Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire

1 I Discover My Ethnic Identity

1 I Discover My Ethnic Identity The first time I heard talk of Tutsi refugees was in 1963. I was four years old. It was about six in the evening, and my father was behind the house with some neighbors, listening to the news on the radio. In the early sixties, very few people owned a radio, and neighbors used to come to our house to listen to the daily news broadcast. We heard a whistle. My father ran back to the house and called to my mother: “They’re here!” In his panic he dropped the radio on the floor. He had thought that Tutsi rebels were coming, but luckily it was a false alarm. Nevertheless, for a few weeks our life was dominated by fear of an attack. Even though we were far from the combat zone, people were terrified of the rebels. They took turns standing guard, and a whistle was the signal for danger. Hiding places in the marshes and the forest were prepared. All this seemed very strange to me, and it took me several years to begin to understand. In the first place, I had to realize that I was Hutu. All Rwandans share the same language and culture, and there is no specific region that is identified with an ethnic group, no “Hutuland” or “Tutsiland.” The colonial authorities, in order to simplify things, tried to differentiate between three ethnic groups, using a system based on morphology. The Tutsi are tall, slender, and have refined features. The Hutu are of medium build with negroid features. The Twa are small and have pygmoid features. In reality, these are just generalizations. There are short Tutsi and tall Hutu and Twa. After the sixties, when interethnic marriages became more common, the differences became even less pronounced. 6 At the time of the Tutsi genocide in 1994, Hutu with refined features were killed at the roadblocks, whereas Tutsi with Hutu features remained safe. In Cyangugu, a prefecture bordering the Congo, I found Tutsi friends who had crossed the entire country and had had no difficulty at the checkpoints, even though they had no more identification than a document certifying that they had lost their identity card.1 On the other hand, my mother, who was Hutu but had Tutsi features, was threatened with death a number of times, even though her identity card was completely in order. Ethnicity was never a barrier in my relationships with those who belonged to other ethnic groups, and in my family it was not considered a reason for exclusion. As far back as I can remember our house was full of Hutu and Tutsi children, neighbors and orphans that my mother took under her wing. I have no memory of preferences based on the ethnicity of one or another of the children. Only a child’s character, honesty, sweetness, or obedience was important. Thus one of my parents ’ best friends, as well as their godparents and those of my older brothers and sisters were Tutsi. My family maintained good relations with all those who had not been carried away by the revolution of 1959. Social revolution erupted on November 1, 1959, when I was only six months old. The Hutu rebelled against the feudal power of the Tutsi, which was based on servitude, exclusion, and contempt. It began when a band of young Tutsi attacked a Hutu subchief who had been appointed by the colonial authority. It was rumored that he had been killed, and the same day the whole country knew about this act of aggression . Revolt had been simmering since the beginning of the fifties and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. For a long time the Hutu had chafed under the system that had been imposed on them. Every Hutu owed allegiance to a Tutsi and had to perform services that were rendered without payment. A Tutsi could even throw a Hutu out of his own home and occupy it himself if he wanted to. One of my aunts rebelled against this system. At sixteen, while performing these obligatory services, she had to accompany a young Tutsi woman back to her family. Once there, she refused to eat for three days I Discover My Ethnic Identity 7 p 1. A prefecture is the equivalent of a province. because she was forced to eat alone after the...