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A Policy of Massacres
with guns and grenades. They killed, killed and killed until they were tired
of killing. The blood spread out, flowing like red mud. There were so
many corpses that you could not pick out the body of your own son. In the
evening, they left. Out of about two thousand people, there were four
hundred survivors. My mother, Bernadette Nyaramigiri and four elder
brothers, along with their wives and children, were among those who died.
The next day, they came back and asked the survivors to lift the
corpses. They packed four rounds of dead bodies onto military vehicles.
But still bodies remained. That night, we helped each other climb out
through the windows. We used clothes to hoist ourselves up. But it was
very difficult, especially as many were wounded, or exhausted by shock,
fear and tiredness. It was especially hard for the women. Only about five
of them managed to climb out. Some children also succeeded.
We headed towards Kanyaro river and the Burundi border. We
were about a hundred people, the ones who jumped out and others we
found on the route. When we got to Kanyaro, soldiers started shooting at
us. I lost two of my children there. Many other people were killed. Despite
the shooting, there was no question of turning back. We knew only death
awaited us in that direction. People moved towards the bullets in the hope
of somehow getting through. The lucky ones crossed into Burundi and
were helped by Burundi soldiers. Forty made it out of our little group of a
hundred, thirteen men and four women from the church, fifteen people
who had joined us on the road and eight children. At the time, my wife
was visiting my parents in Kigembe. Two of my children have survived. 47
Massacre at the Ranch of ISAR, Songa
"Is it a crime to be a Tutsi?"
The massacre at the ISAR ranch and agricultural research station is not
unusual in the number of people killed—several thousand—nor in the
stories of the survivors. But, more than many other massacres, the central
involvement of the Rwandese army is absolutely clear.
Josephine Mukandori, a peasant from Kareba sector in the
commune of Ntongwe, is a survivor of the massacre at the ranch of ISAR.
She is the mother of five children.
On Thursday we learned that the President had been killed. On Friday, we
heard that Agathe [Prime Minister] had been killed and that there had been
attacks in Bugesera. But we were told by government officials that they
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47 Interviewed in Gashora, Bugesera, 8 June 1994.
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were doing everything possible to ensure our security. People began to flee
to Kareba from the areas already affected by the violence. After that the
killings spread to Nyakabungo, meaning that the violence was becoming
nearer and nearer to us. The refugees left us and went to Ntongwe in order
to seek protection from the authorities.
Meanwhile our sector was okay. We were also influenced by
Radio Rwanda which kept telling us to stay at home. Suddenly, the
neighbouring sector was attacked. As the fear mounted, officials were still
saying that our sector would not be touched. But by then we had lost heart
in their words. The men began preparations and organized a defence.
Attackers, who were villagers imported from other communes, and who
had painted ash and chalk over their faces and covered themselves with
dry banana leaves, attacked us on the 16th. There was a confrontation
between our defence and the thugs. One of the thugs was killed and the
rest of them withdrew.
They came back reinforced by soldiers. When armed soldiers
arrived, our defence crumbled. We fled towards the commune of Muyira
in Butare. On the 16th, Butare was still considered safe. We spent two
nights there. Then the killings started there as well. We ran to the
commune of Ntyazo where there was a very strong local defence team.
Many attackers were killed, including two soldiers, and a vehicle
belonging to the gendarmes was burned. But in the end the population lost.
It was inevitable.
In both our sector and here in Ntyazo, Tutsis and Hutus fought
together. Especially Hutus whose mothers were Tutsis, or who had a
daughter married to a Tutsi, fought alongside the Tutsis. The Hutus who
really fought on our side were the ordinary people, not the educated ones
who worked in offices and understood the politics at hand. These ones, the
ones who understood the politics of the attacks, explained to the ordinary
Hutus what was taking place and they began to desert us.
