Among the survivors is Janvier Munyaneza, a nine-year-old boy who remembered the slaughter in Life Laid Bare: “All we could hear was the commotion of the attacks. We were almost paralyzed amid the machetes. People were almost dead before the fatal blow. My first sister asked a Hutu she recognized to kill her without making her suffer. He said yes, pulled her out by the arm onto the grass, and struck her with his club. Then a close neighbor, named Habyarimana, shouted that she was pregnant. He sliced open her belly with a stroke of his knife. I weaved my way through the corpses, but unfortunately a boy managed to hit me with his bar. I fell flat on top of the corpses. I didn’t budge. I made my eyes dead.”
For sixteen years, the brutality of the murder of his sister, Ernestine Kaneza, was lost beneath the memory of five thousand corpses. Then came the gaçaça trials. During one of the hearings, held beneath the branches of an acacia tree not far from the church, a young soldier asked permission to speak. It was Janvier. He had come home on leave from the Kivu region. He wanted to testify.
Before we hear his account, let us return to those first days of the genocide on the Ntarama hill, turning to the more detailed recollections of his brother Vincent, who, three years his senior, farms the family plot on a hillside in Kiganwa. He recalls: “It was during the April school vacation. A cowherd and I were leading the cows to pasture when his eldest brother came shouting, ‘We absolutely have to leave. The Hutus have started killing in Kanzenze.’ We ran to the church, which is only a few kilometers away. We camped near the enclosure without going directly in so we could keep an eye on the cows. My mama decided to make a break for Kigali, taking the smallest children with her. I tried to catch them. Looking down from where we were, I could see the men hacking them with machetes on the bridge. I retraced my steps.
“On the fifteenth, the interahamwe arrived singing. They smashed open the doors of the church. I had the speedy legs of someone used to chasing after cows. I raced down to the marshes behind my papa, my oldest brother, and many other men. Janvier’s short legs kept him from coming with us. He stayed with his two sisters in the church. That night, those of us who had survived the marshes went back up to the church to save anyone who could still be saved. It was my papa who dragged Janvier out from under the corpses. He seemed dazed, but he was still alive. He somehow found the words to tell us how our sister Ernestine had been taken out of the church by Vincent Habyarimana and Modeste Mfizi. He called them by name, without hesitation, because both men were our close neighbors in Kiganwa. My papa examined the corpses behind the church. He found Ernestine sliced open from her genitals to chin, with the baby scattered in pieces next to her. It was only during the gaçaças that we learned the sad fate of my other sister, Christine Mukaruhogo. How she was taken away by the mob of killers to the Kibungo town square, stripped naked, and macheted to the howls and jeers of a huge crowd.”
According to Vincent’s account, a group of seven friends participated in the killing of April 15, including Vincent Habyarimana, Modeste Mfizi, Emmanuel Bampoliki, and Fulgence Bunani. The latter ordinarily worked with his gang of Adalbert, Pio, Pancrace, and Alphonse—with whom I wrote Machete Season—but on that day he threw in with some others whom he had met along the way. We already know what happened next. Janvier, Vincent, and their father survived hidden in the papyrus of the Cyugaro marshes. The killers fled with their families to the Kivu region in eastern Congo, where they settled in a camp for two years. In 1996, troops from the RPF led them back to Rwanda by force.1 Upon their return, most were imprisoned at the penitentiary in Rilima, where they were tried for the first time. Ernestine’s father didn’t testify, having died from exhaustion prior to the trials, nor did his sons, who were still too young. That explains why the murder wasn’t mentioned at the time. The seven men received prison terms of about fifteen years apiece, all except Habyarimana, who was sentenced to life for his role as one of the ringleaders of the expeditions.
Seven years later, in 2003, all except Habyarimana benefited from an amnesty law and returned to their land. Fulgence reunited with his wife, Jacqueline Mukamana, and his two sons, Idelphonse and Jean-Damascène. He was a tireless farmer. At daybreak every morning he headed out, hoe in hand, to his field near the river. He built a larger house to make room for the arrival of new children and started distilling urwagwa again. He found his way back to church and to the cabaret in Nyarunazi, where he would share a bottle with his accomplices Pancrace, Pio, and others, like Ignace.
