With memories of blood shed, she feels pity for perpetrators

Claudine Mukamusire aged 51 takes us through a story of how she survived, immediately after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and how she has been able to return to a real meaningful life presently. It is an unbelievable story because after getting mixed in dead bodies and being severely injured, she was saved by a Hutu who carried out the killings elsewhere, Mukamusire remembers. During Genocide She says that residents of Rwamagana were somehow lucky since the killings did not start off on April 7 but rather started on the 12th. “Maybe they (interahamwe militia) had not been well trained. But immediately after April 17, Hutus started holding meetings and the second week the leaders of interahamwe commanded people to meet at a Nyaurusange school where they wanted to kill us from,” she recalls. She points out that since Tutsi people became security conscious after the death of Habyarimana, they did not attend the meeting. The Tutsi were then found in their homes and convinced that they would be guarded, which was not true according to one of the Hutus who revealed the information that they would be killed instead. From then they tried hiding, but did not have anywhere to go. So, from April 12 killings started, and the Interahamwe militia started with men and grown up boys. Women decided to go back to their homes and die from there, she recalls. While in one of the houses, Mukamusire and other many other people who included children were attacked and forced to lie on the ground. Herself, the baby she had and everyone else were hit with clubs, many died but she survived. “I had been hurt terribly but did not die, one of the interahamwe started using a knife through my private part to tear me apart. But as he was starting to do so, one of them shouted that there were some people hiding in the roof, he went to see those in the roof and I survived the knife,” she narrates. Adding, “It were girls in the roof because they were in danger, they were wanted to rape. They took them and I lay again in the dead bodies. A Hutu sympathizer realized that I was still alive, he came closer and I asked him to give me some water, good enough he told the wife to bring me tea instead”. She continues that another total interahamwe they had given money later came and rescued her with her baby. She suggested to be taken to the person who had given her tea, where she was treated by a fellow nurse Tutsi who was hiding somewhere else. On 20th FPR saved them as they were not sure of tomorrow. They were taken to Gahinecamp, with her baby after being tortured has a left hand and leg which are paralyzed. Out of the three children and a husband, she has remained with the paralyzed boy. “Many of the people who survived, it was because of FPR’s coming in so fast.” She asserts. Immediately after the Genocide Mukamusire says that immediately after the Genocide she wished she had been among those who had died. She could never imagine going back to her place of origin. “I never wished to get closer to where I was during the Genocide yet it was where my family originated from. It was useless for me and a nightmare since it was where I had left my murdered children, husband, entire family and friends,” she reveals. Adding, “It was like I was not living. But my mother and father in law, other survivors came and encouraged me to leave the camp and go back to our home area, I felt some people around at least and came back”. 15 years after the Genocide Mukamusire says that she never felt she could ever talk to any of the Genocide perpetrators (interahamwe) but with comfort from people, she is now living with them. She however stresses that currently the problem they experience as survivors is perpetrators’ hesitation in telling the truth about what happened, especially in Gacaca Courts. Mukamusire is ready to forgive and has pity on those who committed the atrocities. “We cannot do what they did, we have to live together and develop our country. It is good that we have the security to go on with the good heart, no reason of thinking evil.” She suggests that to change people’s way of thinking, especially those with old thoughts, the government should play a big role. Since the government organized the evil that befell the country, present good governance should help people by sensitisation to think good now, she explains Ends