Surviving the Slaughter. The ordeal of a Rwandan refugee in Zaire Introduction: In the first chapters of her book, Marie Beatrice Umutesi provides a discussion of the origins and politics of the Rwanda genocide, from her perspective as an intellectual, a feminist and social activist, and an ethnic Hutu. Her primary story, however, is about the horrors of refugees fleeing genocide and chaos only to find it on the run, and the power of maintaining one’s humanity in the midst of such horror. Here is a brief summary of events to help ground her story. Ethnic Tensions in Rwanda By the early 1990s, Rwanda, a small country rooted in a primarily agricultural economy, had one of the highest population densities in Africa. About 85 percent of its population was Hutu; the rest was Tutsi with a small number of Twa, a Pygmy group who originally inhabited Rwanda. The country was part of German East Africa from 1894 to 1918. With the defeat of Germany in World War I, Rwanda, along with neighboring Burundi, came under the control of Belgium by League of Nations mandate. The ruling Belgians favored the minority Tutsis over the Hutus during this colonial period. This preference created a divisive legacy of privilege and discrimination that exploded into violence even before Rwanda gained its independence in 1962. A Hutu revolution in 1959 forced as many as 300,000 Tutsis to flee the country, making those who remained an even smaller and more vulnerable minority. By early 1961, the Hutus had forced Rwanda’s Tutsi monarch into exile and declared the country a republic. Under a U.N. referendum that same year, Belgium officially granted independence to Rwanda in July 1962. Ethnically motivated violence continued. In 1973, a military coup installed Major General Juvenal Habyarimana, a moderate Hutu, in power. The sole leader of Rwanda for the next two decades, Habyarimana founded a new political party, the National Revolutionary Movement for Development (NRMD). He was elected president under a new constitution ratified in 1978 and reelected in 1983 and 1988, when he was the sole candidate. In 1990, forces of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), consisting mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded Rwanda from Uganda. A ceasefire in these hostilities led to negotiations between the government and the RPF in 1992. In August 1993, Habyarimana signed an agreement at Arusha, Tanzania, calling for the creation of a transitional government that would include the RPF. This power-sharing agreement angered Hutu extremists, who responded with violence. Genocide On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali, leaving no survivors. While it has never been conclusively determined who carried out this assassination, some Rwandan’s blamed Hutu extremists while others blamed leaders of the RPF. Within an hour of the plane crash, the Presidential Guard, together with members of the Rwandan armed forces (FAR) and Hutu militia groups known as the Interahamwe (“Those Who Attack Together”) and Impuzamugambi (“Those Who Have the Same Goal”) set up roadblocks and began to slaughter Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Among the first victims of the genocide were the moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her 10 Belgian bodyguards, killed on April 7. This violence created a political vacuum. On April 9, 1994, an interim government of extremist Hutus from the military high command seized power. The mass killings in Rwanda quickly spread from Kigali to the rest of the country. Some 800,000 people were slaughtered over the next three months. Local officials and government-sponsored radio stations called on Hutu civilians to murder their Tutsi neighbors. The RPF resumed their civil war that raged alongside the genocide. By early July 1994, RPF forces had gained control over most of country, including Kigali. More than 2 million people, nearly all Hutus, fled Rwanda, crowding into refugee camps in the Congo (then called Zaire) and other neighboring countries. After its victory, the RPF established a coalition government similar to that which was previously agreed upon at Arusha in 1993, with Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu, as president and Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, as vice president and defense minister. Habyarimana’s NRMD party, which had played a key role in organizing the genocide, was outlawed, and a new constitution, which made no reference to ethnicity, was adopted in 2003. Along with the country’s first legislative elections, Kagame was elected to a 10-year term as Rwanda’s president. The United Nations, in conjunction with the World Court, set up an International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In September 1998, the ICTR issued the first conviction for genocide after a trial, declaring Jean-Paul Akayesu guilty for acts he engaged in and oversaw as mayor of the Rwandan town of Taba. The 20th anniversary commemoration of the tribunal’s founding was celebrated on the 5 th of December 2014. At that time, the UN-ICTR launched a legacy website to review the work of the Tribunal and to enable users to research ICTR processes and cases. The work of the Tribunal continues as new cases continue to be tried and appeals are heard in this search for accountability and justice for victims of the Rwanda genocide. Study Questions 1. What was the historical relationship between the Hutu and the Tutsi and how did a history of European colonialism contribute to the instability and ethnic tensions in Rwanda? 