Truth, by Omission

by Daniel Beamish

  “Is this ready to go?” Judge Gelineau asks.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” one of the court attendants answers. “We have a videotaped statement from a witness to the murders. This witness claims to have been present and tried to stop Mr. Olyontombo from committing the murders but was unsuccessful.”

  “And how did you come upon this witness?” the judge asks.

  “The information was volunteered last year. He came to us.”

  It is explained that the witness was originally convicted by the ICTR, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, of war crimes against humanity committed during the Rwandan genocide. Although he was not a Rwandan, he had apparently led a notorious mercenary band hired by officials within the Hutu government to eradicate several villages sympathetic to the Tutsi rebel movement. He was convicted in 2009 and sentenced in Tanzania to natural life imprisonment. Then late in 2015, just as the ICTR was wrapping up and closing down, he came forward offering information about the Four Sisters of Peace murders in exchange for commutation of his sentence to twenty years. Naturally, the Belgian government was anxious to get the information and, as a major contributor to the criminal tribunals in Tanzania, it arranged the deal with the ICTR.

  Judge Gelineau is listening very carefully, as indeed we all are, to this background information. “And how do we know that this witness is telling the truth?” he asks. “How can we be sure that it is not just a ruse to shorten his sentence?”

  “Your Honor,” the attendant replies, “the witness was able to provide specific details of the murder and crime scene which were never made public by the investigators.”

  “Such as …”

  “Such as the fact, Your Honor, that the murder weapon was found in the footlocker belonging to Azikiwe Olyontombo and that it contained the inscription Azi O carved into the handle. Our witness was then able to give us the alias ‘Alfred,’ which Azikiwe Olyontombo is now living under, and the information that he left Tanzania for France in 1998. It became easy for us to trace a Rwandan refugee in France who was living under the assumed name of Alfred Olyontombo. Mr. Olyontombo then left for the US in 2001, where he eventually applied for and received American citizenship. He has been living up until now in Denver, Colorado. New fingerprinting confirms that his prints are the ones found on the knife at the murder scene.”

  “Very well,” says the judge. “Play the tape, please.”

  The attendant points a remote control toward the screen in front of us, bringing it to life with a mug-shot image. But before he can speak any words I am smacked by the photo staring out at us, and I jerk involuntarily in my seat. Anna and Bart both reach out from either side of me to lay a calming hand on my arm.

  “The man pictured here, You Honor, is our witness who has come forward in Tanzania. His name is Idi Mbuyamba.”

  The next few sentences don’t even register with me. I am too struck with the image of Idi in front of me. It is unmistakably the nemesis of my childhood, pictured now almost twenty years older than when I had last seen him as I left the Nkwenda camp.

  The screen changes to a prerecorded session with an interviewer asking precise questions of Idi who answers in confident and clear tones. When the camera is directly in front of Idi, he looks straight into it and right out through the screen as if he is speaking to me directly, personally. He probably was. He probably knew when they filmed it that he would be able to reach out to me one more time, ominously bringing back to my mind the last time I saw him. We were leaving the Nkwenda refugee camp, and I turned to look through the back window of the van. Then, as now, as if to emphasize his videotaped message to me, he raises his right arm to where the camera can clearly see it, displaying his severed stump.

  That son of a bitch. He ruined my childhood, haunted the rest of my life, and now, twenty years later and thousands of miles away, he still seeks to ruin everything that I have left.

  I’m sure that everyone in the room must have witnessed my spontaneous reaction to seeing Idi on the screen. It wasn’t subtle, but now I will myself to find composure and sit up straight, focusing on the video screen along with everyone else. I am able to listen carefully to every word Idi says. They are deliberately spoken in Swahili and accurately translated by an interpreter for the camera. Idi tells how I asked him to help in the murders, but that he refused and tried to reason with me. He claims that he told me not to kill the foreigners because it would bring too much interest from the authorities and goes on to explain how he watched as I took the bloodied knife and stashed it in my footlocker.

