Survivor: How the RPA saved the Tutsi in Gitarama

If there is a day that Venuste Nsabimpuhwe, 63, will never forget in his life and which evokes memories of a sudden passage from death to life and from danger to safety is the day in June 1994 when liberation fighters under the then Rwanda Patriotic Amy/RPA Inkotanyi movement arrived in the now Muhanga district and saved the lives of thousands of Tutsi refugees who were on the verge of being murdered by bloodthirsty Interahamwe militiamen. Nsabimpuhwe, a resident of Biti Village in Nyamabuye sector, was one of them. That day, he recalls, dozens of hundreds of local militia had teamed up with soldiers and gendarmes and took up positions on surrounding hills preparing to launch a mega-attack on the thousands of Tutsi who had taken refuge at various sites in Kabgayi, a hill on the exit of Muhanga town that is occupied mainly by Catholic Church infrastructures which include a basilica, schools, hospital and convents, among others. But the killers’ plan was to never happen as it was foiled by the “courageous and brave” Inkotanyi fighters who, Nsabimpuhwe says, arrived at a time their intervention was badly needed. Earlier in mid-April, shortly after the death of former President Juvenal Habyarimana, thousands of Tutsi fleeing killings in various areas of the former Gitarama prefecture and adjacent places-including those from Gatumba, Nyange, Muhororo and other communes- had arrived in Kabgayi with hope to get sanctuary at a place that was known to be a stronghold of the Catholic Church. The refugees, whose number is estimated to have been in dozens of thousands (some estimates put it between 38 000 to 50 000),- gathered at various sites. Nsabimpuhwe recalls with precision that they lived in crowded and deplorable conditions with little food or water while many suffered from dysentery. “Some, mostly old women and men who were physically weak, died of the harsh conditions,” he remembers. Later as the war raged and the government lost control of key cities, the interim government led by Theodore Sindikubwabo as president and Jean Kayibanda as Prime Minister fled the capital Kigali and installed their headquarters in the premises of the now Rwanda Management Institute (RMI) on a hill called Murambi located at the entrance of Muhanga town. Thousands of soldiers including presidential guards also invaded the small town in the south-centre of the country, according to sources. As the leaders arrived in Muhanga, killings of Tutsi which had been taking place at a small-scale intensified, particularly targeting those who were living in Kabgayi. In the beginning, the killings looked very systematic: killers would storm the ‘camps’, and call out names of people they wanted or identified those who looked a bit healthy or clean and took them to be murdered. The targeted killings mainly were directed against local businesspeople, educated individuals and other influential Tutsi in the area, according to Nsabimpuhwe. “Each day, soldiers and militiamen picked out people to be killed,” he says. But later killings started being committed at a large scale. Kabgayi, which had become a death camp, also saw the militia commit rape against young Tutsi women, Nsabimpuhwe remembers. “From our hideout, you could hear people groaning in pain as they were murdered in an adjacent forest,” he remembers. Descent into hell At the time of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Nsabimpuhwe was an established businessman in Muhanga (then Gitarama) town who owned a modern shop, a car and a modern residential house. That made him a prime target of killers who, he assumes, wanted to take up his property. When killings at a large scale started, Nsabimpuhwe fled his home in Nyabisindu neighbourhood and took up refuge in a bush in hills outside Muhanga town for a week. His journey would also take him back to Nyabisindu and later Bihuma hills before ending at Kabgayi around April 29, 1994. “When I arrived, there were already dozens of thousands of refugees who were hoping for survival,” he recalls. “The situation was terrible. People had nothing to eat, we were living in deplorable conditions and were constantly pounded by rains,” he says. “The weakest died.” Upon arrival, Nsabimpuhwe was informed by other refugees that militiamen had been looking for him for days-sometimes returning three times a day to look for him. He would also later learn that his name was on the list of those who had been labelled ‘Ibyitso’ - a term that signified those the then leaders considered as collaborators of the RPA-Inkotanyi. But he resolved to stay there. “There was nowhere else to go,” he says. Nsabimpuhwe miraculously survived several attempts by militiamen and soldiers to murder him, partly thanks to the courage of some young refugees who helped him hide whenever the militias arrived. Dozens of thousands of other refugees were however not lucky as they were murdered around that time. Testimonies from other Kabgayi survivors describe how hundreds of Tutsi were taken from there, forced on buses and driven to Ngororero where they were slaughtered and dumped in Nyabarongo River. Others were killed around their ‘camps’. The arrival of Inkotanyi “On several occasions, I met death but God was on my side and I miraculously survived,” Nsabimpuhwe says as he takes a pause and sighs. In one incident, a soldier found him in a makeshift hut where he was hidden but miraculously, the military-man who had threatened to kill him saw notes of francs in Nsabimpuhwe’s shirt pocket. He took the money and left, he recalls failing to explain why the soldier let him. “Next to where I was hiding two men offered the same soldier money but he refused. He shot them right there. I heard the bullets,” he says. As the war opposing RPA soldiers and the then Forces Armées Rwandaises (EX-FAR), approached Muhanga a plan was hatched to exterminate the hundreds of Tutsi who remained alive at Kabgayi. In the wee hours of June 2, 1994 armed Gendarmes and soldiers encircled Kabgayi and started shooting and throwing bombs at the refugees. Thousands of Interahamwe, including those who had been called as reinforcement from other areas, also took up positions around Kabgayi ready to follow suit and finish those who had survived the shelling. “I thought our last day had arrived,” Nsabimpuhwe recalls. But around 10a.m. that day, the refugees started hearing sounds of unfamiliar arms being fired nearby. “We thought something unusual was happening and in my heart I thought may be Inkotanyi were nearby,” he says. His intuitions later proved to be true. Hours later that day, the refugees saw the government soldiers and the militia fleeing and within minutes Inkotanyi invaded the town to the relief of the refugees. “It is a day I will never forget,” he says. “It is like rising from death and having life again, rising from the shadow of death to the light of hope and life.” Nsabimpuhwe recalls how the soldiers-who spoke Kinyarwanda, some in military attires, others clad in casual clothes, carrying heavy bags and arms- arrived in the town to the excitement of the refugees. “No one doubted that they were Inkotanyi who were fighting to save us,” he says. “I immediately rushed out of my hideout and ran towards a soldier who was carrying a heavy machine gun. I embraced him tightly and to my surprise he let me do.” “It was a moment of high emotions,” he adds. After securing the area, the Inkotanyi fighters evacuated the hundreds of refugees who were still alive to Bugesera far in the east as the genocide was still ongoing in other southern parts of the country. “We looked at the soldiers like semi-gods for what they had done to rescue us,” Nsabimpuhwe says. Even today, when Nsabimpuhwe attends ceremonies to honour the memories of those who were killed at Kabgayi, he says he feels he wants to hug soldiers and say ‘thank you’ for their sacrifice to rescue them.“They are our heroes. They are our saviours and our messiah,” he notes.

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Survivor: How the RPA saved the Tutsi in Gitarama