I arrived in the area in 1980, among waves of fellow Hutus, because my parents were growing thin in Kibuye on land that was too dry and crumbly. Many Tutsis had already taken up much of the Bugesera, but new lots were still being distributed to Hutus.
When the war broke out, I was in fifth grade. At that time we’d been noticing more and more young men with grim faces who were not all local youths. They would walk into Hutu homes without giving their names and eat their fill from our cooking pots. When these interahamwe attacked the church in Nyamata, people gathered around to watch the slaughter. This small crowd listened to the sound of blows, the shouts of encouragement, heard the fear of those going to be cut, saw youngsters rushing to loot the priests’ rooms or steal the possessions of the dead.
The spectators watched Caterpillars dump those wretched people in a big ditch, like garbage. There were voices, among the crowd, saying that certain bodies had not yet drawn their last breath, but the criminals seemed determined to finish the burial that afternoon. In the evening, they went off to eat, but the church remained surrounded by watchful lookouts. The people inside waited all night long; those with mortal wounds were waiting for death.
The interahamwe returned at around nine o’clock in the morning to go back to striking and stabbing anyone who was still alive. It was a kind of show that went on for two days. Many in the audience rejoiced to see the Tutsis die, shouting, “The Tutsis are finished! Get rid of those cockroaches for us!” I can also say that many people were outraged to see such vicious killing and burning. But it was quite dangerous to do more than murmur in protest, because the interahamwe killed—without fooling around—any Hutus having friendly dealings with their Tutsi neighbors. This, too, is true: in the crowd outside the church, those who were not enthusiastic were very frightened.
The second evening, on the way back from the church, some interahamwe came to the house and cut Papa down with a machete, in front of Mama and the neighbors. Papa’s name was François Sayinzoga; he was a Tutsi.
In my area, and in Nyamata, I saw many Hutu relatives and neighbors kill Tutsis every day of the genocide, marauding behind the interahamwe or the soldiers. Coming home at night, those farmers traded boasts about their work in the marshes or forests. They would sit on chairs before their homes while their wives cooked meat, since they were slaughtering cows along with the Tutsis. They bought drink, because they were poaching money from the dead. And when they’d filled their bellies, they would chat about their day, meaning how many they’d killed. They had contests. Some would claim to have bagged two, others ten. Those who weren’t killing pretended they had, so as not to be threatened themselves. I can say that everyone had the duty to kill. It was a very well-organized policy.
Every morning, people had to report to their group leader. The leader in Maranyundo, first-named Vincent, had himself called Goliath. He gave people their orders, itineraries, any special instructions for the day. Either they went along, or they would be killed. They could in fact pretend, dawdling far behind and returning in the evening without dirtying their machetes, but they had to show up coming in behind the others. Anyone who walked around doing nothing all day was not allowed to loot. Anyone claiming he had too many fields to sow on his land, anyone looking around for excuses, he could get shot down, just like that.
Reason why, also, the farmers didn’t bury their victims. When they named the Tutsis they’d cut that day, if they were suspected of cheating, they had to lead the interahamwe to the bodies. I personally think that anyone who one day was forced to kill wanted his neighbor to be compelled the next day to kill as well, to be seen in the same light.
My family and I, we felt guilty for living amid this bloodlust, and we were truly terrified by Papa’s death, so we continued working our fields in silence.
In the cabarets, men had begun talking about massacres in 1992. After the new political parties’ first meetings, 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, explaining the threat of the inkotanyi from Uganda, checking to see that the tools kept behind sacks of beans were well-sharpened. When Hutus drank together after political discussions, they would call Tutsis worms or cockroaches. Radio programs became quite threatening. In our house, Papa and my brothers had taken no part in talks that fanned misunderstandings, for they feared drawing venemous looks. We stayed away from the interahamwe, frequenting only our close neighbors, whom we had known forever. We drew water together, borrowed fire from one another, shared a beer sometimes, but we never chatted about politics.
In the region, we lived in order of our arrival: those who had come in a certain year took a certain hill; those who followed them went on to the next hill. This did not favor ethnic mixing. When people do not mingle, they don’t learn enough of value about one another to get married. That’s why our groups never took a marriage interest in each other. Papa and Mama, they had met in Kibuye, on the shore of Lake Kivu, before coming east.