  I thought at the time that I was being clever when I killed Savard and left my knife with Idi, hoping he would take the blame for it. It bothered me not at all that my crime might be falsely attributed to him; it seemed like small compensation for his having totally ruined my childhood and perhaps my future as well. But I hadn’t counted on his cunning. He turned the tables back on me by murdering the nuns and ensuring that the knife pointed right to me for those killings. Shaking my head, I mumble under my breath, Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  After fifteen more minutes of condemning interrogation the video ends. The reporters behind me shuffle out of the room. They have more than enough for their stories and don’t hang around to hear the last of the discovery process, preferring to get the salacious information filed with their editors as quickly as possible.

  Upon completion of the presentation of the evidence against me, Judge Gelineau begins to address me, “Mr. Olyontombo—”

  “Doctor Olyontombo,” I clearly and firmly interrupt him as I rise from my seat to stand tall.

  “Pardon me?” Judge Gelineau asks, obviously perturbed at my interjection.

  “I said ‘Doctor Olyontombo.’ I have a professional designation, Your Honor, and I would respectfully request that I be addressed by it as a courtesy of this inquiry.”

  Bart and Anna look up at me from their seats. Both are clearly taken aback at my sudden affirmative and challenging disposition. I stand tall between them, feeling empowered by my newfound defiance as I wait for the judge’s response. He too is surprised at my changed demeanor and takes a moment to assess me before finally replying.

  “Certainly … Doctor Olyontombo. My apologies,” he says. “Dr. Olyontombo, the only interest of this inquiry is to ascertain the truth. Enough so to either freely discharge you or to formally send you to trial on the charges of which you are accused. You have seen all the evidence against you, and you have the right to both refute it and to bring your own supporting evidence before the inquiry. Do you wish to do so?”

  I look down at Bart, and he gives me a small nod. Anna too is nodding her head, emphatically. But I don’t need to see this from either of them. I straighten myself even taller, pulling my shoulders back and lifting my chin slightly higher. “Yes, Your Honor, I do. I concede nothing to this man and his false testimony. But I will need some time.”

  “Absolutely. You can have Mr. Verbeke contact my office to make arrangements.”

  Back in our little conference room, the stale sandwiches and now-cold coffee are still on the table. I grab one sandwich in each hand and eat heartily as I sit down. Seeing Idi’s face on that video screen has given me a new vigor—not more confidence in my ability to challenge the case against me, but a new resolve to not go down without remonstrating. I don’t want to give that man another victory over me without a fight.

  “Alfred, I’m glad you’ve changed your mind,” Bart says. “We’ll get started tomorrow on a defense.”

  “No,” I say.

  Anna springs from her chair. “Freddie, we have to. You can’t just give in to this. We have to find a defense here.”

  “No. We won’t wait until tomorrow,” I say. “We should start right now. I’m not guilty of those murders, and I don’t want to waste a minute letting anyone think that I am.”

  Anna and Bart look at each other in surprise.

  �
�Very well, then,” says Bart, pulling a chair to the table.

  Moving around behind my chair, Anna gives me a small hug and then plants her hands firmly on my shoulders. Bart plops a briefcase on the table, takes out a notepad and pen, tapping the end of it like a metronome on the paper.

  “Okay,” he says, “there are two critical elements in the evidence that we will have to overcome—the fingerprints on the knife and the testimony of Mr. Mbuyamba. Was it your knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, what about Mbuyamba. Do you know him?”

  “Yes, I know him well.”

  “Would he have any reason to lie about you killing the nuns?”

  “He has very good reasons to lie about that. Several of them.”

  Bart looks at me and then up at Anna who is still standing behind me. He thinks for a moment about the answer I have just given him. “Another problem is that your passport shows the name ‘Alfred,’ which the state is claiming is an alias. That might seem to some like an indication of guilt.”

  I’m nodding my head as he is saying this, going over the events of the past in my mind.

  “Thoughts?” he asks.