So we fled to sector Ruyenzi in the commune of Ntyazo. We
were about five hundred people. We were stopped by the councillor. He
lamented about the situation, saying that Habyarimana's blood was wiping
out Rwanda. He calmed the adults down and gave food to the children. He
talked to us, saying, 'You are lucky to be running away in time. But I don't
know where you can pass in safety.’
Feeling powerless to protect the refugees, the councillor and his son
escorted the refugees to the ranch of ISAR where he knew that many Tutsis
had sought shelter. He hoped that there might be safety in numbers. The
efforts of the councillor and his son to shield the refugees against the
interahamwe are described in Chapter 15. Josephine described what
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happened at the ranch, making clear how the massacre was a military
operation.
Thousands and thousands of Tutsis had gathered at ISAR. I don't know.
Maybe as many as ten thousand. Certainly no less than eight or nine
thousand. The men put up a defence against the continuous attacks of the
interahamwe. Our defence continued from a Monday [25 April] until the
Thursday of that week [28th]. Because they were fighting interahamwe,
our men had no problem repulsing them.
But on Thursday afternoon, soldiers arrived. After that it was a
calamity. As soon as the soldiers arrived, they started shooting. They shot
and shot. Everywhere, there was a hail of bullets, bullets, bullets. People
started dropping dead. The cows fled. We had been advised to lie down,
far from each other if we were shot at. So that's what we did. Some of the
men bravely continued to fight back with bows and arrows. But once the
soldiers arrived, we did not have a chance. But after a while, the defence
collapsed. How could men and boys armed with stones fight their bullets
and grenades?
Then the interahamwe came and started macheting and spearing.
Whatever the advice about lying down, you just could not sit there waiting
to be killed. Some of us tried to run away while all around us people were
dying and falling down.
I left my children and husband behind. All you could think of was
surviving. In fact you did not think. You just went with your fear and your
legs. As you ran, you had to step over the bodies that were falling all over
the place. Hundreds and hundreds of bodies lay scattered everywhere,
lying in every twisted position you could imagine. All around, there were
cries for help, and sometimes only whispers because people were so hurt.
But there was no question of stopping.
The familiar post-massacre massacre was then unleashed on the
survivors. Josephine continued:
We hid in a small bush. We were in a group of about fifty. We hid until
about 11:00 p.m. None of the fifty adults had come with their husbands,
wives or children, except for two women who had babies strapped on their
backs. We also had a few children who were on their own. It was a
question of personal survival.
We walked the whole night. I cannot claim I knew where I was
going. I just moved with the others. We passed several roadblocks:
fortunately at that time of night, they were not occupied. We had just about
reached the Kanyaro river, at about 4:30 a.m., when the killers started
waking up for their daily work, that is killing people. One of them saw us.
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He shouted out that we should stop, threatening to unleash many killers on
us unless we stopped. We refused to stop. He screamed out an order to the
killers. A mob of about thirty thugs came after us. When they reached us,
they started boasting about the number of people they had just drowned in
the river. One of them then told us: "You are all agents of the Inyenzi.
Speaking from the United States, 48 did you think that the Kanyaro river
would be friendly to the Tutsis?'
They started with the men. They took away their money,
undressed them and tied them up with their hands behind their backs. They
stripped the women down to their petticoats, forcing the babies to cling to
their mothers. We were taken to the papyrus swamps. When we
approached the swamps, the women were also tied up. They took the two
babies off the backs of their mothers and macheted them to death in front
of us. Then they macheted the other children to death. Clearly the plan was
to kill us in groups. But then one of the killers said, 'But we can't bury
them all here. And we will be the losers because their bodies will smell.
It's better to throw them into the river.'
We were marched towards the river. I was the first in line. They
beat us in order to force us to jump into the river. I did not want to be
macheted. Anything but that. I cannot swim but I threw myself into the
river to die by drowning. Two other women also jumped in. The killers
macheted two children and then threw them in after us. The children had
been wounded but were still alive. After that, they macheted the rest of the
group and then threw them into the river. The two children, the two
women and I were fished out by Burundi soldiers. The five of us were the
only survivors of our group. In Burundi, we were taken to a school in
Ntenga and the sick were transferred to hospital in Kirundo.
