Oral Testimony of MUREBWAYIRE Josephine
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- Testimony of Murebwayire Josephine
- Martin: Today is 5th of March 2007 I am here in Kimironko at Murebwayire Josephine's home. We would like you to introduce yourself to us as we are about to talk about what happened in the genocide.
- Josephine: My names are Murebwayire Josephine. I live in Kimironko in the sector of Nyagatovu in the district of Gasabo.
- Martin: We would like you to tell us about your life with your family before the genocide, how big was your family? Explain to us and tell us how big your family was; your children, your husband and then after try and give us an idea or paint an image for us on how your life was before the genocide.
- Josephine: Before the genocide we lived in a place called Masoro. At that time it was called Ndera sector. Commune Rubungo is where we lived, nowadays it's called Gasabo district. I had a husband with six children. Three boys and three girls, we also had a child that we had adopted, my husband's niece. We were living in harmony, we had a nice family, our standard of life was good, and my husband was working.
- He was a self employed mechanic and I was a mother at home with the children even though I had other things to do because we had a small shop. So I was in a business and we also had a nice piece of land and cows. I was supervising all the activities at home, we were doing great.
- My children were growing up and were in secondary school. The oldest was in senior four and the youngest was in primary five. We also lived with my two brothers. One had just gotten married and he lived near us, we were a big nice family.
- The genocide rally started in 1990, that's when we heard that the Inkotanyi (RPF) had attacked. They said they came from Byumba on the 1st of October 1990. We all didn't know what it was when we heard about it with our neighbors.
- On the 7th of October 1990 that's when they came to arrest my husband saying he was a spy for the Inkotanyi. They didn't find him at home, because even though they had said that nobody should leave their homes, my brother went to the shop to work because it was near the house. So my husband also went to see how things were at the shop, the people who were coming to arrest him only found me and the children at home.
- So they took me first but before that they were doing bad things; searching the house and throwing things around, hitting me with their gun-butt asking me where I had hidden the gun that we had. On the 4th of October 1990 they had spent the night shooting in the air and they said that we were the ones that were shooting Kigali. They kept asking me about the gun but they couldn't find it but they found binoculars that my husband used when hunting, he did it with priests.
- When they saw it they said that we use it to look at the Inkotanyi, they had just got a reason. There were also water bottles that my children used to take water at school. They said it belonged to soldiers and they started beating me but not too much, telling me to show them everything else I had hidden and show them the Inkotanyi.
- When they didn't get the guns they took me in the car and said that if they get my husband they will release me. When we reached near the shop we saw him. So I said to them, there is my husband, he is coming. They stopped and told him to enter the car and go give them the gun I had promised them but couldn't give it away without his permission. So I protested that they had just lied and they told me to get out of the car and watch over the kids saying that they will bring him back later.
- They took my husband and I went back home to watch over the kids but at that moment you could see that our neighbors started looking at us like we were cockroaches and stigmatizing us. I went home and rearranged everything they had disorganized and thrown around, wheat and sugar. They were very confused. I called all my children and started comforting them telling them that they almost took me, dad was taken, they might come back and take me too but do not be afraid.
- We were a praying family, so I was a firm believer that no matter what happens God knows and is in control, so I comforted them and told them that even if their father does not return we will live, telling them that I will do all my best and work hard and provide.
- I didn't believe that he was going, for two months I would prepare food and keep it in the cupboard for him. Nobody was even reaching our home anymore; if I came close to someone they would seem afraid that I was going to cause them trouble. So I would wake up and go home, Rubungo is far from Kigali and nobody would direct me where he might be.
- In December we were told that we can go ask at CICR [Comité International de la Croix-Rouge] about our people who were put in jail. I didn't know the place so someone directed me but I got lost and went to president Habyarimana's house in Kiyovu. Soldiers made me sit down and asked for my identity card and then they said that I was a cockroach but I denied it telling them I wasn't a cockroach. They asked me where I was going and I told them CICR so they said I was going to see spies, no someone called me to offer me a job, I said.
- So they told me raise my hands and walk away singing there is no way here. One of the soldiers showed me the place and I walked away saying what they had asked me to say, when I reached there I asked and they told me they were going to check in the computer, I didn't even know what a computer was. So when they checked they said that he wasn't on the list with everyone else may be he died, they said.