When the gaçaça court opened on his hill, Fulgence wasn’t overly concerned by his many summonses to appear beneath the tall tree. At each hearing he kept to the tacit arrangement offered by the authorities: that the accused who cooperated and admitted to crimes would leave just as free as they had arrived. Neither he nor anyone else had anticipated that, one fine morning in Rilima prison, Habyarimana would ask to testify in the hope of seeing his sentence reduced. That was when Janvier first heard of what was afoot and decided to join Habyarimana at the trial. He described the details of his sister Ernestine’s murder and stated, “From where I was in the church, my eyes saw clear as day Habyarimana and Mfizi lead my sister outside.”
A long silence fell over the proceedings. The gaçaça’s presiding judge, Célestin Mangazini, remembers it well: “We looked at each other, dumbstruck. No words came to our lips because of the details of the young woman’s disembowelment. Then a terrible commotion took hold of the audience. Without further ado, we sentenced the two defendants to fifteen years.”
No sooner had the ruling been delivered than Mfizi found himself back in prison with his accomplice, Habyarimana. Furious, Mfizi lodged an appeal in which he promised to reveal the whole truth of what had occurred. The authorities named a neutral gaçaça court in Musenyi, a hill thirty kilometers away. Emmanuel was called to appear under the acacia. He promptly denounced his six sidekicks and then, ever the sly one, took advantage of nightfall to slip away into the eucalyptus, after which he eventually escaped to Uganda.
The presiding judge immediately summoned the six other men. It was the first time that Fulgence’s name had been mentioned in the case. Utterly unaware of what was transpiring at the gaçaça, Fulgence offered his swollen feet as an excuse to spend the Sunday quietly at home. He would have cause to regret it. In his absence, the gaçaça judge repeatedly called upon the men either to assume responsibility for the crime or to denounce the killer. Each denied his own involvement more adamantly than the next. The angry crowd grumbled.
As Célestin Mangazini recalls, “If they confessed, we weren’t going to send them back to prison. Clemency had opened its arms to those who asked forgiveness. Pardons had been granted right and left. But they were too ashamed. In front of their neighbors’ eyes, none of them could admit to having so brutally cut a young pregnant lady and her child. The culprits clung to their denials. Anger seized the judges and the public. They were shocked and outraged. The verdict rang out, and it was merciless: life in prison for them all. It was the last day of the gaçaças, the final decision of a supplementary session on a Sunday evening. It was the group’s bad luck, if I may put it that way.”
Five kilometers down the hill, on the stony path that leads to Kiganwa, Fulgence had little reason to suspect that his fate had just taken a very sour turn. His wife, Jacqueline, confirms as much: “It was dark outside, a Sunday, after supper. Customers were passing a bottle around in our cabaret, but Fulgence was already resting his feet in bed. Myself, I was cleaning utensils in the yard. He went out to pee. I heard the customers shouting. I went out, my little girl sticking close behind me. That’s how she saw him, her child’s eyes wide, staring at her papa tied up with rope. Three men pushed him along. I ran after them to put a jacket over his bare shoulders. I snuck the money from the evening’s drink sales from his pocket. The night was especially dark, a Sunday with no way out. I feared that they might simply kill him on the way, which is why I sent the two boys to follow behind the little procession. Was Fulgence ignorant of what was happe
ning at the gaçaça? Yes. He knew the group had been called, but the summons said he only needed to give testimony. He wasn’t thinking of new charges. His feet had swollen—the pain shot up as high as his hips. He sent a boy to provide his excuse. And that’s how they tied him up and dragged him off to Kibungo. At the gaçaça, the verdict had already been announced for quite some time; the van had already taken the judges off into the night. Nothing was left to say. He was jailed at the sector office. The next day a truck brought him to Rilima.
