’t been accepted because he denied the essential fact of his crimes, disclaimed responsibility for his actions, and said he was simply following orders. He showed no remorse about his victims,
either, and during our interviews, he never once seemed to understand the monstrosity of his actions.
True, he did not beg for mercy or denounce anyone else in order to try to escape capital punishment. He simply trotted out his unacceptable arguments, some of which he repeated to us: “I was more implicated because I was more faithful to the party then … If I hadn’t acted, it wouldn’t have changed a thing, because everyone was in agreement, each in his own capacity. I tried my best to support what was considered the right thing to do at the time.” Although it was hard to understand how he could be so defiant, he would not budge, and the hostile reception he had in the courtroom did not faze him. According to Innocent, “The public’s reaction was heated, because he was a well-known interahamwe, and the survivors were especially upset, whereas he appeared calm, collected, and very much on guard.”
His defense was hopeless, but different tactics would not have changed the verdict. He was tried alone and before any international or Rwandan government interventions were made in favor of a policy of reconciliation. His was a show trial for central Africa, one of the first opportunities to hear the testimony of survivors, to listen to their grief and to learn the facts. Among them was Innocent, who accused Joseph-Désiré of killing his wife and child in the church.
Of his trial, Joseph-Désiré observes: “Everything I said I would say again today. I was tried at a time when the survivors felt too much anger. They expected some kind of punishment, and the new authorities wanted to give them a spectacular revenge. Afterward I listened to the trial of Monsignor Misango on the radio. He was acquitted. The former secretary general of my party lives quietly at home. There is even a national organizer of the genocide who briefly became prime minister before fleeing
to lead a busy life in America. That is how good and bad luck happen in one party. The thinkers got the genocide going, and the militants paid for the damage.”
At one point in our interviews when Joseph-Désiré tries to present himself as a scapegoat, the expiatory victim of a politicized judicial system, Innocent interrupts brusquely and points out that someone who won’t confess has no right to complain. I remind Joseph-Désiré that he was an educated person and the leader of killers. “I was a teacher,” he replies. “I was a committed party member, I obeyed, I killed. In a party, a leader can’t just do what he wants. Yes, I had a teaching diploma, but it wasn’t for me to think about our activists’ political slogans. That’s not what you’re there for when the situation gets hot. All I had to think about was implementation.” Listening to him, you wonder if he doesn’t actually believe what he is saying.
Whenever Joseph-Désiré goes back and forth between his special block and the garden by the road, he claps some former drinking or killing companion on the back, fires off a joke, winks and rolls his eyes, and asks how everyone’s doing, testing his popularity while trying to renew old ties. He even attempts a genuine reconciliation with Innocent. He has few complaints about his cramped and unpleasant quarters, except that they’re giving him rheumatism. He obeys the warden and guards without resentment or servility. The only help he requests is not for him but for his daughters, whom he will probably never see again. He tries constantly to turn our interviews into discussions about history or geopolitics in which his personal itinerary melts away.
“You will never see the source of a genocide,” he says. “It is buried too deep in grudges, under an accumulation of misunderstandings that we were the last to inherit. We came of age at the
worst moment in Rwanda’s history: we were taught to obey absolutely, raised in hatred, stuffed with slogans. We are an unfortunate generation.”
He also says, “There are situations that set you singing if you win or crying if you lose,” an unwitting plagiarism of the same observation made by Robert Servatius, Adolf Eichmann’s lawyer, at his trial in Jerusalem: “There are some actions for which you are decorated if you succeed and sent to the scaffold if you fail.”
On April 24, 1998, the Rwandan government decreed the first—and so far the only—day of national example. On that day thirty-three people were executed in stadiums or other public places. Six prisoners were brought from Rilima to the hill of Kayumba, before a crowd of people who thought Joseph-Désiré was among the condemned, but he escaped that execution thanks to a delay in his trial. Two months later, after eight days in court, he was sentenced to death. Since then he has been waiting for a presidential pardon or Rwanda’s abolition of the death penalty. He listens to the radio, he plays igisoro, and he prays.
Of all the participants in the group, he is the only one who can imagine the possible consequences of a book about them being published abroad, and he secretly hopes that what he says in it will help to delay his execution. Then why not make an effort to tell the truth, which cannot harm him now in any case? Is he unwilling to try? incapable of trying? unable to distinguish anymore between what he wants others to believe and what he wants to believe? Has he wound up believing in his classic, repeated theme—obedience? His reply: “When the decision about the killings reached us, duty kept me from backing out. It was beyond
difficult: things were rushing along too fast for us to think as we do today, six years later.
“For someone who had been recruited by politics,” he adds, “the only choice was to run away or become an organizer. Run away? As I told you before, I never considered that. Or the possibility that the authorities had the wrong perspective. I told myself that if the job had to be done, it had to be done quickly and completely. When war threatens your land, when you can rely on the strength of the majority, of the party that’s best for your intellectual and material well-being, and when you enjoy the confidence of the authorities, you do your utmost without counting the cost.”
Without counting the victims? He doesn’t wince at the question and says again, “We had lived with Tutsi friends without noticing it, and we became contaminated by ethnic racism without noticing it.”
Then he finally says something that reveals the abyss of incomprehension lying between us: “If a divine miracle were to help me return to my hill, my family, and a job, people would see that I can become an ordinary person again.”