Citation
Father Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy
The Massacre of His Students
At Kibeho College of Arts, 7 May 1994
May 2009
Charge Sheet Series No.10
African Rights
P.O. Box 3836
Kigali, Rwanda
Tel: (250) 50 36 79
Email: rights@rwanda1.com
Web: www.africanrights.org
Charge Sheet Series, Number 10
Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy: Massacre of His Students at Kibeho College of Arts, 7 May ‘94
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................2
Summary of the Charges Against Fr. Uwayezu for the 7 May 1994 Massacre ...........................6
1. THE PATH TO VIOLENCE.....................................................................................................8
2. FEAR, THREATS AND DESPONDENCY: 7-30 APRIL ....................................................12
A Catalytic Event: The Arrival of Gendarmes at Marie Merci ..................................................14
A Desperate Gamble: 30 April, Fleeing to Burundi...................................................................18
3. A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY: 1-6 MAY ..............................................................................20
2 May, Enforcing Separation Along Ethnic Lines .....................................................................21
A Moment of Hope.....................................................................................................................24
4. “WE REALIZED WE WERE ON OUR OWN”: 7 MAY, THE MASSACRE
UNFOLDS……………………………………………………………………………………….29
5. A QUESTION OF RESPONSIBILITY..................................................................................37
6. SOME OF THE VICTIMS KILLED AT THE COLLEGE OF ARTS ON 7 MAY 1994.39
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INTRODUCTION
Schools, like churches and hospitals, were among the most common sites for large-scale
massacres during the 1994 Rwanda genocide of Tutsis. Thousands upon thousands
congregated in schools and hospitals, many of them attached to parishes, as well as in
churches precisely because they regarded them as safe havens. Others were taken there
under military escort by government officials, after assurances that they would be
protected. Instead, they died there, from Gikongoro to Gisenyi, from Kibungo to Kibuye,
in ways and in numbers which defy the imagination. Places intended for worship and
prayer, reflection and learning, healing and recovery instead became slaughterhouses.
More than any other profession, teachers, school inspectors and the directors of schools—
from primary school teachers to distinguished university professors—participated
actively in the genocide. Some of these teachers and directors of schools included women
and members of the clergy. Throughout Rwanda, scores of teachers killed their own
students, their colleagues, the parents of the children they taught and the refugees who
sought shelter in their establishments. They turned children in their care against each
other and often armed and encouraged their pupils to take part in the killings. Some of
them raped young girls in their schools or women and girls among the refugees at
schools. Others helped to organize militia forces, manned roadblocks, checked ID cards
and handed those identified as Tutsi to the militia. Some of these teachers and academics,
armed with guns or traditional weapons, wore military uniform throughout the genocide.
1
The perpetrators of the 1994 genocide showed no mercy to children. On the contrary,
wiping out Tutsi children, especially males, was a central feature of the propaganda
aimed at ensuring mass participation in the killings. Those who justified the killings
never tired of telling the Hutu population that the rebel movement, the Rwandese
Patriotic Front (RPF), had been created by those who left Rwanda as toddlers in 1959-60.
This time, they said, there was to be no repeat of such “mistakes.” In April, many Hutus
did, in fact, hide the children of their friends and neighbours. Most of those children died
in May and June after politicians, the media, local government officials and militia
leaders intensified the threats against anyone suspected of sheltering Tutsi children.
Another strategy was to frighten them into handing over the children voluntarily by
saying these children would seek the return of the land, livestock and belongings which
had been robbed from their families.
The result is that children and young people were subjected to a wide range of abuses.
Thousands died alongside their parents and siblings in their homes, on the road, in the
1
A significant number of professors and lecturers at the National University in Butare, including doctors,
were instrumental in the genocide at the University and more broadly in Butare. See Death, Despair and
Defiance, African Rights, August 1995, 1234 pages. Vincent Ntezimana, a lecturer at the University, was
convicted of crimes related to the genocide in Belgium in June 2001. In Kigali, one of the best known
perpetrators is Angéline Mukandutiye, a school inspector in the commune of Nyarugenge and herself the
mother of four children. See Not So Innocent: When Women Become Killers, August 1995, African Rights.
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Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy: Massacre of His Students at Kibeho College of Arts, 7 May ‘94
bushes and in the massacres at schools, football stadiums, churches, commune offices
and hospitals. Others witnessed the murder of their relatives by family friends,
neighbours, or even by other relatives, their teachers and the parents of their own friends
and classmates.
2
About 80 Tutsi students from the Groupe Scolaire Marie Merci in Kibeho, commune
Mubuga in Gikongoro, were killed at the nearby College of Arts on 7 May 1994. They
ranged in age from 12-20 years. The school belonged to the Catholic Church. On 2 May
they were taken by gendarmes, on the orders of their director, Father Emmanuel
Uwayezu, a Catholic priest in charge of Marie Merci, to the College on the basis that
Hutu students had left the school and said they would only come back after the school
had been emptied of Tutsis. Most schools were closed for the Easter holidays, but the
students at Marie Merci had remained to catch up on the lessons they had missed when
they had gone on strike in February 1994. Both schools are only a few metres from the
Parish of Kibeho.
The few survivors of the killings on 7 May, a number of their fellow students who were
there at the time, and the perpetrators interviewed for this report have all named Fr.
Emmanuel Uwayezu as the man who prepared the ground for the massacre. He was
helped by teachers from both schools and by students from Marie Merci.