  “Lots of thoughts. I’m just not sure what to say to these things.”

  We sit silently for a moment while Anna walks around to the other side of the table and begins pacing. “Freddie, you told me your story of Africa—the time you spent in Zaire and Rwanda—but there’s more, isn’t there?”

  She stops talking, waiting for me to answer, and I nod my head.

  “Yes, Anna. There’s more.”

  I had told Anna the story of my childhood, the part that continued to haunt me with guilt. I had told her everything right up to the last person I killed, Father Michel Savard. I had turned my life around after that and didn’t think that anything from that point on could possibly be the source of the extradition proceedings against me. Anna already knew much of the rest of my story of my time in the Nkwenda camp in Tanzania. I certainly hadn’t killed anyone during that time period. But the ensuing events, especially Idi’s involvement, make me now agree with Anna that the rest of my story must somehow be relevant, so I pick it up where I had finished before, omitting no details.

  Nkwenda

  My childhood ended February 20, 1994, the moment I killed that bastard, the priest, by slicing open his belly. I did it in cold blood, planning it ahead of time. It might have been calculated and committed in a sense of rage over the suicide of Little Gabe, and as a result of Savard’s pedophilic abuse at the school. Nonetheless, it was my conscious decision. Up until that time I had the excuse of coercion and childhood innocence for all my crimes, but not that one. From that moment on I was no longer a child.

  After leaving Savard to die with his pants down and his entrails spilling out on the floor around him, I snuck back into the dorm and took off my clothes, wiped the blood from the blade of the knife, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and showered the blood off me. A long hour passed as I waited until Sister Brigit came knocking for me.

  “There’s a man to see you, Azi,” she said.

  I calmed my breath, relieved that another cog had fallen into place for my plan. Major Ntagura had gotten my message to Idi, and he had come for me as I was pretty sure he would. “Thank you, Sister. Can I see him in the cafeteria?”

  “Of course,” she replied, and I followed her out.

  “Sister Brigit, I’d like you to meet Idi Mbuyamba.” I lingered on his name, making sure that she heard it clearly. “We’ll only be a few minutes.”

  With that she left us, and Idi smiled. “So, you’ve finally decided to be a man, Azi. Good. We can use you.”

  “I’ll be around in a few days, a week or two at the most,” I said, handing him my knife wrapped in the bag. “Take my knife and hold it for me until I get there. You remember this knife, Idi? You gave it to me after I … after Kakengo died.”

  “I remember it well, Azi.” He slipped the package under his coat. “We’ll be glad to have you.” He hugged me like a comrade.

  “Don’t lose the knife,” I said. “You know how much it means to me.”

  “Don’t worry, Azi. We have plenty of weapons for you, brand-new ones.”

  “Give me a few days, and I’ll get back to Major Ntagura,” I said. Then I showed him out of the compound.

  I went straight to the nuns’ dorm and knocked on their door, finding all four of them inside.

  “Sisters,” I said, “if this man that was here tonight, Idi Mbuyamba, comes looking for me again please do not show him in. He is a very evil person, and we’d all be better off without him around. I know that he is a murderer and is running with the militias now. He wanted me to join them, but I’ve told him to stay away.”

  The next morning, when the housekeeper found Savard, the police were summoned. We were all interviewed, and the compound was thoroughly searched, nothing of any value to the case turning up. But the police in those days in Kigali barely had time to make an appearance at all the murder sites in the city. The country was on the verge of civil war and murders were steady. The police made a little more of an effort in this case because of the nuns and the foreign connections of the school, but they were not equipped for forensic investigations. Once the sisters and I informed the police that Idi Mbuyamba had shown up the night before, the case was pretty much closed. Idi was well-known to the authorities, and they were happy to have the case solved quickly. If they ever caught up with him, as I hoped they soon might, the knife, which I had given him, would surely add to his culpability.

