Article by the Amazing Gabi, Rwandan jounalist for Hirondelle News agency:

CLAMPING KILLERS AND SURVIVORS TOGETHER


By Gabriel Gabiro


Shyorongi, February 18th, 2004 (FH) – After a brief wait inside a stuffy little house in the middle of a thick banana grove, a small shy man dressed in tired farm clothes and a flat cap made of part cloth, part red mud emerges from the front door clutching a machete.


One can’t help but immediately try to visualize to how many uses Evariste Ahimana, 50 and a confessed killer, may have put the soiled machete in his hands. At the start of the 1994 genocide, Ahimana and a group of his ethnic Hutu friends and fellow farmers swept through the hills and valleys of this remote Central Rwanda town of Shyorongi rummaging through all possible hideouts for their Tutsi neighbours before killing them. For the ‘work’ - a popular euphemism for ‘killing’ - they used machetes, cudgels, hoes, axes or any other farm tool they could lay their hands on.


Seven months ago, Ahimana, together with over 10,000 other confessed genocidaires were released after spending varying periods in detention. This followed a presidential decree issued in January 2003 for the release of suspects that had been (or risked spending) in detention without trial longer than they would serve should they be convicted, as well as confessed criminals that had served most of their time in jail.


Rwanda’s recently enacted genocide law provides for reduced punishments for peasants like Ahimana, especially when they confess and express remorse before a prosecutor. Confessed criminals who are not suspected of being master minders of the genocide, committing rape or having been ‘distinguished’ killers, serve half of their sentences outside prison doing community work in their areas. Reconciliation is the underlying principle of this law.


Ahimana pleaded guilty to clubbing to death a Tutsi neighbour and erstwhile friend called Mulinda. “We picked him up from a house where he had been hiding for some days”, narrates Ahimana. “Then, as you know, those were days of killing”, he adds before looking away, seemingly expecting one to imagine what had followed.


After a pause, Ahimana, still facing away, volunteers details of how he, in the company of five men, attacked and killed Mulinda and several other Tutsi men. “I personally killed Mulinda. I repeatedly hit his head, stomach and back using a cudgel”, he says, adding, “We had been told by the authorities that we had to kill or we would be severely punished. I regret what I did”.


Prior to his release from jail, Ahimana like all the others were taken for a mandatory three month ‘solidarity camp’, a kind of rehabilitation centre. Top on the subjects taught there were reconciliation and the importance of asking forgiveness from victims and their families.


‘I haven’t been to their home’


From the time Ahimana returned to his home after nine years in jail, he admits he hasn’t visited any of Mulinda’s surviving family members to ask for forgiveness. “I’m planning to go and see his younger brother and his sister one of these days”, he says as he peels some dry mud from his arms.


Mulinda’s sister and brother live about five hundred metres away from Ahimana’s house. From the yard of his house, Ahimana points at both locations.


Asked again why he hadn’t been to see any relative of Mulinda’s as encouraged by the authorities, Ahimana remains evasive. Then, once more facing away, he mutters something to the effect of the necessity to first probe if he is welcome at Mulinda’s relatives. He denies harbouring any fear for what would happen if he visited the Mulinda’s. “I have seen his brother a couple of times as I went to church. I have also seen his sister”, he says. “Each time, we exchanged quick greetings and continued our way”, he adds.


A trip to Mulinda’s


Then, albeit with a little hesitation, Ahimana accepts an invitation from Hirondelle to go find Mulinda’s brother and talk to him a little more than exchanging quick greetings.


Once inside François Munyambabazi’s living room, it is difficult to even suspect that anything ever went wrong between them. Both men show respect and calm.


“He hasn’t asked me for forgiveness”, says Munyambabazi. “But I’m ready to forgive him. That is what this country is all about. It is about giving people second chances regardless of what crimes they committed”, he calmly adds reclining in a chair. Ahimana quietly listens.


After a long positive speech that would impress any reconciliation enthusiast, Munyambazi with an expression of ‘its-your-turn-to-speak’, looks at Ahimana.


“What we did is a shame”, Ahimana explains. “When I look back at those days, I can’t believe it was me. Worse still, I can’t understand how I did this to your family”, he adds. Like Munyambabazi’s speech, Ahimana’s is a near photocopy of the spirit of the policies sung by all authorities in Rwanda day in, day out.


But, when quizzed further about his feelings towards the man sitting before him - a man that brutally killed his brother and presided of the killings of his father and his younger brother - Munyambabazi can no longer keep behind the façade.


With his index finger pointing at Ahimana, Munyambabazi angrily speaks out. “Look, you have no guarantee to life as long as you haven’t asked for forgiveness from me and my family”, he says shaking his head. “I can shoot you. In fact, get out of my house quickly”, he adds. “These people have no truth. Get out of my house”, he repeats.


Ahimana, with a face of more fear than surprise, mumbles a farewell and quickly walks out of Munyambabazi’s house.


Other cases


Ahimana and Munyambabazi are not an isolated case. Across Rwanda, victims, killers, suspects and their families are struggling to understand the dynamics of being neighbours as they used to about ten years ago albeit in totally changed circumstances.


Jean Tuyisenge, 38, returned from jail and resettled on his little property with his wife and three children in the East Rwanda district of Bicumbi last May. He was released after pleading guilty to killing two young men from his neighbourhood.


He says he is now a changed man. “I feel terrible about that period. I wish I hadn’t been there”, the well-built farmer says quietly.


Tuyisenge has been working on his small farm since his return. However, he admits he hasn’t done any work on asking for forgiveness from relatives of his victims. “They live quite far away; I need to prepare a lot before I go to see them,” he explains.


Walking away from Tuyisenge’s house, his cousin points at a woman walking along a narrow path in a maize plantation. “That is the lady Tuyisenge was talking to you about”. The lady is one of the relatives of Tuyisenge’s victims whom he said live “quite a distance away”.


Tansiana Mukarwego’s house is 50 metres from the point where she was. “Those people are unrepentant”, she says. “I have seen him pass by several times. I can’t stop imagining that he is still a beast”.


“We shall even share water”


Whereas most of the released killers and suspects interviewed by Hirondelle hadn’t visited families of their victims to ask for pardon, some appear to have started to mend their relationships.


The first stop for Theoneste Habimana, 32, on the day he was released from prison last May, was for the family of his victim. “We saw Theo appearing through the front door. He put down a sack containing his belongings”, recalls Maria Mukamusoni, the mother of Habimana’s victim. “We didn’t know what to say to him. He asked for mercy. We didn’t know what to do”.


Today, Habinama and Mukamusoni both admit that even as good neighbours, they need time to return to pre-war friendship. “I’m sure we shall even share water (a domestic practice that symbolises friendship between neighbours) in future”, says Habimana.


“Personal initiative”


Spokesperson for the ministry of justice, Fidele Masengo denies any suggestion that a process normally flaunted as a quick route to reconciliation and co-existence after the genocide may not exactly have worked.


“Reconciliation was not the reason for the release of these people. It was purely a judicial process”, says Masengo. However, he concedes reconciliation was a major consideration in the drafting of the genocide law that has relatively reduced sentences. A law that Ahimana has benefited from.


“Reconciliation will take longer. We can’t put a deadline. It will come as people meet more and more in their day-to-day activities”.