“Do I know if Fulgence took part in the killings? I would think so, since he went off with the expeditions like so many other men. But Ernestine’s murder, that’s a big thing. I remember the night of the killing, on the fifteenth. Who doesn’t remember it? He came home with someone called Sylvère. They were sweating—they smelled of sweat through and through. They sat down, they didn’t ask for anything to drink. They seemed somewhat traumatized. They were panicked by the bad things done. Fulgence put down his machete and said, ‘What we saw today goes beyond anything so far. May God forgive me and help me not to go back!’
“If that was the day he became a butcher, wouldn’t his wife have noticed in bed?”
JEAN-DAMASCÈNE NDAYAMBAJE
SIXTEEN YEARS OLD
Son of Fulgence Bunani, Hutu prisoner
The release from prison in 2003, that remarkable year, I remember. It was the dry season. A gentleman came and set down his bundle on the last step of a two-day journey. He gave hugs and kisses all around. He wasn’t tall, but he wasn’t short, either. We didn’t see him as someone special. At first I thought that he was simply paying the family a visit, because I had no idea who he was. I had never been taken to Rilima, even though I was already seven years old. It was a tidy sum for a child to rent a bicycle. My mama told us that the man was our papa. She said that all the prisoners had been granted pardons and that we were going to live as a family again. My papa was given a warm welcome. His clothes weren’t made of handsome fabric, his shoes had no laces. He sat down with us, he shared the bottle, and he spoke comforting words. He was glad just giving compliments, I think.
You could tell that his eyes were sorry to see the holes in the house’s metal siding and the dry banana trees. He held back his reprimands. I was happy to know that he was my papa. Neighbors stood in line to greet him and, of course, to have a taste of drink for free. They stayed late to talk. Mama decided against killing a kid goat, so as not to appear proud in the neighbors’ eyes. We still ate brochettes, and we tapped urwagwa from the jerry cans. It was the first celebration we had had in a very long time. Papa relaxed at home the whole day long without walking off to town. Mama was full of life and laughter. She was festive, and didn’t skimp on the jugs of drink.
Papa and Mama took up their tools before sunrise and worked in the field until nightfall. They did the same the next day. Papa left every morning without saying a word. He uprooted the stumps of a seven-year-old jungle. He sowed tomato plants in the low valley, near the river. We were no longer accustomed to such fancy crops; we had gotten by with beans. It made us admire him. He built a picket fence for the small livestock, and he dug a watertight pit for the urwagwa. A normal family existence offered itself to us. Good fortune stopped turning its back. Papa set about building a new house, he added a brick veranda, he opened a drink business. People congratulated him.
Then, at seven years old, I was given my first schoolbag. There was no more teasing on the walk to school—no Tutsi kids went that way anymore. Each year I climbed straight into the next grade. The teacher was strict with everyone. I enjoyed learning. My exams ranked me at the top of the class, where I really excelled. I showed off in ball games with classmates. Soccer was my joy. In the evenings, I fetched water from the river, like so many others, and I cut feed for our animals. At that age, you don’t yet raise the hoe.
Our plot gave in abundance, and the banana grove grew strong. We cleared fertile land along the marshes and harvested beans in quantities large enough to sell. Two mother sows added to the pig farm. Many neighbors came to sit on the veranda to drink our banana beer. You could see that they liked the taste. We got used to the good life again. I sometimes went with my papa to the Nyamata market, where we could sell at better prices. On Sundays, we walked as a family to our church in Kibungo. At mass, Papa often presided as God’s servant—they dressed him in a white chasuble, just like before the genocide. After the service, everyone broke into groups of acquaintances. If a soccer game was starting, I hurried off to the field. I loved nothing better than soccer. I sometimes got to watch televised games in downtown Nyarunazi. Me, I root for Real Madrid. I don’t know why—the team just makes me happy.
Papa lasted for seven years at home. He described the journey to Congo and life in prison. I didn’t ask him questions. I never asked him why. No, not a single question about the killings. I felt too little to ask him personal questions about his bad behavior. The traditional respect a child has for his papa is the same as trepidation. No questions for my mama, either, because she was blessed to be busy by her husband’s side. And none for my older brother, Idelphonse, for fear of being scolded.