  During the two weeks after I dispatched Savard to his god, the lid blew off the pressure cooker that was Rwanda. The rampant murders turned into overt slaughters; one of the worst genocides in history was underway. The good sisters at Notre Dame de la Paix sent me away to find refuge in one of the several camps that the United Nations had established in the surrounding countries, and I left in the wee hours of the morning traveling east and north, making my way to Nkwenda in Tanzania.

  I arrived in the camp, like everyone else, on the verge of starvation. I carried on my back the bags of an old woman who had fallen by the roadside less than a mile from our destination, and I had the woman herself slung over my shoulder. I set her down as gently as I could in front of the large white tent with the bold letters UN emblazoned on the roof. She slumped lifeless into a heap of skin and bones, and I tried to stretch her out to give her some measure of dignity.

  “Don’t leave her there. Take her to the morgue,” said a pompous local guard. He pointed to the far side of the camp, downwind from the tented village, to where a dense column of smoke rose.

  “What about food?” I asked. “I need some food. Please.”

  “You won’t get food here without registering first.” And he pointed to a long line of desperate-looking refugees snaking out from another white tent farther down the dirt road that functioned as the main street for the camp. I was hungry, having last eaten two days earlier, and completely exhausted after having carried the old woman and her possessions for the last hour. I started to leave, walking in the direction of the line he pointed toward.

  “Don’t leave her here,” he called after me. “You’ll get nothing until she’s looked after.”

  Turning back around, I hefted her over my shoulder again and trudged toward the morgue. There just wasn’t enough strength in me to bother with picking up her bags, and I left them. I hadn’t taken but a few steps away when the guard pounced on the belongings, scavenging for whatever he could use or sell or trade.

  The morgue gave me my first taste of what I was soon to learn is what refugees spend most of their time doing in such camps—standing in lines. Everything is a line, and if bureaucrats the world over are adept at inefficiencies resulting in lineups, the inefficiency of the United Nations’ personnel and the lines that they generate set the gold standard. To be fair, there are go
od reasons for the lines in the camp. Many of the people employed by the United Nations are locals, and they have no training or skills for the jobs they take on. The international personnel did their best under the circumstances, and the lineups were no doubt unavoidable. The UN is also almost always operating on a shoestring budget and simply doesn’t have the money to either employ enough people or aid them with the technology and materials they need to make them more efficient. But we all became immune to the lines, accepting them as a part of life. There wasn’t really a whole lot else to do, anyhow. One could sit in the dirt of the streets and wait for the months and years to pass, or one could get in line and wait. So, we got in lines—lines for food, for water, for medicine, for tents, for official papers, for permissions, and for the morgue.

  There were a good twenty or so living bodies ahead of me in line. The living bodies shuffled along the dead ones, rolling them in carts and wheelbarrows or carrying them in blankets supported by two or more living bodies. My dead body was too heavy for me to hold any longer, so I let her down into the dirt. I wanted to show her as much respect as I could, but physically I couldn’t do it anymore, and I ended up just dragging her along until I got to the front.

  While waiting in line at the morgue I learned two other important functions of lineups in the camp: they were sources of information—some of it possibly correct; and they were sources of gossip—most of it always incorrect.

  The information I gathered while waiting in that line was that the camp was currently home to nearly twenty thousand individuals, all fleeing the bloodshed in Rwanda. Hundreds of others, like me, were arriving each day, and the United Nations was being overwhelmed with the need. They’d originally built the camp for five thousand, and tents and food could not be shipped in fast enough to support those already there, let alone the newcomers that showed up each day. Proper sanitation and medical care were almost nonexistent, and starvation was the norm, hence the continuous lines at the morgue. The dead arrived at the morgue by the dozens every day, and officials had to make some arbitrary rules to accommodate them. Last rites and funeral services were to be conducted by families within one hour of the death, and the bodies had to then be delivered to the morgue immediately, day or night, where they were incinerated. Only the Islamists would avoid cremation by being trucked to mass graves ten miles away. This was the only way to keep the bodies from putrefying and further contributing to the spreading diseases.