I came back to Rwanda on 26 May. I have had no news of my
husband and five children or any other members of my family. I wait and
cling on to some hope. But most of the time I imagine and have accepted
the worst. 49
Joseph Rutagarama is a peasant from the sector of Rwesero in the
commune of Nyabisindu, Butare. His testimony of the attack on the ISAR
ranch also highlights the extent to which the large-scale massacres involved
the military authorities, in this case using helicopters for reconnaissance.
The population of Butare did not want to kill each other. Force was used to
get them to kill. At first, a lot of bad rumours were spread. Then refugees
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48 The extremists often alleged that the RPF enjoyed support from the
United States.
49 Interviewed in Ngenda, Bugesera, 1 June 1994.
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began to pour in from Kigali. In addition to genuine refugees, a lot of
interahamwe, well-trained and well-armed, also came from Kigali.
The first direct trouble started on the 23rd [April]. A military
reservist, Abel Basabose, started burning homes. Our bourgmestre, Jean
Marie-Vianney Gisagara, arrested him and some interahamwe. But at the
office of the commune, some officers intervened and demanded the return
of Basabose's gun to him and the machetes to the interahamwe. They took
them home in a van. That night, we were surrounded, sector by sector. The
military were responsible for this.
The killings started at dawn the next day. The targets were
Tutsis—men, women, children, the old and the handicapped. They wanted
to make sure that no Tutsis remained. They said that the RPF are the
children of those they spared in 1959. Therefore, this time Tutsis must be
wiped out. All eleven sectors of the commune were attacked.
As far as I know, I am the only Tutsi who escaped from my
sector. My wife and five children were killed at our commune. My mother,
two sisters and five nephews were also killed. I fled to the commune of
Rusatira in Butare. I tried to leave for Burundi. When I got to Muyira, I
found the same killings were happening there as well. There were barriers
everywhere. I made an about turn. On arriving at the commune of Ntyazo,
also in Butare, I found some refugees with their cows. We were forced to
take shelter at the market. The next day, gendarmes said that everybody
had to go back to their commune of origin.
We took the road that leads to the ranch of ISAR at Songa. We
arrived about the 26th. We passed a week at Songa. We were about three
thousand people when we noticed a helicopter. Refugees continued to -
arrive and the number shot up all the time. Some days later, by which time
we were many thousands more, we were encircled by soldiers. They shot
and shot at us. We tried to resist but we could not sustain our resistance
because they were armed and we were not. People were being shot and
dying everywhere, sending explosions of blood all around. There was
complete chaos. All you heard were gunshots, screams and the footsteps of
people fleeing.
At about 4:30 p.m. we ran. We just ran and ran. Each time we
arrived at a roadblock, we found interahamwe, gendarmes, bullets and the
desire to finish us off. More people got killed. People get killed on the
road. Those whose day to die had not yet come, continued. When night
came, we had no physical strength left in us. We rested a bit and later, at 2
time when we thought it might be a safer time, we went towards the
Kanyaro river, hoping to cross into Burundi. We arrived at Kanyaro at
about 3:00 a.m. We avoided all the main and known roads to get there. Bus
on arriving at the river, we had a shock. We saw people being beheaded
and then thrown into the river. Eight of us had banded together into a little
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group. Somehow, and I can only call it luck, we survived. As soon as we
crossed, we notified the Burundi soldiers at Kanyaro. They came and fired
across the river. The interahamwe fled.
Joseph said he could not say exactly how many people were killed.
He said he only knew that thousands of people who had gone to ISAR had
been killed.
Marie Grace Mukamazimpaka, aged twenty, a peasant farmer, lived
in the commune of Kinyamakara in Gikongoro.
