T.F.
May 1997
Two staments are heard throughout the country:
First: "if what happened in 1994 was terrible - and that genocide was given a lot of publicity -. nowadays it is being much worst", but it remains hidden; there are not any ways to denounce it and people feel impotent because they cannot defend themselves. Second: "progressively, there are only women - either widows or alone because their husbands are in prision or they cannot come back-, children and the military.
In certain regions, terror is left intensely: at five o'clock in the afternoon the people in the hills stay at home, in unsafe and isolated houses, hoping to be alive the following day.
The whole country is militarized. Moreover, the military believe they are the owners of people's life and things. This military presence, either in the cities or in the hills, shows cleary the origin of so many deaths, although the media always say the origin is from infiltred people from Zaire. The control over the roads is very rigid.
Even though everything is not said on the radio, almost every day we know about the killings occurred. Normally the victims are people who come back from Zaire or Tanzania, and lately white people. It is time for extermination; it is time for revenge, personal or familiar. There are so many cases published and picked up by certain means of communication that in this report we are going to relate only some of the cases occurred during these last two weeks.
Two days after the killing of three Spanish people, near Nemba Hospital, in the north of the country, a military man of the former government who has just come back meets a group of relatives and friends in a house to celebrate his return. It is seven o'clock in the evening; the house is encircled and all the people (22) in it are killed. The next day it is informed that the killers were the infiltrated people, that is to say, the refugees who cannot return and want to destroy the stability of the country. After few days and near this place, 50 people more are Killed in another comunity.
This week, in another zone in the north, another case. The military who patrol Knock at the door of a house where a man who has returned lives. He had had a post in the local council in the former government. Before opening the door, the man asks them to identify themselves and, being afraid, he says he is not going to open the door unless all the other neighbours in the hill come there. The military oblige the peasants, who patrol at night in each hill, to call the neighbours. Although it is eleven p.m., many of them go there. Then the man opens the door. The military say: "They are your friends, so all of them are going to come into your house"; after the neighbours come in, the military men close the door and throw four grenades. To finish off, they use their guns. There are twenty four dead people, and three survivors: a woman and two men who are still in hospital. The following morning the local authorities summon the people from several hills. The authorities threaten them with killing the ones who cooperate with the infiltrated people, who are accused of the night slaughters. Nobody speaks.
In Muhazi Lake, in the east of the country, many corpses have been found. It is said that the people who come back from Tanzania spend the night there and they are not seen any more. The Human Rights Organization has declared that there are only six corpses, but people in the area say that there are a lot and they dare not go there for water.
In Ruhengeri zone, 600 people have been killed in five different local councils. The reason of their killings is because the prisions are very full and there is no room for all of them. However the main reason is because they want to eliminate the hutu ethnic.
The refugees who come back explain that a great deal of the "ethnic cleaning" is already performed at the frontier, in the military barriers, but it is finished at the own Hutu homes. What has happened during these last months escaping from death is indescribable. After the attacks on the camps, the refugees had to run away and and they were chased and constantly shot; thousands of people were killed in ambush. The refugees were obliged to return to their country and there, in Rwanda, if they are not violently killed, they are waiting for a slow death, whick is still more inhuman.
It is forbidden to give a job to any of those who have returned. Teachers, technicians, professionals, nurses, doctors and so on are being needed, but nobody can offer a job to them: not following this order can cost one's life. First of all, the ones who come back have to follow some courses in which the aim is to empty their heads. At least six months must be spent in those courses before being suitable for a job. Everything is completely controlled. NGOs are also subdued. Any kind of help is controlled by the government. Fortunately, some bishops are encouraging parishes to exercise charity, since "nobody can prevent us from doing it". Religious communities, which are welcoming so many people in the Health and Food centres, help directly with whatever they can. Many of these communities ehich help are considered "interahamwe" (the fearsome Hutu militia).