Fr. Uwayezu is now a vicar at a parish in Empoli, a small city about 20 kilometres to the
west of Florence. The parish, called “Madonna del Rosario e S. Pio V a Ponzano”,
belongs to the Diocese of Florence. He has modified his name slightly and is known in
Italy as Emmanuel Mihigo Wayezu. He is thought to have arrived in Italy from Kenya in
either 1996 or 1997.
Fr. Uwayezu was born on 18 March 1962 in commune Tambwe, Gitarama. He was
ordained a priest on 30 July 1989 in the Diocese of Butare and became the vicar of the
Parish of Ngoma. In 1991, he went to teach at the College of Christ Roi, a secondary
school in Nyanza, Butare. In 1992, he was transferred to the Parish of Simbi in commune
Maraba. The same year, he was named as the director of Marie Merci in Kibeho after
various problems which resulted in a strike brought the school to a standstill.
African Rights first mentioned some of the accusations against Fr. Uwayezu in Death,
Despair and Defiance in 1995, and subsequently in an open letter to His Holiness Pope
John Paul II in May 1998. There is now a substantial body of work, as well as numerous
examples from courts around the world, which show the extent to which the perpetrators
of the Rwanda genocide saw their mission as sanctioned by God. They committed
massacres in churches; they received blessings from priests, pastors and nuns; in some
cases God’s representatives were among the killers.
2
For details about children and the genocide, see Death, Despair and Defiance, and A Wounded
Generation: The Children Who Survived Rwanda’s Genocide, African Rights, Discussion Paper No.14,
April 2006, 28 pages.
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The time has now passed whereby the Churches in Rwanda can afford to respond with
incredulity to criticism that individual clergy may have played a role, direct or indirect, in
the genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has convicted two
Catholic priests while a third is currently on trial. The Tribunal also sentenced an elderly
Adventist clergyman to prison and a senior Anglican clergyman died in custody in
Arusha before he was brought to trial. Belgium has sentenced two Catholic nuns to
prison for their active participation in the genocide in Butare. A number of clergy have
also been imprisoned in Rwanda in connection with the genocide.
3
4
5
The witnesses whose detailed testimonies form the heart of this report include: four of the
students who survived the massacre, two of those who escaped to Burundi a few days
prior to the killings, four of their classmates who were present throughout the events that
led to 7 May and several prisoners who acknowledge their role in the massacre. The
report also contains the names of 38 of the victims who died at the Kibeho College of
Arts on 7 May.
Although this report focuses in detail on one massacre, the manner in which it was
prepared and implemented is a microcosm of what happened in 1994 across the parishes,
schools, commune offices, hospitals and football fields of Rwanda. People in positions of
authority and trust helped to plan and carry out the atrocities. It highlights one the most
important and central features of the genocide, and a key to its success, namely the close
collaboration between key civilians on the ground, who knew the local situation, and
military authorities. It shows that the people who knew the victims intimately were
ultimately the ones who betrayed them. It also illustrates the courage of some Hutus who
defied the propaganda and the climate of fear to warn their classmates, enabling about a
dozen to escape in time.
3
The two priests who have been convicted and sentenced by the ICTR are Fr. Athanase Seromba and Fr.
Emmanuel Rukundo. Fr. Seromba was a priest at the Parish of Nyange in Kivumu, Kibuye. On 13
December 2006, he was given a 15-year prison sentence by the Trial Chamber. On 12 March 2008, the
Appeals Chamber sentenced him to imprisonment for the remainder of his life. On 27 February 2009, the
Trial Chamber imposed a 25-year sentence on Fr. Rukundo, a military chaplain. For details about the
allegations against Fr. Seromba, see African Rights’ report, Father Athanase Seromba, Parish Priest in
Florence, Italy, November 1999, Charge Sheet No.2, 22 pages. The trial of Father Hormisdas Nsengimana,
a Catholic priest who was the rector of Christ Roi, a secondary school in Nyanza, Butare, is currently
underway in Arusha. See Father Hormisdas Nsengimana: Accused of Genocide, Sheltered by the Church,
November 2001, 43 pages, African Rights, Issue 14, Witness to Genocide.
4
Elizaphan Ntakirutimana was released after he served a 10-year sentence, and died shortly afterwards. See
African Rights’ report, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana: U.S. Supreme Court Approves Extradition to Arusha,
February 2000, 23 pages. Bishop Samuel Musabyimana, the Anglican Bishop of Shyogwe in Gitarama,
was arrested on 26 April 2001 and died on 24 January 2003. The Protestant Churches and the Genocide:
An Appeal to the World Council of Churches’ Meeting in Harare, December 1998, African Rights, 24
pages, discusses the role of Bishop Musabyimana in the genocide in Shyogwe.
5
In June 2001, two nuns from the Benedictine order, serving in a monastery in Sovu, were sentenced to
prison in Belgium. The two nuns were Sr. Gertrude Mukangango, the Mother Superior, who faced a 15year sentence, and Sr. Julienne Kizito, who was given 12 years. For details about the killings at the
monastery of Sovu, see African Rights’ report, Obstruction of Justice: The Nuns of Sovu in Belgium, Issue
11, Witness to Genocide, February 2000, 62 pages.
