* The immediate preparation
The immediate preparation of the Rwandan genocide is one of the final steps as it happened by the time started the killings 1994. Usually, at this step of process, killers buy and stock weapons, draw lists of people to be killed and prepare how they will bury bodies of victims.
But in the case of Rwanda, much of that was not necessary to conduct a methodical and mass killing. Tutsis were supposed to be manly hatched by machetes and every Rwandan family ones at least one machete. A machete is a tool of common use mostly in rural areas where it helps in various activities. People use it in fields to tackle a field before they start digging, cut wood for home usage, harvest banana bunches or maize, cut grasses to feed domestic animals or to dig small holes when they have no hoes around and so many other uses. A machete as well serves as a weapon for a man. When a Rwandan man walks outside his home in the evening or late in the night, you would often meet him holding his machete in one hand. Not because he has the intention to aggress anyone, but to use it in case he would be aggressed or would meet a fierce animal like mad dogs. Inside homes, a machete can replace knives for some frequent uses like peeling cassavas or yams. When a boy reaches the adult age, he often buys a machete to get ready before looking for a job. And many companies who use manpower in their fields would refuse to hire someone simply because he has no machete. This applies to people from both ethnic groups.
That was the situation in Rwanda 1994 and the same machetes were ready to be used to kill. They only needed to be sharpened and almost every family owned a sharpening stone. Spears were used as well and few families have kept them from the times of old wars. Only clubs needed to be made and it was not a big task. In Rwanda, a man can make a club in one day and many were being made as the killings went on.
Burying bodies of victims wasn’t a task worth big preparations either. Same methods as these used in the mass killings of 1959 to 64 were going to be used. Killers were going to use any empty space or any opportunity to get rid of bodies of their victims. That’s how hundred of bodies were balanced in ponds, lakes and rivers. There was none who would remind them that the practice was against health and hygienic regulations. People were thrown in latrine pit holes and any other waste disposal ready during the genocide was as good as a grave. Much more bodies were left to decompose in forests and fields which wasn’t in immediate. As the step of dehumanization of Tutsis has already been in place, any place was good to dispose of bodies of victims as long as they were not going to disturb Hutus. Many Tutsis, including myself –but I refused to do it; I am stubborn to death – were ordered to dig their own graves before they were killed.
3. h. Persecution
Tutsis of Rwanda were identified since birth and as everyone in the country knew each other, it was easy to target and kill them. President Kayibanda initiated a project which was a bit similar to the ghettos of Jews under the Nazis system. Under his rule, many families of Tutsis of Gikongoro and Ruhengeli Prefectures were moved to Bugesera. The region surrounded by the swamps of Nyabarongo river, with a limited access; a fact which kept the first settlers like in an open prison until a bridge was built late in eighties –deadly consequences of this action are detailed in chapter 2, under the section ‘discrimination’. Later after President Habyalimana took over the power, other families of Hutus, mostly from the north of the country were moved in the same region as well and were given lands in the areas surrounding Tutsis settlements. At the time, Habyalimana’s government declared that the moving of Hutus in Bugesera was a process to relocate families of overpopulated regions, but many unverified sources claimed that these Hutus were sent to Bugesera in preparation of the genocide. The government needed a big number of Hutus in Bugesera to be used to kill Tutsis who lived there alone until then. And that’s exactly what happened during the genocide.
Tutsis who were not identified through their origins could be identified by their identity cards or their physical aspects. There was no need to assign a specific sign to them. As strange as it could sound, in the first weeks of the killings in 1994, in many regions of the country militias wore signs to identify themselves. Some groups, and depending on villages wore banana leaves or sweet potato leaves on the head or around the neck to identify themselves and isolate Tutsis. The fact that Tutsis of Rwanda were a minority group compared to their fellow country mates, and that they were disseminated all over the country, facilitated their killings in big masses and in a so short time. The same fact limited their capacity of organization for self-defence or to attract attention on them for help.
The lists of victims did not have to be drawn before the killings begun; as mentioned above; people knew each other, both in rural and town areas. Where there was confusion, killers had to check the identity card of the targeted person where his ethnic origins were well highlighted. In case of the absence of the document, the person was presumed to be a Tutsis and could be killed.
3. j. Execution
The extermination of Tutsis started in mass right after the shooting down of the presidential jet in the night of 06th April 1994 and intensified from the morning of 7th. The way it happened very fast looked like every extremist Hutu was assigned a group of Tutsis to kill and with a time limit. This was only made possible by the slow but tedious preparation mentioned before. Everyone knew what to do in case a signal would be given and they all took the death of the President as one. The signing of the Arusha Peace Agreement, the presence of the UNAMIR – the international peace keeping force – and the Habyalimana’s cheating language of Peace and Unity misled Tutsis families who could have fled the country just after the President’s death, if they were aware of an imminent danger. Instead they trusted their neighbours with whom they have created ties over the courses of time and hoped that they would be protected by the international community in case their neighbours would betray their trust. It was too late for them to flee the country when they realized that no neighbour or the international community would save their lives.
Few trained militia groups mobilized extremist Hutus in different regions of the country; and backed by the local authorities coordinated mass killings in the whole country. Wherever it was necessary, they forced non extremists Hutus to join them in killings, threatening them to be killed as well if they do not comply. The same threats was applied to these good and brave enough who tried to hide and save few lives of Tutsis. In many cases, people who were caught hiding Tutsis, were forced to kill their protégé or pay a compensation as sort of punishment. In worst cases the hiders were executed together with their families and these they were trying to save. Young children were trained to call for killers whenever they spotted Tutsis hiding or trying to escape. Women were gang raped by militias and later killed, and few of them were forced into ‘marriages’ with the killers of their families or husbands.
Raping and forcing Tutsis women into marriages with Hutus was another weapon of the genocide against Tutsis. It was an act of perversion of killers against Tutsis but it had another meaning. As Rwanda is a patriarch system society, killers had to make sure that if a Tutsis woman’s life was going to be spared, she would never produce other Tutsis again. That was in the line of extermination of a whole ethnic group. Hence the idea of tying a Hutu man to her.
Every Tutsis who was in the country from April 1994 remained hunted, and mass killings went on until the RPA force liberated the region where he or she was hiding. Many of them got killed all the way as militias and extremists marched to the west of the country, fleeing the RPA’s interventions. A part of these who fled with their hiders got killed in refugee camps, inside the country or even abroad.
Where Are my People? A Question for Genocide Deniers Page 7