- I started crying hysterically, a white lady saw me and she came and asked me what was wrong? I replied to her that I had been told that if I come at their office they would tell me about my loved one who is in jail. My husband was taken, now I am being told that he is not on the lists. So she told me to go home and come back in three days. After three days I came back, she had asked me to give her the names of my husband. She told me that my husband was in prison.
- So I started going to visit him at the 1930 prison but didn't see him until he was released six months after just like everyone else. We were not allowed to see our loved ones; they told us to just bring whatever we were bringing for them on the last Thursday of the month, telling us that it would be delivered to them. So whatever we would take we would give it to the guards as they were threatening and beating us, there was no certainty that our loved ones would get it.
- He was released after six months and came back home, but from that point we were not sure what was going to happen next, but after a while it was peaceful and life seemed to return to normal. In 1992 that's when we started hearing about the killings in Bugesera, Bigogwe and he would say that may be it won't reach our region, we thought they were just selecting and killing men. When he would walk out I would keep thinking that he won't return but we never thought that it would be as bad as it was in 1994. He went back to work and went on with life as usual and then everything else happened as you know in 1994.
- Martin: In 1994 they say that the genocide and killings started after Habyarimana's plane was shot down? But I think the way it started depended on the region and the place where one stayed. How did you know that the genocide had started in the place where you stayed? Did you know that Habyarimana's plane was shot down? How did all the events unfold in your lives, I would like you to explain and tell us?
- Josephine: The place where we stayed was just opposite Kanombe, it was in the valley but you could see everything that happens in Kanombe. When the plane was shot down we didn't know what it was but heard a loud explosion, it was at night and we were sleeping, we didn't have electricity so that we can stay up late. We were in bed but not really asleep, in fact we were still talking but when heard the explosion we didn't give it much thought and we went on sleeping.
- At 5 am my husband turned on the radio and it was playing classical music so he said there was a coup-d'état, when we were starting to argue about it. There was an announcement on the radio, am not sure if it was from the president's office or the military command but it said that the plane carrying the president had crashed. We were terrified and woke up, I said to him that it's over for us but instead he said no the one who wanted us dead is gone and you are saying its over for us, I replied and said that we were not going to live instead it was over.
- As we were still arguing we heard a knock at the back door, so I woke up and went to open the door where I met with soldiers. They lie but the genocide didn't start in 1994, if it had then they wouldn't have found me straight away. They knew where to find everybody and who to kill, it was planned long ago, the plane just marked the beginning. That's when they started working but that's not when the genocide started. They were already well trained and had planned, so I say that's the day when it was implemented and perfected. That's when the genocide was over even though that's when it started, so the soldiers came with one of our children showing them the way. They found him on the way, Tutsis were being hunted and him being one they got him and he brought them. They had list with many names and ours were at the top of the list.
- When I opened I saw them and they said that I must be happy and they asked for the people who shot down the president's plane. I said there was nobody here and told them that we cannot be happy because someone else died. Didn't you hate him, they said? Can we hate someone we don't even know or does he know us? We heard it like everyone else. Aren't the cockroaches that shot it down your relatives? Aren't they here? Show us where your husband is? I took them to the room where he was sleeping.
- They took me and the children and locked us in the kitchen with the workers and then they came back in the house and said to him give us money. I don't have money, he replied. You will give it to us, they said. He told them that they had found him sleeping and asked them to look for it. They didn't just let him go, they beat him and he gave them all the money he had on him. They said to him, your wife must be keeping a lot of money; women are the ones that keep money. They opened the door for me and kept the children locked up, and then they told me to give them the money that my husband had told them that I was the one keeping it.
- I told them that I didn't have any money as they kept asking for it. So I said to them, why don't you take whatever you want and leave us in peace, it is clear that you came for a purpose. So they took whatever they could manage as they were going away and said that they were only there looking for what to take but those who were going to kill us were on their way.
- They went away and then around 9 we saw the wives of all the Tutsis on one of the hills coming towards our house. We had a big compound, so I asked them why they were coming at our home when it was the first place where they look, we are the ones they arrested first as spies, why did you come here? No, maybe we'll die together or something like that but we are not leaving this place. The men had not yet thought about fleeing, so we stayed there and at around one in the afternoon we saw a lot of people.