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In addition to Fr. Uwayezu, the men who are most closely associated with the 7 May
massacre are:
•
Laurent Bucyibaruta, the préfet (governor) of Gikongoro, who is living in France ;
•
Damien Biniga, the deputy-préfet (deputy governor) of the sub-préfecture of
Munini which was comprised of the communes of Mubuga, Rwamiko, Nshili and
Kivu. Biniga is with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda
(FDLR) in North Kivu, in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC);
6
7
•
Second Lieutenant Anaclet Hitimana, in charge of the gendarmerie station in
Mubuga. Hitimana rose to the rank of a lieutenant-colonel in the FDLR. He was
killed during the January-February 2009 joint military operation by the
Governments of the DRC and Rwanda against the FDLR;
What took place in Kibeho on 7 May is inseparable from the carnage that marked Kibeho
in mid-April when at least 20,000 Tutsis are estimated to have died on 14-15 April at the
parish and health centre. Nor can it be separated entirely from what took place in Kibeho
after 7 May. The role of Fr. Uwayezu in the mass killings at the parish, and the
allegations that he helped to guard a roadblock in cellule Mpunge, near Marie Merci,
merit a thorough and careful inquiry. In the meantime, African Rights is calling on the
authorities in Italy and in Rwanda, and on the Catholic Church in Rwanda and in Italy, to
carry out their own investigations into the serious charges contained in this report. All
concerned will have drawn lessons from the case of Father Athanase Seromba, another
Rwandese priest who served in a parish in Florence, Italy. Denials and dismissals from
the Catholic Church in Italy eventually led to a decision, by the Appeals Chamber of the
ICTR, to convict Fr. Seromba of “committing genocide as well as extermination as a
crime against humanity” and to imprison him “for the remainder of his life.”
6
The ICTR, which has indicted Laurent Bucyibaruta, has transferred the case to France where progress has
been slow. Some of the charges levelled against Bucyibaruta are summarized in A Welcome Move to Build
Upon: France Arrests Two Prominent Rwandese Genocide Suspects, 24 July 2007, African Rights.
7
Damien Biniga’s participation in the genocide was so extensive, going beyond the préfecture of
Gikongoro into Butare, that he has become well-known at a national level. See the report issued by African
Rights in June 1999, Damien Biniga: A Genocide Without Borders.
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Summary of the Charges Against Fr. Uwayezu for the 7 May Massacre
•
For two years prior to the massacre of 7 May 1994, Fr. Uwayezu allowed some
students, in particular those displaced from the war-affected préfectures in the
north, to spread ethnic hatred at the school, labelling all Tutsis as “inyenzi”
[cockroaches] and enemies of Rwanda. This created ethnic divisions within the
student body, encouraged lack of discipline and emboldened these students and
many among the staff to believe they could do whatever they saw fit;
8
8
•
On 7 April 1994, Fr. Uwayezu gathered the students together to announce the
death of President Juvénal Habyarimana in a manner that was calculated to
enflame ethnic tensions and suspicions. At a time of fear and uncertainty, he left
the students to their own devices. His failure to provide them with guidance and
leadership created a dangerous vacuum filled by staff and students with an ethnic
agenda in support of the genocide;
•
On 11 April, Fr. Uwayezu arranged for about 20 gendarmes to camp near the
school to “look after the students’ security.” On 14-15 April, these gendarmes
actively participated in the massacre of about 20,000 people at the Parish of
Kibeho, situated nearby. Afterwards they returned to the school. Fr. Uwayezu is
accused of instructing the gendarmes to shoot the refugees who were trying to
escape the parish by hiding in the school. He allowed the students who were
especially hostile to Tutsis to spend time with the gendarmes;
•
Fr. Uwayezu ignored pleas for help from Tutsi students who said Hutu classmates
had told them of a plan to massacre them, and that the gendarmes were taking a
census of Tutsis within the school;
•
Convinced their death was imminent, on 30 April about a dozen Tutsis students
took the risk of crossing into Burundi. All survived, but Fr. Uwayezu, in a bid to
ensure no other Tutsi ventured out, told the school they had been killed and that
he himself had seen their corpses floating in the river. He qualified them as
inyenzi who wanted to join the RPF. He forbade anyone else from leaving the
school grounds, saying the gendarmes would provide the necessary protection;
•
On 2 May, the most virulent students organized a mass walk out of all Hutus from
Marie Merci, on the pretext that their Tutsi colleagues had tried to poison them.
Fr. Uwayezu was nowhere to be seen at such a critical moment. He was, however,
awaiting the arrival of the Hutu students almost immediately afterwards at the
nearby College of Arts. He then told the Hutu students to return to Marie Merci,
saying it was not they, but rather the Tutsis, who should become refugees. A
handful of Tutsis who had tried to pass themselves off as Hutus were exposed and
denounced in his presence. Once he was certain that all the Tutsis had been
Inyenzi, a term of abuse for the RPF, was used to refer to all Tutsis in 1994.
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picked out, they were taken under escort to the College and kept under tight
surveillance by gendarmes. They were given little food and were denied blankets
or mattresses despite the rain and cold;
•
On 3 or 4 May, Fr. Uwayezu accompanied an influential delegation, which
included the préfet of Gikongoro, Laurent Bucyibaruta, and the Bishop of
Gikongoro, Monsignor Augustin Misago, as well as military officers and local
government officials. They assured the youngsters that no harm would come to
them and the préfet promised to send a bus to evacuate them to safety;
•
In the meantime, Fr. Uwayezu was seen by witnesses talking frequently to the
men who would later be key participants in the 7 May massacre;
•
Late on the night of 6 May, gendarmes escorted two to three students out of the
College and confiscated the key making it impossible to lock the building from
inside;
•
On the morning of 7 May, a huge number of militiamen waving machetes and
knives surrounded the students, most of who were in the dining room. Fr.