In a parish, a Rwandan priest asked people to take a census of those who had returned in order to organize help. On the following Sunday, when the mass was finished, he had to say that the census had to be stopped because the govermment had forbidden it.
we know that some Prefectures are distributing very little aid, in spite of forcing NGOs to give it through the goverment. What happened in two prefectures is even worse: the people who had returned were summoned and were told to hand their identity papers -which they received on the arrival at their town hall- to make the delivering lists. Then they were told to come back the next Monday. When they came back, nothing was given to them: no food and no identity papers. So now they are defenceless and illegal; moreover, they cannot leave their village without a special permit, which involves an interrogation.
Nowadays, all the authorities are visiting different regions of the country leading a "sensitivity" campaign; soon after, there are massacres in these places. Furthermore, the lawyers who defend the supposed guilty ones of the genocide are intimidated.
A great problem is the housing one. The ones who entered either voluntarily or by force in 1994 occupied the house whose owners had escaped massively from their country. When the latter came back later on, they found their houses occupied or destroyed. There have been seen some cases in which they have helped each other, sharing the houses, but not many. Normally the owner has to live next to his house, without ani rights on it. It is true that the government assuared that they could recover their houses risk their lives or go to prision... Sometimes, two families have shared the house; but one night the military go there and, with the collaboration of the occupiers, they kill them or make them dissappear; even someone complained the authorities about a family who occupied one of these houses and the following answer was given: "This happens to you for being foolish. If you had killed them, now you would be calm". Everywhere little houses are being built by the government, NGO, Caritas (a charity aorganization),... but all these houses are only for the survivors of the genocide in 1994.
Prisons are another point in this policy of extermination. Prisons are plenty of people. Many other houses have been taken to fill them with prisoners. When visiting the Kigali prision, a minister told the prisioners: "Don't hope to leave it alive". The prisions are different among them, but they are always extremely inhuman. 70 people can be imprisioned in a four-square-metre room, always standing. In some prisions they cannot go out to relieve themselves. When they are ill, nobody looks after them. They suffer beatings. There is no room to sleep. Their feet and legs are rotted. In other prisions they are taken to other health centres with fractures, grave malaria, necrossed tissues, etc. When their wives want to see them, first they have to give five kilos of beans and five of rice. This women can never talk to their husbands; sometimes, the prisioners do not go out to see their family because they are afraid of loosing the sapce which they caught in the prision. There is a lot of corruption among the warders: a little space for lying can cost from 20,000 to 30,000 francs. Families which have returned and do not have anything (no house, no food, no right to work) have to make a great effort to bring food and clothes to their family members in jail. Because of the distance, some families spend the whole day to go to the prisions. It is really impressive to see the long queues of women with their bags or baskets waiting for they turn.
Some of the people who work for the Human Rights Organization are allowed to talk to prisioners. However, if the latter say something about their inhuman situation, they are given beatings later. In other prisions nobody can enter; even people working for Red Cross are not allowed. We know that the Human Rights workers write reports, but ... who reads these reports? Are they useful? What is changing in his terrible situation?
The death of three Spanish people have made the Spanish government change their posture: the Rwandan governmen is asked for an investigation, in which the Spanish government can take part. The economic help is conditioned by the clarification of those killings. It is also requested that the guilty people have to be captured alive, since two witnesses- the house watchers- were caught and killed. Day by day, we can see clearly that the least important for this military, political and economic system- even the economic cooperation to the governments- is the life of the poor and human life itself.
It is a pity to listen to some people, either from Rwanda or from abroad, saying: "we would never have thought that human beings can be so cruel", On the other hand, it is horrifying to listen to opinions like this: "If we can consolidate a million of people of people, it does not matter to exterminate six million". A military was asked if he was aware of his selling of the country to the American: this was his answer: "it does not matter to sell our country to whoever if we can exterminate the hutu population". This terrible situation is takin place with the consent of so many organizations and goverments which send a lot of aid without conditions. The situation is so grave that some Tutsi people cannot put up with it any longer and face the military. We must also remember that 300,000 refugees, who are in terrible conditions, are still in Zaire.
In the midst of such calculating and hidden slaughter, there are some actions which humanize and make us still believe in the human being and its dignity:
How many lives are still needed to have a dialogue and a negotiation in this dramatic situation of the Rwandan people? How must our solidarity be given? How can North countries be obliged to create their policies without paying attention only to power and economy?