- Walking on the opposite hill, they were many and coming from Remera with bags, so we said to ourselves that we should also flee, but the men stayed there. My two brothers and my two elder sons also stayed home and I went with the four remaining children with the girl that we had adopted and the other women that we were together. When we reached a bit farther some people started blocking our way stopping us from moving forward but we didn't know that they were Interahamwe fleeing Inkotanyi from Remera.
- But we didn't know what was happening and started separating some going through the banana plantations, others going on along the way. We left home during the day but almost reaching our destination, a place called Ndera it wasn't possible because we met someone who told us that there was a road block just ahead.
- The others continued to a place called Jurwe, me and my children we went and hid in a place where there was cassava when we saw a police car, we stayed there until it was dark in the evening. We went on but decided not to go to Ndera but instead went to a place called Musave, it was dark and we couldn't see but reaching there found that that's where everyone took refuge, there was a school.
- So I asked the people I was with to force the door open of one of the classrooms since all the other classrooms seemed full. I didn't know that I was telling Interahamwe, I thought I was telling my people. They forced the door open and we spent the night there with the workers. With other children that were our neighbors. In the morning around 8 am I saw that the others were cooking but I hadn't taken anything except for sugar that I had remembered. I went to borrow a saucepan so that I can prepare tea for my children. After I had borrowed the saucepan I was told that a car full of Interahamwe was on its way. I threw away the saucepan and started tying a piece of the loincloth that I had on every child so that I won't leave them on the way.
- I had very bad memories because I got lost in the forest when my family was fleeing in 1963. I was found by some people, so I felt that if I let go of my child they would also get lost. So I pulled them and when we reached a little bit further we saw a car and inside was a guy from our region but he was an Interahamwe. He was a driver of the commune and was coming to take his family which had also spent the night in the same place with us. I recognized him and I asked him if he could also take me with my children, he spit in my face and asked me where I was going since it was over for us. He packed his family in the car and left.
- So I kept pulling my children behind me as we walked towards Ndera, when we were almost there at a place called Musave. We saw a car with the head of region of Rubungo and another man that was also from our region who was also coming to see his family which had spent the night in the same place with us. I told him that his children had left; they were told that their mother was alive.
- So, he put us in the car and took us to Ndera at the Catholic parish. He said, your husband and sons are at the Catholic parish let me take you there. Before reaching the parish we reached a place called Mugahoromani and there was a roadblock. There were policemen and other peasants, one of them got a spear and was ready to throw it at me and the man told him that if he throws it at me he will shoot him. They let us go.
- We reached the parish, other people were in the seminary a little bit further, the head priest came and welcomed us, he lives in Nyamata now. He is called Rugengamanzi, he was the head priest. He welcomed us; he had even given them food to cook. So they welcomed us and gave us food and we were comforted that we had got refuge. But personally I didn't want to stay at the parish because there was a man that we were not at good terms with since my husband was imprisoned among the spies.
- A priest called Gakuba always looked for me telling people that I was a spy, that we were cockroaches, always looking for a reason that I would stop me from coming to church or cause other people to harm me. So I told my husband that the place had no fence and people were walking in and out at ease and also told him that if Gakuba sees us he will kill us. So I told him that instead we go to the seminary, it was the 8th. So we made sure nobody saw us and then went to the seminary which was not very far away.
- With all my children and brothers we went to the seminary where we spent the night. There was a hall and we spent the night praying because things were not well. The interim government was put in place, that's when we found out that we were mixed with Interahamwe because they started celebrating, all of a sudden we didn't talk the same language. We spent the night in a lot of fear, in the morning of the 9th, I don't remember well if the interim government was put in place on the 8th or 9th but it's around that time. So on the morning of the 9th. Interahamwe came, first a man called Mbonampeka who used to be the minister of justice came and said to the priests of the seminary, why don't you let these people go back home? Don't you have cockroaches among them?
- The priests replied to him that all the people they had there were their Christians and no there were no cockroaches among them and that they can't send the people home since the threat that caused them to seek refuge was still eminent. There is still a war going on out there, let them stay here they are ok when it's all over they will go back home. So you don't want to let them go? Let them go and we will give them soldiers to protect them, Mbonapeka said. Those people who are going to protect them cannot protect every single one of them, let them protect them from here. Mbonampeka went away and after a short while he came back with soldiers and shot the priests.