Uwayezu had disappeared at such a critical moment. The gendarmes, who he had
posted there “to safeguard the students” shot into the air instead of dispersing the
attackers. The massacre started immediately. Except for a handful of survivors,
most of the students at the College perished, killed by the guns and grenades of
the gendarmes or the spears, axes and machetes of the militiamen;
•
Fr. Uwayezu returned to Kibeho several days after the massacre at the College of
Arts to arrange for the gendarmes to provide military training to Hutu male
students so they could seek out survivors and also help the army in fighting the
RPF.
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1
THE PATH TO VIOLENCE
The roots of the massacre of 7 May 1994 lie in a series of events which began, with
respect to Marie Merci, in 1992. The most important development was the arrival at the
school of a substantial number of students from areas in the north which were directly
affected by the war between government forces and the RPF. The war began in October
1990 after the RPF launched attacks in Rwanda from its base in Uganda. Ruhengeri, and
especially Byumba, which had been overrun by the RPF, were particularly marked.
Students from these regions, whose schools had been forced to close, were spread out
among schools throughout the country. Wherever they went, they worked hard to sow
ethnic division among Hutus and Tutsis. During the genocide of 1994, displaced students
from the north, and displaced populations from the north who were living in camps, were
prominent in a wide range of massacres. Marie Merci in Kibeho was no different. It was
these students, used and supported by some of their teachers, local government officials
and civilians living in the area who were at the centre of the tragedy in which their
classmates perished.
9
Hutu students who did not share their outlook, like Gilbert , spoke of this group’s
attitude, their influence on the student body and the atmosphere they created in the
school. They describe them as lacking any sense of discipline, with the result that they
did what they wanted, ignoring the director, a Catholic priest by the name of Jean MarieVianney Sebera. It is not a coincidence, said Gilbert, that the strike of 1992, which he
described as “lying at the heart of the chasm between Hutus and Tutsis in the school”,
took place the very year there was an influx of displaced northern students.
10
From the outset, they kept telling us that we should mistreat the Tutsi teachers and
students. They left the school without permission from the director who they openly
referred to as an accomplice of the RPF, cursing him as they saw fit. They used to say
that it was their parents who had the power, not the inyenzi.
The fact that they were generally older than their classmates gave them an edge, said
Espérance.
From the moment they set foot in the school, the pupils from the north, who were also
much older than their classmates, tried to intoxicate everyone, and to entrench a spirit of
ethnicity and racism.
But, she pointed out, they would not have been effective if they had not made common
cause with adults who held important positions in Kibeho.
9
Displaced students from the north, for example, were at the forefront of a huge massacre on 21 April at
the Parish of Kaduha in Gikongoro.
10
Pseudonyms have been used for most of the witnesses.
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The leaders of the protests in 1992 were in their second year of economics, a class
dominated by displaced students.
Without the endorsement of local officials and teachers from Marie Merci and the Kibeho
College of Arts, they couldn’t have done anything. I was still young at the time, but I do
remember the names they used to mention again and again, for example:
•
•
•
•
The bourgmestre of Mubuga [Charles Nyiridandi];
Biniga, the deputy préfet of Munini;
Innocent Hitimana, animateur11 at Kibeho College of Arts. He used to visit the
students from the north on a regular basis, telling them they couldn’t feel secure
if Tutsis were in charge of the school;
Fabien Karekezi, the prefect of discipline at our school who was himself a native
of the north.
Things came to a head in 1992 when these students organized demonstrations calling for
the dismissal of the director, Sebera, and several other teachers. They argued that Fr.
Sebera represented the RPF in Kibeho, and that these other teachers worked with him
clandestinely to advance the interests of the RPF in the region.
Bénôit entered Marie Merci in 1990 at the age of 12, and was 14 when the trouble started
in 1992.
The argument was simply a means of introducing ethnic division. The students who were
pulling the strings were very aggressive in describing Tutsis as inyenzi. And when the
demonstrations began, it became clear that some teachers were behind all this, advising
these students that they couldn’t allow themselves to be led by a Tutsi director. They also
had the backing of the bourgmestre of Mubuga. They wanted as many Tutsi staff as
possible to leave. In addition to the director, they targeted Munyankindi and his wife,
Michèle, and our two animateurs, Hilda Ingabire and Hyundai.
According to Aimable, their destructive impact was felt immediately.
The 1992 strike had two purposes, firstly to get rid of Tutsi teachers and secondly to
create an opportunity to intimidate and demoralize Tutsi students. And this is directly
linked to the arrival of students from the north. Once they became integrated into Marie
Merci, the atmosphere in the school became marked by ethnic divisions and filled with
ethnic tension. They were very racist in their attitudes.
Like Espérance, Aimable argued that these students were merely a tool in the hands of
others, mentioning in particular the bourgmestre and Innocent Hitimana.
They were used by people who were against our director and the other Tutsis who taught
there, especially Marie Michèle and her husband. The people who worked most closely with
11
An animateur organizes the activities of students when they are not in class, and also has responsibilities
for discipline.
