Former Genocide convict grapples to forget past crimes

NORTHERN PROVINCE MUSANZE, KINIGI— Being forgiven of past crimes is one thing compared to overcoming the guilt, according to Gregoire Bimenyimana, a former genocide convict of Kinigi in the Musanze District. Bimenyimana, was convicted of genocide charges after pleading guilty. He served a ten year jail sentence and completed three years of his sentence doing community work, commonly referred to as TIG. He now vows to work for vulnerable people for the rest of his life. During this year’s Genocide commemoration week, he broke down in tears while giving testimony of his past crimes. In an interview with The New Times, 15 years after the genocide, Bimenyimana now shows signs of remorse, saying Rwandans who still harbour the genocide ideology are suffering from guilt and shame. He says he has fully been welcomed and integrated into the community by the same people he feared to face immediately after 1994. However, much as he was forgiven, the mere thought of the atrocities he committed during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, in which over 1m people died, haunts him. “Despite being forgiven, I still feel unclean, I lost integrity due to the shame I caused to my family,’’ he says, as he bows his head in shame. In Kagohu cell, Kinigi sector where he gave his testimony, Bimenyimana narrated how he killed Gatahi Jonas, his former neighbour and friend. He says the unbearable question, was to answer his child who asked him whether he had killed people in the Genocide, when he had just returned home. Upon his return, Bimenyimana gathered the courage and approached Suzan yirantambara, a widow of the late Gatahi Jonas to ask for forgiveness, which he was granted. ‘But coming to terms with the sense of guilt and shame is still hard’, he stressed. He suggests the need for former genocide convicts to set up a local fund through which they can collectively support survivors, in order to enhance reconciliation drives. He also urges former convictsto work for survivors whenever called upon. “Whoever committed genocide should listen to his heart, speak the truth and seek forgiveness,” he said. Ignorance is what led most people to participate in the genocide, according to Sirikari Sylidio, another resident who served 12 years for genocide. Sirikari is now one of the most respected elders who can be consulted for advice in the Cyuve sector, after reforming. “As a child I witnessed the burning of a house of a Tutsi neighbour in 1959, I saw another Tutsi killed in 1982, and this went on unabated up to 1994,when there were mass killings,’’ he said, also asking for forgiveness. He notes that the masterminds of the genocide did not think about its effects to the community and the entire country. Ends