- They were Hutu priests; one was Bisop Nsegiyumva's nephew, he was called Naniya Rugasira and the other was Ananiya, he died on the spot. One who is called Andre now lives at St. Michael's, they died on the spot. So they said whoever is Hutu walk out with your identity card.
- So people started walking out showing their identity cards and the ones who didn't show it, it was still visible. Young Tutsi men who tried to hide in the crowd were shot from the gate. We didn't know what to do, two of my older boys so the other people going out and came to see us where we were seated. They waved goodbye at us and said that we will meet in heaven, they jumped the fence and ran away with one of my brothers.
- We stayed there on the 9th, on the 10th the Interahamwe kept coming to see how we were praying, we knew that it was over for us. We didn't see any way out, there were roadblocks all over. On the 11th in the morning around 9 am that's when the Interahamwe came. There were very many and said, you took all of Habyarimana's money when your Inkotanyi and cockroaches, give us our father's money. And whoever we find with even a coin will be killed, me and my husband didn't have anything except wearing a lot of clothes, we didn't have any money on us.
- So whoever had money gave it away, but they didn't really want money they were just toying with us. After that they tried to throw a grenade where we were. And then a lady who was wearing clothes with pearls came in with another man who had a bow with arrows; they had a list with some names. On the list was a man called Pastor, Rukanika, Nkundabarashe and my husband, but they didn't call out my husband a lot, they called out for Pastor and Rukanika.
- There was also another young man called Mutsinzi that they were looking for, they put a bead cover on him which made him look like a woman. He tried to run away but they shot him, and then they saw my husband and said, here is the head of all the cockroaches, stand up, they said.
- They also told my two daughters to stand up and took them outside but they didn't see me because I was behind some other women. And then they tried to rape my daughters, Pastor told me this since he survived. He was watching from where he was hiding. Do you want to rape us and hurt us, go ahead and kill us we are supposed to die anyway, my daughters said. The woman removed their clothes and wore them, they were wearing trousers. She said to them, go back you will die at the same time with everyone else no one is going to waste any time. They brought them back inside the house and then the lady saw me and said, we took the child and forgot the mother, remove all your clothes. They watched as I removed all my clothes.
- I removed all my clothes and gave them to her as they walked away and only remained with a small dress I had on. After around 10 minutes that's when they came back and shot a woman called Makurata, the wife of Pastor. They shot her legs and asked her to stand up when they had shot her legs; they dragged her as they took us all out.
- They were so many I think each one of us had two people to kill him, they took us in a field that was there and asked us to lie down. If you didn't lie down they would hack you with a machete, it was all the same whether you lied down or stood, we lied down. My last memory is that I lied down holding hands with my daughter. And I put the others on my side, I didn't want to part with them, they told us to lie down with our stomachs on the ground, they knew how they wanted it done.
- My last memory was lying on the ground. I regained consciousness only to see that I was hacked. I think it was on the 11th, at around 6pm is when it started raining and I felt like I was waking up. But trying to lift my head I couldn't, my head was wide open and my teeth outside, soaked in blood all over. I tried to stand up and then I fell on the ground again, the Interahamwe came back.
- They came to see who was still breathing, they had hacked everyone so they would just lift someone off the ground throw them back down to see who was still alive. So they walked around and then at night I tried to lift myself up but it was very hard, I think my brain was out where they had hacked and cut me. It's just that God kept me otherwise they had hacked me just like everyone else.
- So I thought to myself that the others will also wake up since I had also woken up after being hacked. I sat there among all those corpses and then all of a sudden the Interahamwe came back. I went to drink water and then as one of the Interahamwe was about the hack me with a machete another asked him, you have hacked this woman so many times aren't you satisfied? She isn't really alive and even if she lives let her die of sorrow, leave her alone.
- They went away and then I saw a priest standing in front of a praying room that's where they had put Ananiya's corpse. I went towards him, I knew him but he didn't recognize me because of the way I had become, I asked him to hide me inside since the Interahamwe were coming back and they were going to kill me badly. They have said that they are coming in a short while to kill me. Go and hide in that garden with fruits, he said.