Papa’s freedom made me glad, and I thanked God for it. On the hill, there were plenty of good friends whose papas had been released in the same line of prisoners. We talked about it among ourselves. We said that our papas had had a hand in the genocide and that they had truly confessed their mistakes. We counted ourselves lucky. We discussed the situation without singling out the details of any particular misdeeds. We didn’t linger over rumors; we kept clear of them. We avoided them because deep down they made us uneasy.
Papa was sent back to prison in 2010. We were taken by surprise. It was a Sunday. Someone came looking for him to testify at the gaçaça court one last time. His swollen foot shot pain all the way up his thigh. I think he sent a messenger boy to present his excuse. He had already confessed to everything he was supposed to, so he wasn’t on his guard. He had spoken as he should during his first trial and they rewarded him with amnesty. He spoke at the gaçaças seven years later, he added details, and they thought he did well. Then, the final day, he stayed home to rest his foot. That evening, the chief of the mudugudu, along with some tough-looking men, came to take him away. They tied him up and dragged him off to the sector jail, then to Rilima the following day. I was fourteen years old. It wasn’t easy to understand what they might be accusing him of again. I could have asked for more information. Mama would have given me answers. I felt too confused by what was happening. I stayed out of it. I stopped school shortly afterward.
* * *
MY NAME: Jean-Damascène Ndayambaje. It means “pray to God.” I was born in Congo in 1996. I don’t know where. All I have been told is that that was where I came into the world. My father’s name is Fulgence Bunani. He is a farmer and merchant. He has a urwagwa business, but he currently lives in the penitentiary. My mama’s name is Jacqueline Mukamana. She farms our plot. I grew up in this house here in Kiganwa. I finished primary school in Kibungo, always at the top of the class. I was supposed to start secondary school in Kanzenze when my papa was sent back behind the high walls. I enrolled at the trade school in Nyamata. A humanitarian organization paid for tuition. Completing an apprenticeship can quickly prove its worth.
Me, I wanted to do auto mechanics. I was fond of engines and bodywork. Unfortunately, the organization didn’t approve; they gave me a choice between hospitality and tailoring. I learned tailoring, I felt more drawn to fabrics than to cabarets. Finishing pants and vests is something I find satisfying. Even though I prefer engines, I like to sew beautiful cloth. The training ended in success. I had to provide my own sewing machine to get a spot in a tailor’s shop—that’s the custom. The humanitarian organization promised me a Singer. I waited, but nothing came, so that’s how I ended up in my mama’s footsteps, back on the family land.
I get up at 5:30 and immediately leave for the field. Do I eat some porridge? Not every day. The parcel is near the ri
ver, less than an hour trek. Mama and I work in harmony, doing what the seasons demand. My brother, Idelphonse, goes on his own to fish and doesn’t take up the hoe until the afternoon. I come home at eleven o’clock to prepare the noon meal for the family. My mama takes care of it in the evening. I rest until three o’clock. I fetch water, gather firewood, then cut feed for the pigs. In the evenings, we eat, I can sell our drink to make a little money, or I take a walk in the neighborhood. If I am worn out from work, I go to bed earlier.
I don’t go down to the parcel very often on the weekends, only when the rain requires it. Saturday mornings, it’s laundry. I feed the animals so that I’m free in the afternoons. We fetch water, we have a meal. I go for a walk to visit friends—the children of neighboring farmers, former schoolmates, or people I like from church. We stroll around, we sit on a stone wall or in the shade of a tree if the sun is too hot, and we talk when we want. We catch up on unimportant news and crack jokes like people who haven’t seen each other for a long time. I go to Nyarunazi, the local center. I hang around late at the market. We sometimes have the chance to watch television or share a Primus beer. I don’t spend time in Nyamata. It’s too far and too costly. I go there to sell if we have a good harvest, or an animal, because prices run higher than here.
* * *
I HEARD TALK about the killings from early on in my childhood. Papa already lived at the penitentiary. It was on everyone’s lips. I heard memories in our cabaret. When men get drunk on Primus, the killings stream into the stories that come flowing out. Especially when someone lets fly with piercing words.
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