PS: It was later discovered that this genocide survivor was killed by agents of the current government of Rwanda. He was suspected of having communicated with Diane Rwigara, another genocide survivor and woman who dared to challenge the long-serving president, Paul Kagame in the 2017 election.
A Rwandan man survived the genocide against the Tutsi only to be murdered in cold blood 25 years later. Neighbors who spoke at the funeral three weeks ago had no doubt about who was responsible, or why.
“These are not just thugs, as some local officials suggested. Jean-Paul Mwiseneza was killed by those who massacred his family in 1994 and kept targeting him, like the rest of us, after the genocide ended,” said Edouard, a survivor from the Nyamata area.
His body was found on a small trail near his home village, stabbed many times and dismembered. He was killed in the same cruel way as almost one million Tutsi in the 1994 genocide.
Mwiseneza was a young boy in Nyamata when, in the spring of 1994, the Hutu militia, the government regular army, and police, along with most of the ordinary Hutu population in his village, attacked thousands of Tutsi who had sought refuge in the Nyamata Catholic church. Nearly all were subsequently murdered. Mwiseneza was left for dead amidst thousands of corpses.
He received several machete blows that left his face disfigured for the rest of his life. He never shied away from speaking his mind, his friend Gatera told me.
Today, Nyamata church is one of the largest genocide memorial museums in Rwanda. Click here to take a virtual tour of Nyamata genocide memorial Museum.
The killing of Mwiseneza, like the murder of hundreds of other survivors who were killed in similar circumstances after the genocide, apparently bothers no one in Rwanda. No official condemnation from the highest levels of Government. No coverage in Rwanda’s mainstream media and obviously no public protest calling for justice.
A YouTube video of survivors’ anger at the funeral was removed a few days later by the local newspaper that had posted it. I suspect fear or self-censorship.
Hatred…
I have been closely following the killing of genocide survivors in Rwanda for the last 10 years. The killers’ hatred, and society’s indifference afterward, are deeply disturbing.
It takes no time to see the hatred in the way the killers finish off their victims.
Decapitation, removal of genitals and other mutilation are common to all the killings I documented.
It is the same hatred every genocide survivor knows, the one we lived with every single day during the 100 days.
Hatred is written everywhere on the corpses of victims as if the perpetrator desperately wants to send a clear message to the public. But it is, unfortunately, a message that moves no one in Rwanda.
For us survivors, even one survivor killed is too many. Every time a survivor is beheaded, Rwanda as a country should feel beheaded too. But if a government that takes pride in stopping the genocide is not moved by the murder of a survivor, what will move it?
No wonder survivors have been killed again and again since the genocide ended.
In October 2007, Paul Rutayisire, a 47-year-old genocide survivor, was hacked to death and his body cut into pieces. In the same month, many other survivors were killed across the country including Mukabatsinda Espérance who was killed after being raped.
In 2010, Laurence Mukaroza of Kirehe in the eastern province of Rwanda was murdered in retaliation for testifying against genocide perpetrators in the Gacaca courts, the community trials set up to try those accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide. The police found her corpse with sticks inside her private parts.
In most of these cases, there was little to no public prosecution of the perpetrators.
Ibuka, the umbrella body for survivors’ organizations in Rwanda, has documented about 170 cases of survivors who were killed in connection with the genocide between 2005 and 2010.
A taboo subject …
Since then, reporting on the killing of survivors has become almost taboo, seen as contradicting the Rwandan government’s success story of reconciliation and forgiveness in the aftermath of genocide.
However, the killing of survivors is not the only genocide-related matter that survivors and non-survivors alike tend to avoid.
Reparations, the killing of real or perceived political opponents, the politicization of genocide memorials, the embezzlement of money meant for needy survivors, and institutionalized, often coerced forgiveness are equally thorny topics that no one talks about in Rwanda.
It may come as a surprise to some outsiders, but the 300,000 people who survived the genocide remain a marginalized group in Rwanda.
It all boils down to power and its consolidation. Survivors and the weak Rwandan civil society will safely speak out only when it is in the best interest of the government.
It is OK to call for donations and at times force people to donate to the Agaciro Development Fund but it is not quite OK to call for reparation to the survivors.
It was an outrage when one Rwandan official was arrested in the UK but it is business as usual when hundreds of genocide survivors are murdered in hate crimes.
It is OK to protest when the International Tribunal for Rwanda releases a dozen genocide convicts, but it is not OK to protest when the Government releases thousands of genocide criminals who end up killing the survivors.
The recent killing of Mwiseneza and the indifference that followed are another example of the little-known challenges that survivors have to face on a regular basis in Rwanda. Ends.
By Albert Gasake.
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