- There was a garden that was in front of the praying room that had spinach and some other plants. I went there, I don't know if he is the one that covered me with those plants or God but all I know is that they came back looking for me to finish me off and they couldn't find me. They walked away saying, where is the woman that was here, where did she go since the priest didn't let her in? They looked for me and then said, even if she is still alive she is not coming back tomorrow. I spent the night there and then in the morning around 5am, I went back and looked at the corpses, looking at my children and I could see their brains, I looked at my husband. I couldn't see where they had hacked him but he died holding another man's hand, they died holding each others hands.
- So I sat among the corpses and then after a while I asked myself what I was doing then I walked around and then decided to go in the toilet. Let me hide in the toilet, I was thinking to myself that if they return except killing me they were also going to do other bad things, I was really afraid they were going to rape me. So I went in the student's toilets, I looked for the filthiest and went in it.
- I said to myself that if they come to use the bathroom they won't go in the dirtiest, I stood behind the door and that is exactly what happened. They kept coming to use the toilets but they didn't enter in the one I was in.
- After around three days they were still going through the bodies checking if there were no survivors. After three days is when Mbonampeka brought fuel, piled up all the corpses and then burnt them, I heard them saying it from the toilet. They piled and burnt them and then dug a hole in front of the praying room and threw them in and then covered it and left.
- But I kept saying to myself that maybe one my children was alive just like I was, because the way they had made me I wasn't meant to be alive. And then I would say that maybe my boys who ran away at least there is one who survived, I hid myself because I thought there was a survivor. So I stayed in that toilet two three days without drinking anything, I had lost so much blood till there was no more to bleed.
- On the fifth day is when a student from that seminary came, they had hacked people and corpses fell on him but they didn't really hack him but he was wounded a little bit. On the hand, people that worked in the seminary hid him in their kitchen and covered him with some supplies but the people who came to loot took them. But they didn't see him, that's when he came where I was in the toilet and he heard someone breathing faintly like I was going to die. He peeped through and saw me; he is the one who gave me water to drink. He would give me tiny little droplets on my tongue. He would say to me that if I drink a lot, the water would kill me. We stayed in that toilet and were joined by other children.
- More people kept coming slowly; by the time we left we were around five people. We stayed there until May 1st, that's when they helped us from there; we were also joined by another young boy who also studied in the seminary.
- I don't know where he got a knife or a razor blade, he is the one that shaved me, my hair was stuck in my wounds and he couldn't remove it. The Inkotanyi doctors are the ones that treated my wounds; they started treating me from Ndera. My wounds were rotten and I didn't think that they would heal or even if they healed that I would be normal again. But they treated me and then they took me to Byumba, that's where I was treated from.
- So all my six children, my husband, my brothers and my sister-in-law. They are all dead, but I didn't know that they were all dead. I thought that my two sons were alive, I kept saying to myself that they ran away, they are not dead. I kept thinking that maybe they are alive, there is even someone who told me that my daughter was alive. So I asked them, where is she? Some would say Kabuga, others would say Goma, I didn't really know what to make of it.
- But I realized that she was not alive, so I lived in Byumba at a place I think that was called Social. So one of my cousin-brother from my mother's side is the one that moved me from there and started helping me. But when we were coming from Ndera I saw they way my children had died and said. Maybe someone took my children adopting and helping them, even me let me help some.
- I had been traumatized I didn't want any child to suffer so I reached Byumba when I had around five children when my cousin-brother was coming to take me. I took some of them in an orphanage; I gave the other one to a soldier who turned him into a kadogo/ child soldier.
- After the war I came back home but they were just ruins, they had destroyed everything. One of my nephews, he is the one that got a a house for us, I went in with some of his siblings. I became their mother but they got a relative who took them abroad.
- I never got to a point where I felt discouraged and didn't want to live without a child. I was mature and able to look for what I needed to eat. I felt that a child wouldn't be able to get what to eat on his/her own and hence always had to live with a parent. That's how I got orphans and took care of them and when they would find their family they would go and stay with them and if not they stay with me.
- Martin: You told me that the people that came to kill you were in Ndera?
- Josephine: Mmm, at the seminary.