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the students who led the strike were the bourgmestre and Innocent Hitimana from the
College of Arts. Hitimana had allies among the teachers in our school, especially:
•
•
•
Hormisdas Fatikaramu, who died after the genocide;
François-Xavier Kayigamba, the prefect of studies;
Fabien, the prefect of discipline.
Order was eventually restored, after the Bishopric of Gikongoro and Daniel Mbangura,
from the Ministry of Education, intervened. Fr. Sebera was transferred, but was asked to
stay on until the seniors had finished their studies and several of the other Tutsi staff,
whose contracts had been terminated, left.
12
The dismissals were followed by celebrations, commented Bénôit.
The students from the north sang songs of victory. They also thanked Mbangura and local
government officials for fulfilling their wishes.
Espérance also mentioned the festive air.
A lot of students danced and said they had clinched a very important victory, the
dismissal of the associates of the RPF.
While Fr. Sebera, Munyankindi, Hilda Ingabire and Hyundai were removed from the
school, Michèle, Munyankindi’s wife, was strongly reprimanded and told that she would
be out if she didn’t accept certain conditions. She was an outstanding teacher which is
why they didn’t immediately show her the door.
In line with the aims of the demonstrators, Fr. Sebera was later replaced by a Hutu priest,
Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu.
The outcome, Espérance commented, emboldened the student leaders of the protests.
The organisers in the school, the students in year five, simply wanted to rid themselves of
Tutsis. These are the same people, those in year five, who would, in 1994, be the first to
distance themselves from their Tutsi classmates.
Despite the semblance of order, the damage had been done, as Bénôit underlined.
Ethnic tensions lingered on, Fr. Sebera continued to be subjected to pressure, Tutsi
teachers were openly harassed and certain students felt they could do anything they
wanted. And Fr. Sebera, who had no leverage over them, and couldn’t do anything about
the situation.
12
Fr. Jean Marie-Vianney Sebera went from Marie Merci to the Parish of Simbi in Maraba, Butare. On 17
April 1994, he sought refuge at the Bishopric of Butare. When French soldiers arrived in Butare, he was
part of a group of Tutsi priests, along with Benedictine nuns, that the French army planned to evacuate to
Burundi. Their vehicle, which was part of the convoy, was ambushed and they were killed in Kibeho, in a
place known as Ndago.
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Nor, said Espérance, did Fr. Uwayezu’s appointment bring about improvements.
Marie Merci became a school without discipline and which was dominated by ethnic
mistrust. Anyone who tried to overcome the ethnic hatred those students preached was
marginalized, at the insistence of the students from the north who continued to be the
leaders in the school. And all this happened right in front of Fr. Uwayezu who did not lift
a finger against them.
For Tutsis like Bénôit, Uwayezu’s attitude made their lives miserable.
He allowed certain Hutus to demoralize their Tutsi classmates whom they described as
inyenzi and enemies of the nation.
Bénôit understands the predicament in which youngsters like Espérance, Aimable and
Gilbert found themselves.
Our classmates who had come from the north were consumed by ethnic hatred to such an
extent that those who tried to overcome this barrier were immediately regarded as
accomplices of the Tutsis. Fr. Emmanuel, who should have been the first person to
punish them, did nothing.
The students, again led by those who had become displaced in the north, went on strike in
February 1994. They made a series of demands, including a reduction of the school fees,
laboratory equipment and better school equipment. All the students interviewed for this
report considered these demands ill-judged. They pointed out that the school was
relatively new and said it had done its best to provide equipment. The suggestions, they
said, were unreasonable and beyond the means of the school. Bénôit summed up the
strike as the logical outcome of what he called the “laissez-faire attitude towards students
who had been spoilt by the school.”
The Ministry of Education rejected the demands and insisted that the students stay in
school over the Easter holidays, with the exception of year six, to make up for lost time.
It is this context which explains why Marie Merci was one of the rare educational
institutions which was open when the genocide was unleashed.
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2
FEAR, THREATS AND DESPONDENCY
7-30 April
The students at Marie Merci shared the sense of anxiety which the news of President
Juvénal Habyarimana’s death, in a plane crash on the night of 6 April 1994, created
throughout the country. They looked to their director for guidance. But the manner in
which Fr. Uwayezu announced the death of the President reinforced fears and tensions, as
Diogène noted.
On the 7th, Fr. Uwayezu came to tell us that lessons had been cancelled. He also said that
the President’s plane had been shot down by the enemies of the country, that is the
inkotanyi. This statement made it easy for Hutus to lash out at the Tutsis, cursing and
calling them the enemies of Rwanda. Compared to Hutus, there was only a small number
of Tutsis at the school, so they couldn’t defend themselves.
Gisèle, aged 16 at the time, said she woken up at dawn on the 7th.
Some students were screaming, saying the man who had been their saviour had died and
they didn’t know what to do. They started making inflammatory statements, some
vowing they would avenge their ‘father.’ Michel Mutabazi, one of my classmates, added
that it was also necessary to ‘make his bed before burying him.’13
Eliane, in year five, entered the canteen at 7:00 a.m. for breakfast.
A fourth-year student came up to me. He asked me if I was not ashamed to come looking
for porridge when the 'Father of the Nation' was dead. I told him that when people died,
those who remained still had to eat. He said that Habyarimana had been killed by the
inkotanyi and that consequently, the inkotanyi would regret it.