Three days after Habyarimana's death, the killings started in the sous-
préfet of Gikongoro, and were carried out by communal policemen and
local interahamwe. Both the local interahamwe and plain villagers were
given incitement to loot, particularly the cows of Tutsis. The communal
authorities gave petrol to the interahamwe to burn the homes of Tutsis.
About three days later, the trouble reached us. Our commune is
very close to Butare. So we fled to the commune of Rushasha in Butare.
But the interahamwe of Gikongoro, escorted by communal policemen,
decided to attack us in Butare. The refugees, plus the Hutu and Tutsi
citizens of Butare, decided to fight back against the invaders from
Gikongoro. We were led by the bourgmestre who organized our resistance.
But then, the Gikongoro invaders brought gendarmes to help them. That
way, they were able to overpower us. They started burning homes,
macheting and killing people. The original refugees like us and the
residents of Rushasha ran to the commune of Rusatira in Butare. We
arrived there only to discover that the gendarmes, of course with their
interahamwe, had followed us. They pursued us and we took refuge at the
ranch of ISAR in Songa.
We stayed there for four days. We were about eight thousand
people by now. For about five days, the interahamwe came regularly to
attack us. We defended ourselves and they were forced to leave. When the
interahamwe realized that they could not win this battle on their own, two
lorries full of gendarmes were brought in.
They started shooting straightaway and people started falling
down dead straightaway. Some of the people who were shot somersaulted
in the air and fell to the ground. I need not add that our defence melted
away when the gendarmes arrived. Our men had told us to lie down flat if
we were attacked, so even those of us who were not yet touched by the
bullet threw themselves to the ground. But after a few minutes many of us
found it impossible to lie still with people dropping dead all around you.
So we just took off and the cows the refugees had brought also took off.
Soldiers and interahamwe continued to kill those at the back. But other
killers were awaiting us in the direction to which we were fleeing, killing
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those at the front. In particular, children and old people were mowed down
because they could not run fast enough.
The group I was with jumped over a mass of dead bodies. We ran
into fields, heading towards the Kanyaro river and the border with
Burundi. We took off about 3:00 p.m. We reached the border some hours
later. Our group was about a hundred people when we arrived at the
border. I threw myself into the river and swam across. I looked around for
some fishermen who owned a boat who could help to fish out the seriously
wounded. Of course we had to pay them, with money or clothes or
whatever. A lot of the people had terrible machete wounds. Some had
bullet wounds.
Some of the Hutus who fled to Songa with us fought back with us
and some even fled with us to Burundi. Others found it easier to sneak
back to their homes to assure their survival. In such a situation, everybody
did what it took to survive.
In Burundi, T spent three days at Ntega and then I moved to
Bunyara. I stayed a month there. I returned to Rwanda the day before
yesterday. One of my brothers who survived this butchery in our country
came to look for me in Burundi. Fortunately, we linked up. He is the only
one of our family who is alive. Everyone else was killed at Songa or on the
way in the panic flights. My father, Rukimirana, my mother, Mukagahima,
my two brothers, Nsabimina, twenty-three, and Karangwa, eighteen, my
brother Hakizimana and his two children.
I find it very, very painful to accept the death of my family. My
whole family wiped out like that. What did we do to deserve it? Is it a
crime to be a Tutsi? 50
PREFECTURE OF GITARAMA
As the wave of killings began, Gitarama was quiet, like Butare. It was 2
stronghold of the opposition to the MRND, and the extremists had made
little headway in penetrating the préfecture. The Roman Catholic
archbishopric is based at Kabgayi, and many Tutsis and moderate Hutus
believed that this would be a sanctuary. At first, therefore, Gitarama
attracted refugees fleeing from the killing elsewhere, particularly Kigali.
Louise Kayibanda is a journalist who worked at Radio Rwanda
She lived in the commune of Nyarugenge in Kigali. Once the killings began
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50 Interviewed in Ruhuha, Bugesera, 2 June 1994.
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