This is another truth of importance: the interahamwe tried to kill all the Tutsis married to Hutus, and even peaceful Hutus mixed in with Tutsis. After Papa’s death, some neighbors would threaten me because of my Tutsi blood. To avoid being killed, I considered myself Hutu, but I was scared. So, I ran away with a Hutu man to Kigali, leaving Mama and my brothers at home.
At the end of the rainy season, when the guns of the RPF could now be heard on the outskirts of Kigali, we felt that the war was reaching out for us. Some interahamwe killers came to loot the house, and carried all the furniture and utensils off in their rout. Some evil men who had been drinking beer raped me on the bed and left me with a baby inside. That was in May, I believe. There was tumult everywhere. Fugitives were racing by on all sides, shouting of death and alarm. Our thoughts grew frantic at all this headlong flight. Then I put on one pagne, and another, plus a sweater, and I dashed without thinking into the everyone-for-himself mêlée. We walked for at least six weeks, just kept walking, because of the alarming rumors.
All along the way, people told us that a mortal danger was at our heels, that we mustn’t let it catch us. People who had money tucked away climbed up on vehicles; those without trudged on. We were emptying out, legs and feet swelling; the weakest collapsed by the side of the road to die while the others pressed on, driven by dreadful reports. We heard over and over that the soldiers in Uganda were going to avenge their Rwandan brothers and that misfortune had switched sides. We ate bananas and manioc stolen from fields and tried to cook soup from leaves. We slept on the ground. We were simply choking on fear and shame.
It was the same chaos everywhere. In June we camped for a long while in Gisenyi, by Lake Kivu and the Congolese border, before retreating to Congo. Many Whites along the roads had watched us go by. We were mistreated fugitives, and that was enough for them. I was sent to the camp in Mugunga, about six miles from Goma, where I stayed for two years.
In the camp, some of us collected wood, others cooked up the food, those who had salvaged some of their savings ran little businesses. As for me, I used to walk into Goma to do laundry in the houses of the Congolese, or work in their gardens and receive bananas and manioc in payment. At first the Congolese were pleasant to us, but they gradually hardened their hearts. Life became very bleak.
I gave birth alone, in a foreign tent, without an old mama to hold my hand, without any friend to fix me some gruel. I remained healthy with the baby, but I was having trouble eating. I was too depressed by everything that had happened. In the evening, by the fire, I would think with such longing of the family farm in Maranyundo. I yearned to go home, but the interahamwe spread threats throughout the camp. We still thought we would be attacked on all sides, because of the evil the soldiers and interahamwe had done.
Early one foggy November morning in 1997, the guns of the banyamulinge—the Congolese Tutsis—drove us from the camp, and that was one almighty stampede. I walked for days tagging along after a stream of people into the Masisi Mountains in eastern Congo. We fled ever deeper into fear, without knowing one another or where we were going. Then some banyamulinge surrounded us with guns drawn. A soldier convinced me that I would find calm in Rwanda, since I had not killed anyone, and that my house and fields were waiting for me in the neighborly atmosphere of the old days.
So, I walked in the other direction, with a road companion met by chance. On the way back, no one spoke to anyone; I crossed the country without a word. Then I had to answer questions at the town hall. Seeing Mama and my brothers alive gave me at last my first feeling of hope. They had returned long before me, since they hadn’t even pushed on to Congo, and they led me straight home with great joy.
Death was still in possession of the abandoned fields. I was deeply ashamed to be seen as a Hutu, as if I were like those who had murdered so many. Even today, the same dream catches me in my sleep: north of Kigali, fleeing toward Congo, we are crossing a field choked with bodies; I step over them but more keep appearing in front of me, I continue stepping over bodies but it never ends, I go on walking over those bodies without ever getting out of the field. Then I wake up and talk with Mama, whispering to avoid awakening the children. We recall the hardships we experienced while we were apart, until we fall into the comfort of sleep.
