Reconciliation: A story of forgiving and forgeting

44-year-old Jean Pierre Miseke, is a resident of Gahini sector in Eastern province, he is a member of Abiyunze Association made up of 200 genocide survivors and perpetrators. Miseke is a father of seven. During the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, he was one of the Interahamwe militias who murdered hundreds of Tutsis in the now Gatsibo district. According to Miseke he was involved in the gang that assassinated Rwabutogo, Sehungu, Kimondo and Rwabunuguri and looted 6 cows of now Rwinkuba cell. “We were convinced that Hutus were the owners of the country and the Tutsi just foreigners who came as colonisers. And I was told that I will be rewarded with free cows and houses that belonged to Tutsis since I am a Twa,” Miseke said. According to Miseke on April 14, 1994 he and others escaped to Tanzania in fear of the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) which was fighting to liberate the country from the bad regime and the Interahamwe. They were hosted at the residence of Robert Kajuga, apparently one of the founders of the Interahamwe militias. On December 2, 1996, Miseke came back to his motherland with great fear because of the people he had killed. “During the time gacaca courts were launched in the country, I proposed to my wife who was already in the association to escape and go back to Tanzania, but she refused. She asked me to stay in Tanzania requesting me to be open and tell the truth to the Gacaca court. She encouraged me saying that if I am imprisoned, she would care for and visit me. She encouraged me and said that she would take care of the seven children we have. She was the force behind my courage of reconciling with the residents here,” Miseke added. Gahini’s gacaca court convicted him of the crime of Genocide but because he cooperated with the court by providing information, he was sentenced to only one year in prison. He, however, ended up serving only six months in prison while he did community work (TIG) in the remaining six. After serving the sentence, he was encouraged to join the ‘Abiyunze’ association, which he did. “Getting in the association, I heard some stories of the people who went to ask for forgiveness to the Genocide survivors. Honestly, in the beginning, I did not agree with the idea. You know what; I thought it was a trap, suspecting that they wanted to kill me. Later, I bought the idea of facing the man (Constant Sezibera) whose two brothers I killed and asked for forgiveness and to be integrated in the family again since we were neighbours, and it worked,” Miseke sombrely said. According to Constant Sezibera, a genocide survivor in the same association, he initially hesitated to forgive but later, he was convinced by his heart to forgive and forget and build the new relationship since Miseke had the heart to ask for reconciliation. “You know it’s not simple in one’s mind to forgive a mass murderer but when you take that step you feel free and delivered,” says Sezibera. After some time in 2005, Miseke decided to face another woman, Cecile Mukaremera, whose three sisters he killed during the genocide. He searched for her wondering whether she perished in the genocide, fortunately, she had survived and the two reconciled. “I took that step of forgiving Miseke, and reconciling with him, because I consider him as having been used as an instrument of the high ranking initiators of the whole killings. I admire his boldness and courage to accept his role and humility to ask for forgiveness and his will to reconcile with the entire community. I now consider him as my real son,” says Mukaremera, also a member of the Abiyunze association. Looking so concerned, Mukaremera said that she helps Miseke’s family, since he has a big family of seven children and some extended family members. Antoine Ruburika, the Executive Secretary of Gahini sector told The Sunday Times that Abiyunze association is made up of members with different stories of reconciliation which they portray in drama and song. He added that the association also run other developmental projects such as crafts. According to the Gahini sector contracts, they want to mobilise the whole community in the sector to join the association. “In our sector, the Gacaca court has finalised all cases. Of the people falling in the third category, 205 people are to pay for what they destroyed and looted in the 1994 genocide, and 54 people are to be paid by the end of this year,” Ruburika explained. Abiyunze Association is made up of different categories of people; genocide survivors, former genocide perpetrators, and the youth. The association is working in the three cells out of four cells of Gahini sector. Ends