- Martin: Looking at where you lived its evident that it's a long distance from where they killed you from. Were those Interahamwe from the region where you lived or from somewhere else?
- Josephine: The Interahamwe would take turns, those from Ndera would go to Kanombe, and those from Kanombe would go to Ndera. The Interahamwe that killed from the seminary must have been from Kanombe. Even those from Kanombe were with soldiers, also those from our region, because my eldest sons fled and went back on our hill where we lived. With my one brother that's where they died from but I didn't know about it.
- I kept looking for them, in 1997 is when we went to bury the remains that had been scattered on our hill. I am among the first people that were eager to bury, saying that I am burying my children and the remains of my relatives, but I later found out that they were not the ones we had buried. We buried again for the second time. They would tell me that they are in this particular place, wherever they would show me bones I would not look for signs and I would think to myself finally I have got them.
- Recently in April 2005 is when we buried. Someone convinced me that he knew where they were buried saying he was the one who had buried them, lets go I show them to you. I excavated twenty three people and buried them at Gisozi. They are very big graves with crosses written on their names but I realized that he was lying to me. I don't know if he knew what he was doing or not but I was really shocked.
- In Gacaca there was a child who knew my children, he/she was their age mate, he/she is the one that clarified and said that they were thrown in a latrine.
- That's when they were excavated in October and we buried them in December and I saw signs that it was really them, like identity cards. School cards and their clothes but they were just bones because they had decomposed. So we got them from a sixteen meters pit latrine with other people that were thrown in with them. And for that cause on our hill we buried two hundred and fifty people knowing exactly who was who because their bodies were visible and their identity cards.
- [That day we excavated two hundred and fifty people, before that people kept lying to us and we would excavate the wrong people.] We buried a lot of times burying people who we were not related to but we were burying Rwandans. We don't regret it but they toyed with us, always excavating and burying. Burying the wrong people.
- Martin: Lets talk again about burying a lot of times burying the wrong people, the people who were directing you on where to excavate were they your neighbors? Looking closely, how would someone say that somebody died from a certain place even when they are lying to you? The people who were telling you where to excavate where your neighbors?
- Josephine: Yes they were our neighbors; the one who even told me that he had buried my children himself was even a genocide survivor. I asked him why he did and it almost turned us into enemies but then I said to myself that there was no point. The ones who killed them are the ones that caused the lies, had I been a bad person I would have probably had followed him around in anger.
- I said that these were the consequences of the genocide on me, it was the second time, before I use to tell him that I am going to remember, I didn't do anything without telling him as a fellow survivor, telling him that today I am going to pray and remember and he would come. I even asked him why he had taken so long without telling me where my children were buried and he said that he didn't want me to get traumatized.
- And I told him that I couldn't get traumatized it was all the same since every 11th of April I would have prayers to remember them. Why didn't you let me get traumatized once and for all but at least bury them, so in Gacaca that child said where they were buried. I called him and even thought that the child is the one who was lying to me, we almost started arguing but I realized I would be disrespecting myself and didn't want any confrontation with him. I ignored him and said that I was just feeling the consequences of the genocide so I decided to fight them they way I normally fight but the other thing is that in 1995.
Table of Contents
- Testimony of MUREBWAYIRE Josephine
- Pre-Genocide Experience
- Family Life
- Incarceration of Husband
- Genocide Experience
- Flight
- Killings of Family
- Hiding
- Post-Genocide Experience
- Medical Care
- Adoptions
- Reburials of Family
- Pre-Genocide Experience
| Identifier mike: | Kmc00005 |
| Title: | Oral Testimony of MUREBWAYIRE Josephine |
| Description: | The oral testimony of MUREBWAYIRE Josephine, a survivor of the Genocide Against the Tutsi and Vice-President of widow survivor organization AVEGA Agahozo, recorded by the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Kigali, Rwanda. The testimony discusses life before the Genocide, events leading up to the Genocide, hiding during the Genocide, surviving a mass execution, death of family members, searching for remains of family members after the Genocide, memorials, forgiveness, faith, and life after the Genocide. The testimony is given in Kinyarwanda, with Kinyarwanda and English transcripts and English subtitles available. |
| Date: | 2007-03-05 |
| Media formats: | mini-DV tape |
| mini-DV tape | |
| Language: | eng |