At first, when I went to the market, I would meet hard stares and hear harsh words as I passed by. With time, the Tutsi women mourning their families and the Hutu women who feared the denunciation of their husbands’ crimes have grown quiet, but people still disdain us deeply, and that hurts me. I even worry about that, because many Hutu women have soaked their hands in the blood of genocide. Men are more liable to kill and then reconcile than women. Men forget more quickly, they share the killings and the drinks more easily. Women do not yield in the same way, they keep more memories.
But I also know of good women, Hutus, who do not dare show compassion for the sufferings their neighbors have caused for fear of being accused as well. I know that life will not ever be serene, as before; still, when the food is good, when the children sleep well, when one feels at peace, one can forget the sadness, for just a moment.…
When authorities want to overthrow other authorities to take their own turn at the trough, that is a war. A genocide—that is an ethnic group that wants to bury another ethnic group. Genocide goes beyond war, because the intention lasts forever, even if it is not crowned with success. In Rwanda, there were only two main ethnic groups. So the Hutus thought it would be more convenient to be on their own to cultivate the fields and conduct business. They saw a more comfortable future simply among themselves. I believe that ignorance and greed are the cause of the catastrophe. It was not just Whites who preached envy and fear of the Tutsis to Hutus: President Habyarimana and his wife Agathe did, too—a couple who never tired of riches.
In Rwanda, we are all colored black in the same way, we eat the same red beans, and sorghum in the same season, and we sing the same hymns together in church. Hutus and Tutsis are not very different. And yet, a Hutu can easily recognize a Tutsi if he wants to find one. You start with the height, but you can be mistaken, because the Tutsi is no longer as tall as before. So you look at the face. The Tutsi’s expression has a certain politeness, and his words are gentle. Even if he farms a worthless field, with an empty stomach and clothed in rags, the Tutsi always feels more middle-class, because he is descended from an ethnic group of stockbreeders. Tutsis often seem to bear themselves stiffly, so to speak, when they walk and even when greeting one another. A Tutsi likes to carry a staff with him.
The Hutu does not understand cows, and doesn’t like putting in any effort over them. He doesn’t celebrate in the same way. The Hutu likes to work, to eat well, to enjoy himself. Unless he’s pushed to, the Hutu doesn’t think of evil. He quickly makes himself comfortable. He’s more easygoing or unpolished, in a way—jollier, more cheerful. He’s more relaxed with things and worries less about troubles. He’s neither mean nor resentful by nature.
The truth is that the Hutus loved their president too much. When he died, they did not take the time to sit down with a drink and talk, weep, keep a vigil and mourn together in our Rwandan way. It was a grievous lapse to run straightaway into the streets shouting threats. Too many radios were troubling people’s minds, as I told you. Too many big men were stirring up small people. It had been planned a long time before. So, at the signal, farmers began killing and thieving, and they acquired a taste for those new activities.
And I repeat that they were forced to do that. If they tried to offer excuses or pretexts for doing their own work without getting involved in anything, they could well be killed in their fields by neighbors. On the hill, I do know some Hutus who have never cut, but none who did not join in the hunts, save for those who fled like the Tutsis.
I know some Hutus who admit their mistakes and accept their punishment. Some Hutus deny everything and think people will lose track of their killings. Others truly believe they did not kill, even though they were seen by others, bloody blade in hand: such people have gone mad from their own folly. Others do not properly weigh their own actions, as if they had done something foolish in secret but so what. One day, Mama went to the trial of one of Papa’s murderers, a neighbor. He encountered Mama in the hallway of the courthouse, he said bonjour to her politely, asked about the family, the rains, our fields, said au revoir, and returned to prison as if he were going home. Mama stood there with her mouth hanging open before she started to cry.
From now on, it is impossible to follow the line of truth in what we have done. Me, I see that Evil fell upon us and that we held out our arms to it. Now I live by the hoe from Monday to Saturday. Sundays, I rest and yearn for the past. I see that I have not gotten married because of all that. And I regret it so much. I caught some children in passing, as I explained to you. I no longer really have any little problems with the neighbors. We sell one another things, we say bonjour, that’s all.
I hope that time will help us wipe away the stains. If the Hutus try to tell the truth out loud, to offer mutual help, to go to the Tutsis and ask for forgiveness, we could hope to live together as we should, without being separated forever by what has happened.