Espérance said she went to the meeting on the 7th with certain expectations.
When he called us together on the 7th, Fr. Uwayezu told us that Rwanda had just lost a
parent and therefore all Rwandans must start a period of mourning. That’s how we found
out that lessons had been suspended. He left us there, without telling us anything about
what we should do, how we should behave. From that moment onwards, the teachers no
longer came to teach us and those in charge of discipline abandoned us. The director, who
lived in the priests’ rooms at the Parish of Kibeho, was hardly ever in the school.
The lack of direction from their headmaster, she argued, created a dangerous vacuum and
a sense of drift. It also, she added, sharpened ethnic divisions within the school.
13
This expression, which was current throughout the genocide, was used to mean that the Tutsis would all
have to be killed before Habyarimana was buried so they could serve as his mattress.
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Within a very short period of time, we noticed that the people who should have brought
the students closer were the very people who were dividing them. Fabien, the prefect of
discipline for example, only came to talk to students from the north. He himself is from
Byumba.
Because of the attitude of the headmaster, the students felt lost. The Tutsis were
becoming frantic with worry about their families, given what they could hear on the
radio. And Fr. Emmanuel’s decision to do nothing basically created two groups along
ethnic lines. The students who had been anti-Tutsi before exploited the situation to scare
and put down the Tutsis. And the director showed no interest or concern about any of
this.
Gilbert thinks it was appropriate to disrupt classes, once the news of Habyarimana’s
death had filtered through. The difficulty, he said, was the absence of leadership in the
school.
Neither Fr. Uwayezu nor any of the teachers responsible for discipline made the slightest
effort to make the students feel united or safe. And the headmaster could see very well
that some students were creating problems of an ethnic nature. He could see that the
Tutsis were tense because of what these students were saying, and because of what was
happening in the country. But he just didn’t care. So it was obvious to everyone that
things could only get worse.
Like most people in Rwanda, the students listened to the radio continuously on the 7th.
The broadcasts about the targeted assassinations of the leaders of opposition political
parties added to the strained relations between the students, according to Eliane. On
Friday, 8 April, she and several of her friends went to the Parish of Kibeho. They ran into
a group of women and children, followed by men who were carrying their luggage. When
she returned to her lodgings, Eliane found three small girls who said their home had been
attacked in the neighbouring commune of Rwamiko. On the 9th, Eliane and her friends
watched what she described as “the movement of migration and exodus towards the
church and Parish of Kibeho.” By the time she went to mass at the parish on the 10th, she
estimated the number of refugees, some of whom she knew, at about 10,000.
Meanwhile, “the tension was rising, little by little” and the students were becoming more
sharply divided along ethnic lines.
I had a Hutu friend who continued to talk to me. But he was harassed and told not to talk
to ‘snakes’, the name given to Tutsis at the time. A rumour began to circulate according
to which the Tutsi students had given a list of all the Hutu students to the Tutsi refugees
at the parish. The rumour said that we had asked the refugees to come and kill the Hutu
students.
Diogène blames Fr. Uwayezu for allowing the situation within the school to get out of
hand.
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Fr. Emmanuel never intervened to punish those who were mistreating the Tutsis morally.
This motivated them to continue insulting the Tutsis, to the point that they had no choice
but to live in their isolated corner.
Given the proximity of the school to the parish, the students were necessarily affected by
what was taking place there and by the sight of houses burning on nearby hills. The first
concerted attack against the Tutsi refugees at the parish took place on 12 April.
While girls at Marie Merci had their dormitories inside the school compound, the boys’
hostel was at Agateko, about a kilometre away. ID cards, which were obligatory for
everyone over 18 and which mentioned the carrier’s ethnic identity, were used widely in
1994 to target Tutsis. So boys over 18 started sleeping in the school soon after the 7th, for
fear of being caught with a Tutsi ID outside the school premises. Shortly afterwards, all
the boys moved out of their hostel and slept in the classrooms at the school.
A Catalytic Event: The Arrival of Gendarmes at Marie Merci
On or about 11 April, about 20 gendarmes arrived at the school, accompanied by Fr.
Uwayezu. He told the students that they had come to look after their security. They were
well-armed and set up their tent on a slope above the school which, Espérance said, “was
a very good position from where they could follow the movement of Tutsis going to the
Parish of Kibeho.” The gendarmes were part of the contingent responsible for the subpréfecture of Munini; their commander, Lt. Anaclet Hitimana, was based in Mubuga.
Gilbert remembers that the gendarmes would not let the Tutsi students visit their relatives
who had become refugees at the parish.
They chased them away, saying they didn’t want to see Tutsis joining their brothers.
Aimable confirmed Gilbert’s account.
The gendarmes blocked them. They used to tell them that since Habyarimana’s death,
Tutsis no longer had the right to speak.
On 14 April, the refugees at the parish are estimated to have numbered between 20,00025,000 men, women and children. On 14-15 April, they were massacred after carefully
laid plans, including mass mobilization of civilians from all the communes of Munini,
were put into effect by Biniga and Lt. Hitimana. The students at Marie Merci could see
the arrival en masse of hundreds of armed civilians and they could hear the sound of
gunfire and the explosion of grenades. Even closer to home, they saw the gendarmes,
who had supposedly been sent to the school for their security, use their guns against the
refugees.
14
14
See the June 1999 report on Damien Biniga, cited earlier, for details about the killings at the Parish of
Kibeho.