2. What did Umutesi mean when she wrote that Rwanda “followed the political development of Africa?” 3. How did Europe respond to the genocide? What about the rest of the international community? 4. What was Umutesi’s experience with European culture, society, and politics? How did it shape her identity? How did has it shaped her views of the causes and conduct of Rwanda’s Civil War? 5. How do we view the victims of such experiences? What is the role of empathy in our response? What do we expect of ourselves, our country, the international community in such circumstances? 6. The book is dedicated to “the memory of Zuzu”. Why? Who was Zuzu to Marie? 7. How was the situation in Rwanda in the 1990s similar to and different from that of Germany in the late 1930s and 40s? 8. Before the war, Umutesi was part of an unusual group of men and women. How did this group emerge and why? What role did their friendship play in her education, professional and personal life; her experience of war and its aftermath? 9. What does Umutesi mean (p. 29) when she says “I felt diminished in front of these thousands who had been able to save nothing but their skin?” Of whom was she speaking? What does her feeling say about her values and sense of self? 10. What was the effect of war on children? How did it differ from or was similar to that of the adults? 11. How was aid gendered? What supplies were sent and what did the international community not think about? 12. What was the role of the UN soldier “peacekeepers”? What was their purpose? How effective were they? 13. What issues and techniques shaped repatriation of refugees? What effect did these have on the refugee population? What were the tools of repatriation? 14. What does the phrase “forced march” mean? What are the conditions of such a “march” and what were the effects on the refugees? 15. Umutesi claims that women do not abandon others—men do. What does she mean by this? What was the context for the comment? Do you agree or disagree? Why? 16. What survival strategies did a successful refugee employ? How were these strategies similar to and different from those of the occupied in wartime Berlin? Suggested Essay Topics 1. Describe and analyze the key characteristics associated with the experience of becoming a refugee in and from war? 2. Discuss the impact of fear on the minds of the hunted. How did fear shape the actions of Umutesi and others who fled from the violence? 3. Discuss the vacuum of power in the absence of a working government or a disciplined military. Who or what fills the gap? 4. Umutesi describes her book as “testimony”. Why does she use this term? What does she mean by it? And what is its import or value? 5. Describe and analyze the tone of this memoir? What does this tone contribute (positively or negatively) to your experience of reading this story? How does it affect your view of Umutesi herself? 6. Discuss the phrase, “it is always better to die tomorrow than to die today.” What was its purpose? What was the significance of the abandoned baby’s story (p. 124) and how did it relate to the import of this phrase? 7. Discuss the view that “this war belonged to the Mayibobo—young delinquents.” What are the characteristics of such a war, of such fighters? What makes these fighters different from and similar to the Russian soldiers behavior in Berlin at the end of WWII? 8. Discuss the implications and meaning (for war and peace) of the phenomenon of single mothers in the refugee camp; the statistic that the majority of refugee girls over fifteen were pregnant or had recently given birth. 9. Discuss the implications, actions, and import of Umutesi’s statement, “I became more and more convinced that a determined, aggressive group of women had to take the lead.” Why were women leaders necessary? From where did they come? What did they do and how? What difference did they make? 10. What does this memoir say about the importance and place of organized civil society in a country? What does she say about women’s role in such society? 11. What is the meaning of “family” in wartime? Who constitutes family? What difference does “family” make to the besieged, the refugee, the occupied?
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