April 2006

This week is genocide commemoration week in Rwanda and I have been attending genocide memorial ceremonies and mass burials nearly every day. They are still finding and burying thousands of people’s remains in April of every year. Last night I attended a ceremony at a site in Kigali called Kicukiro. There is a new movie that just came out called “Shooting Dogs” and much of the movie is based on the events that occurred at a technical school in Kicukiro where UN peacekeeping forces were based and thousands of Tutsis sought shelter during the first days of the genocide. Below is a survivor testimony that was given at the service last night. We marched from the school to the massacre site as the sun set and nearly full moon rose and the service went all night. There were songs and poems and testimonies and speeches. Women in the crowd would have traumatic reactions, screaming and shaking and fainting. As you read below you will understand why. Never forget is what they say. What memories people have to live with.

“Once the killing began we left our house and knowing that the UNAMIR forces were based at ETO we went there believing that they would protect us from the massacre. We weren’t the only ones who had the idea. When we arrived we were met by thousands of others and the numbers continued to increase each day. We arrived on the 7th of April and stayed at the school for four days. Interahamwe and government soldiers waived and shot guns outside the gates of the school. They had surrounded us on all sides, but we knew we were safe because the UN was there. They had guns too and kept them pointed at the armed mob outside. On our 3rd day at the school a rumor spread that UN reinforcements were on their way and we felt hope. On the 4th day, the 11th of April, our hopes were dashed. The general of the UN peace keepers stood before us and said that they had orders to leave and that they could not take any Rwandans with them. At first we could not understand and people yelled at him and begged and pointed to the dangerous men outside. We knew then that we must organize so we met together and chose representatives who would go to the general and plead for our lives. The general only shook his head and said that he must follow orders. That afternoon white UN trucks began to arrive and take away the soldiers. We laid in front of their trucks and they fired into the air to scare us away. They had guns and trucks and men and they left. We had nothing. As soon as they were gone the Interahamwe and government soldiers entered the school and marched us down towards the stadium where we knew that many Tutsis were hiding and thought that we would be allowed to go there too. When we reached the intersection of the road to the stadium they turned us around and we walked back up the road, past the school and continued to walk for about 45 minutes. Some of us thought that they were keeping us alive for a reason and that we would not be killed. Others walked solemnly, sure that death waited at the top of the hill. We were brought to Nyanza, a trash pile at the top of the hill and told to sit down. Immediately the shooting began. I heard a gun shot and fell to the ground and laid still. Bodies fell on top of me as those who sat by me were killed. Once the shooting stopped men came through with machetes to kill those who had not died. They used machetes and clubs to rape the women (literally translated as using machetes and clubs in the private parts of women). I was so far beneath the bodies that they did not see me. I laid there for three nights, not daring to fall asleep for fear that I would move and a soldier would see me and kill me. A woman I knew who had given birth to a child only eleven days earlier and had walked with the child strapped to her back had been hacked to death, but the child had lived. For the three days I listened to the child cry and choke until it was at last silent like the rest of us. At one point a crazy man from the village came and took a young girls body. A few hours later he brought her back dragging her by one leg. I do not know what he did with the young girl during those hours. I survived this and now I have to live with these memories. It was Rwandans that killed other Rwandans, but the international community is responsible too. If they had not left it would not have happened. That is all I can say.”

The other day I went to a burial and the sheer number of coffins they buried, each containing the remains of 10-20 people was truly bewildering. Seeing them all laid out in rows covered with purple and white cloths brought home the sheer number of people that were killed here. I’ve spoken with several scholars who say that it was well over a million people and I can believe it. What I can’t believe or understand is why. I know that is what everyone says, but even after talking with so many people about it and watching the videos and listening to the tapes and reading the books I still can’t make sense out of it. I understand the often very different historical reasons given by academics and politicians but the act itself and the brutal way in which murders were carried out is still incomprehensible to me. And I am an outsider. It must be truly impossible to understand when it is your own former friends, neighbors, and even relatives that murdered and raped your family members with machetes and clubs. Sometimes I think that it would be better for some people to forget and they are not given that opportunity here. During this week the radio plays survivors songs one after the other and the t.v. plays documentaries that show the aftermath of the genocide, bloated bodies floating down the river and children in hospitals with gashes on their heads skull deep. The newspaper prints pictures of skulls and bodies piled on the ground. There are genocide remembrance banners everywhere and survival testimonies such as the one above are given at ceremonies which are held in every district. People wear purple scarves if they have lost relatives or friends in the genocide.

Of course for my project I look at the political reasons behind this incredibly public period of remembrance and the role of memorials in this remembrance and I will share more of that with you at a later time. Politics aside, I’m just trying to learn and understand more about one of the darkest four months imaginable and one that I only studied for the first time three years ago. If you have time now, visit this site and click on the link for the “not on my watch” video. It’s pretty upsetting, but hey, it happened.