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It was impossible for him, said Bénôit, to have confidence in their headmaster from the
moment the gendarmes set foot in the school.
Shortly before the refugees at the parish were massacred, our director negotiated the
dispatch of some gendarmes to our school. We were told they had come to look after the
security of the school. But these same gendarmes lent a hand to the interahamwe in the
massacres at the parish.
He accuses the same gendarmes of shooting the Tutsi cooks of Marie Merci during the
killings at the parish.
Our director was completely indifferent to the murder of our cooks.
Bénôit’s suspicions about the gendarmes, and about Fr. Uwayezu, preceded the events of
14 April.
The headmaster’s complicity with the gendarmes is evident from the fact that he allowed
some students to help them pick out who was a Tutsi. I am one of the rare Tutsis who was
not identified as such.
Espérance has gone further and accuses Fr. Uwayezu of deliberately blocking passage to
the Tutsis who tried to escape the killings by running towards Marie Merci.
On the morning of the 14th, Fr. Emmanuel came into the canteen and forbade us from
going outside the school grounds. He must have known what was going to follow. We
noticed the comings and goings of the gendarmes and of the interahamwe who were
coming to fetch weapons and ammunition from the gendarmes who were there for our
protection. Or so were told by Fr. Emmanuel. These gendarmes had large guns pointed in
the direction of the parish.
The parish was already surrounded by a massive crowd of interahamwe. Once the
massacre began, we couldn’t see what was taking place there. But we could see very
clearly the gendarmes who were shooting the refugees.
Our director was with the gendarmes. He was pointing out to them the refugees who were
running like mad to make it inside the school. The gendarmes shot them.
Fr. Uwayezu’s directives led to the death, said Espérance, of a Hutu employee of the
school.
She was called Hyacinthe and worked as a secretary at the school. She had gone to visit
the refugees and the killing started while she was still there. She was shot as she tried to
come back to the school.
Gilbert echoed the account given by Espérance.
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While the Tutsis were being killed at the parish, Fr. Emmanuel was in the school. We saw
him rushing between his house, the house vacated by Madeleine Raffin, who used to be
our bursar, and the camp of the gendarmes.15 The gendarmes were in the midst of shooting
at the refugees, and he was with them and speaking to them. We later saw, just outside
the school grounds, the corpses of refugees who had been shot by the gendarmes before
they could come inside the school.
Aimable said he hopes that Fr. Uwayezu “will have the courage to talk about his visits to
the gendarmes at the very moment they were mowing down the refugees at the parish.”
He was talking to them when he could see they were eliminating Tutsis.
A number of the Tutsi students had lost relatives in the massacres of 14-15 April. They
became even more fearful when some of their fellow students started staying with the
gendarmes, who had helped to decimate the refugees, in their camp near the school.
Aged 20, Callixte was one of the oldest students. He said they sought help from Fr.
Uwayezu.
We told Fr. Uwayezu that some students, who were working hand in hand with the
soldiers, were taking a census of us. We begged him to find us a safe haven. He
disregarded our plea and called us liars. I myself tried to convey to him just how
frightened we were, telling him that some of the Hutu students had told us of a plan to
have us killed. He simply ignored me, insisting that no harm would come to us.
As the days went by, Maurice became increasingly pessimistic.
We were sure plans to kill us had already been firmed up and that there was nothing we
could do about this. We came to this conclusion when we saw how cruel people were
being to us, the indifference of our director and the support which the gendarmes were
giving to those students and local people who wanted to have us killed.
Practical difficulties compounded a psychologically stressful situation, as described by
Gisèle.
We continued to live in a state of anxiety. We couldn’t sleep and spent the night awake
in the dormitory. We also had a problem with cooks; many of them were Tutsis and had
been killed. We started cooking for ourselves and had formed groups to take turns. When
it was the turn of the Tutsi group, we prepared the food in the presence of a gendarme for
fear that we might poison our Hutu colleagues.
It was necessary, she commented, to be on their guard.
On 14 April, the Tutsis at the parish were exterminated. There were only a few survivors
who were hiding in the bushes, but they continued to be pursued. There were gendarmes
15
Fr. Uwayezu moved out of his residence at the parish some time after the genocide began.
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at the school. We were worried that their goal was to kill us, just as they had massacred
the other Tutsis. We lived in a climate of constant fear.
Other developments had also worried Gisèle.
One of the school watchmen, named Kimbo, brought in a little child, about seven months
old, that he had found on the body of his mother. He brought him to the dormitory. Some
days later students complained that the child was making a lot of noise. The next day,
Kimbo took the child and gave it a single blow with a club. The child died. He then threw
the corpse in a ditch close to the dormitory. Some of the students applauded with joy.
The watchman, said Gisèle, “told us that Tutsi girls would not be killed, but that the boys
absolutely had to be wiped out.”
He once told us that he had found 30 inyenzi in the church and that he had finished them
off. He was very happy when he was relating this story. He knew very well whom he was
addressing. I think he just wanted to terrorize us.
The behaviour of some of the students was also a cause for concern.
