Several Genocide survivors in Gisagara District yesterday accepted to live peacefully with perpetrators who had asked for forgiveness for their role in the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi.

Genocide convicts who served their sentences knelt down in church with survivors holding on their shoulders as clerics prayed for healing.

The event took place at Kibirizi Parish. It followed a healing process, which involves former convicts apologising to survivors to be granted forgiveness.

The programme is an initiative of Fr Ubald Rugirangoga and seeks to foster healing of wounds of Genocide survivors and guilt of perpetrators as part of efforts to promote unity and reconciliation.

One of the perpetrators, Celestin Habinshuti, apologised to Anne-Marie Uwimana for killing her entire family during the Genocide.

Uwimana had four children killed in the Genocide. Habinshuti killed two of them before her eyes, she said.

He is also said to have aided the killing of Uwimana’s husband and other family members.

Both the survivor and the perpetrator are residents of Kibirizi Sector and belong to the Catholic Church.

Clerics sprinkled spiritual water on the former convicts and hugged them before asking them to hug people whose relatives they killed as hymns were sung.

"When the killings started, they started calling us names and told us that our end had come. They later started hunting us down,” recalled Uwimana.

Her husband had fled the attackers.

"As we slept with kids one night, this man (Habinshuti) came and demanded for my identity card. My kids were leaning against the wall and immediately he butchered two of them with a machete,” she narrated.

Uwimana said she escaped by sheer luck, fleeing with a baby nursing injuries.

Habinshuti killed many other people for which he was handed a 10-year jail term by Gacaca courts.

He confessed to the crimes before the congregation yesterday.

However, when he was released, relations were not good between him and Uwimana.

"We could not meet in public and whenever I saw her I would change direction. I was always in shame,” he said.

Like Habinshuti, Uwimana was not willing to meet Habinshuti for long as it drew bitter memories of the loss of her children and husband.

"As you see me here, I am lonely with no relatives,” she said. "However I have forgiven Habinshuti for the sake of healing.”

Fr Rugirangoga’s programme is a healing channel where both parties talk and discuss social issues and get reconciled.

"Now we live in harmony, share drinks and he supports me in various activities. Although he can do nothing to bring back my beloved family members he and other Interahamwe militia members killed, I am grateful he looks remorseful and kind now,” Uwimana said.

Habinshuti, his 60s, said: "We have even agreed to share a meal at my home on this special day. This is a golden chance to be forgiven not only in front of survivors but also society and before God,” he said.

Officials speak out

According to Fr Rugirangoga, the programme changes the mind of people where hundreds have been healed.

He prayed to God to forgive those who apologised and strengthen both parties to move towards unity and reconciliation.

"Let them change for good so that they detest all the wrong,” the charismatic priest added.

At least 13 former Genocide convicts apologised and were forgiven both by their victims and the Church.

Fidele Ndayisaba, the executive secretary of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), hailed the programme and both former convicts and survivors for understanding it.

He said the apology brings peace and hope not only to the two concerned people directly but their entire families as well as society as a whole.

The programme started in 2005 in Mushaka Parish in Cyangugu Diocese and now operates in several other parishes such as Nyamata in Bugesera District, and Kibirizi in Gisagara District.

To prepare them, former convicts study for six months and at the end the programme also brings in survivors.

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