Edward Bamporiki, 25, an aspiring Rwandan artist and helpless onlooker during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi acknowledges the evil perpetuated by his kin in 1994 and, insists that there is no honour in what they did.

The New Times first heard Bamporiki’s pitiful testimony in a memorial night vigil last Sunday at Kibagabaga Genocide Memorial site, prior to an exclusive interview Monday, where he gave more details.

"I always say that if I could face the then activist, the one who represented the Hutu, saying they were going to kill the Tutsi, as Edward, I feel I would sue him because our unifying factor (a similar ethnicity), even though I was young, was abused.

He used it in an act that is not heroic and that I would not dare be proud of,” Bamporiki said.

"I don’t think anyone would be proud that our kin, or those with whom we share the same ethnic group, prepared the Genocide. I feel I could file that law suit and it could be accepted because being Hutu was not exclusively his alone. He used it without consulting me.”

"They (Hutus) were ordered to pick machetes and kill, without asking why! They became foolish and killed.”

Barely 10, in April 1994, he first saw "unthinkable” scenes of the Tutsi mercilessly hacked to death as he lay in a Kibogora (Nyamasheke District, Western Province) hospital bed, attended to by his mother.

"On the seventeenth (April 17, 1994) I witnessed a scene that devastated my life, and troubled me.”

A Tutsi man he only remembers as Pascal and a child, dashed into a hospital ward searching for a safe haven from the raging Interahamwe but were ultimately caught – at the crack of dawn the next day.

Though out of harm’s way since he was not one of those pursued by the rampant killers; the man’s terrified expression as his demise approached stays with Pascal.

"It was his look as he looked at the killers that initially touched my heart. He was an adult, and perhaps, even knew them. He then glanced at where my mother was seated and, instead of running out, he snatched the child from her,” Bamporiki said.

"They hacked Pascal and his head fell in the door-way, separated from the body but his arms remained clutching the child. The child too was killed about a minute after killing Pascal.”

During and after that horror, Bamporiki’s mother told him not to worry because they would not be touched. 
"She comforted me and told me not to worry, saying they were killing the Tutsi. They would not harm us because we are Hutu.” 

Later that day, his school teacher – Aphrodis Bayingana, was murdered, the shock leaving Bamporiki with a two-day speech impairment.

"He was also killed in front of me and then I found it hard whenever I tried to speak. I just couldn’t speak.”

Later, after regaining his speech and, horror-struck by the cold blood murder scenes at the hospital, he requested his mother that they should leave.

On the way home, he saw more killings. 

"I understood that being Tutsi was trouble, something very bad. One would not even wish to be a Tutsi.”

His mother continued explaining that those who were killing the Tutsi were the Hutu and, on analysing the matter, he recounts, he eventually reasoned that even being Hutu was worthless.

"I felt that if being a Hutu meant getting a machete and you kill others, then it was useless. I started hating that ethnic group.”

Back in school, many pupils too had been killed and whenever the new teacher was teaching, Bamporiki says, he was usually writing things that he could not even understand but the outcome, later, was a poem – "had they not been exterminated, we would be smiling.”

He was tormented, he says, seeing the genocide’s orphans.

"They were always lining up to receive books or clothes, not knowing who had sent them and not even able to see a family member show up since all had perished and I thought about the fact that it was my own people who did this (killed their families), some of the killings done before my own eyes.”  

• His dilemma

While once travelling in Europe Bamporiki was asked whether he was Tutsi to which he answered no. when asked if he was Hutu, he responded affirmatively. Was he a killer? That painfully baffled him.

"I asked myself whether I was, really, a killer.  I searched for the connection between the person who killed and myself since we were of the same ethnic group. I started judging the people with whom I share the same ethnic group and wondered why they used our shared ethnicity to do genocide.”

Then, he took a commendable stride during the 14th genocide memorial, last year – testified and apologised, unlike many, on behalf of his kin. The survivors’ community then, reportedly, comforted him – setting his mind at rest.

Ends