A number of the most virulent students began holding meetings. They included:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Jean Damascène, fourth year economics student who was from Kibuye;
Aaron, in the fourth year of bio-chemistry;
Egide, in the fourth year of bio-chemistry;
Michel Mutabazi, in the fourth year of bio-chemistry;
Eraste, from Cyangugu; I think he was in the third year of economics;
Clément, the son of Mutazihana16, from Kibeho, was in year three;
Lucie, a third year student, who had a father in the army;
Two girls from Cyangugu whose names I can’t recall;
At meal times, Jean de Dieu would say: ‘Let every Tutsi be aware that he has only three
days left to live.’
Such warnings prompted a group of Tutsi students to make plans to leave Kibeho.
16
Nathanaël Mutazihana was a medical assistant at Kibeho health centre and was a key figure in the
massacres at the health centre and at the parish on 14-15 April. He was imprisoned and was released
recently.
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A Desperate Gamble: 30 April, Fleeing to Burundi
Convinced they were going to be killed, Callixte, Silas and about a dozen other students
slipped away to Burundi on the night of 30 April. They acted after two of their Hutu
classmates cautioned them, in the words of Silas, “that 2 May could very well be our last
day on earth.” They took the advice seriously because, commented Callixte, “Fr.
Emmanuel continuously turned a deaf ear to our appeals telling him that the situation was
fast deteriorating.”
Silas said the decision, a mark of their desperation, was taken “hastily” after they
received the warnings.
Claude, who opposed the way we were being harassed, secretly told us that we may not
make it beyond 2 May. He had heard this from the students who collaborated with the
gendarmes and the people outside the school. This message forced us to think about ways
in which at least some of us could make it out alive.
We decided to leave because we realized that Fr. Emmanuel approved of the violence
which we suffered at the hands of our fellow students. I regret bitterly that we didn’t all
leave on the night of 30 April. But at the time it was a big risk. We had no way of
knowing if we might all be killed, or whether some would live to tell the tale. It was
impossible to be certain about anything given the constant intimidation.
A few of the students had a vague sense of the road to Burundi, but the fact that they
were forced to travel at night was an added complication. It took them two days to arrive
in Matonga, in the province of Kayanza in Burundi, because they stayed in the bushes
during the day “to avoid bumping into militiamen”, in the words of Silas. Under normal
circumstances, such a journey would take half a day. Since most of the large-scale
massacres in Gikongoro, and much of the country, had taken place by 25 April, the last
week of April and May were largely dedicated to combing operations, making the
students’ initiative all the more hazardous.
They had a scare, at the very end, says Silas.
We reached the border in the morning. There were no bushes where we could find
shelter. While we were crossing the Akanyaru River, the people who lived around there
started yelling. But by the time the interahamwe arrived, we were already on Burundi
soil.
Most of the Tutsi students, certain they would die whether they remained at the school or
attempted to cross into Burundi, decided to stay put, including Maurice. He paid tribute
to their Hutu friends who had alerted them to the potential dangers.
Without the help of some Hutu students, who couldn’t show their sympathies publicly for
fear of being considered accomplices of the inkotanyi, we wouldn’t have known vital
information. For example, without Claude the group that left on 30 April wouldn’t have
had the information that prompted them to leave. And he wasn’t the only one who
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seemed concerned about our problem. He had other allies who refused to get involved in
the moves against us.
None of the students who left for Burundi were killed or wounded. But that was not what
Fr. Uwayezu told their classmates. Espérance recalled Uwayezu’s explanations for what
had happened to them.
Our headmaster told us of their escape in the following terms: ‘I asked you not to leave
the school without my permission. But some inyenzi, who wanted to join the inkotanyi,
did so anyway. Their fates are sealed. The people punished them and now their bodies are
floating in the Agatorove River. I hope none of you will try to leave, especially the
Tutsis. We brought soldiers to guard you, so stay here.’
Gilbert also listened to the account given by Fr. Uwayezu.
On the morning of 1 May, the headmaster made an announcement with the hope of
discouraging Tutsi students. He told us he had learnt of the death of the inyenzi who had
recently left the school, and that he had seen their bodies in the Agatorove, a tributary of
River Akanyaru.
Diogène remembers that Fr. Uwayezu told them that the students’ mission “had been
aborted by the interahamwe, who had macheted them and thrown them in the Agatorove
River.”
Aimable understood the priest’s interpretation as an attempt to “stop any other Tutsis
from following them and as a ploy to keep in as many people as possible to be killed.”
As intended, Fr. Uwayezu’s news was a major blow to the Tutsi students who had
remained behind. Maurice, head of the group, was summoned by Fr. Uwayezu.
The day after they left, Father Emmanuel called me to tell me about their death. He said:
‘I’m sorry to inform you of the death of your brothers. I saw some of their corpses in the
Agatorove River and others by the road side. One of their bodies was being used as a
road block, so I’m requesting you to stop the others from putting themselves at risk
because of the misfortune their friends have gone through.’ I took the headmaster
seriously.
He did not find out, until the end of the genocide, that they had in fact all made it safely
to Burundi.
In retrospect, I realize that our headmaster knew we were going to be killed and he was
okay with it. Asking me to stop the second group from fleeing, by feeding me with false
information, is a testament to his part in the plan.
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3
A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY
1-6 MAY
May began against a background of tension between the Hutu and Tutsi students and
uncertainty as rumours circulated and no one was quite sure what was going to happen
next. For the Tutsis, a sense of foreboding accompanied the decision to physically
separate the two groups, followed almost immediately by a ray of hope when a team,
consisting of senior officials, paid them a visit and listened to their concerns. But this
“message of peace”, as Maurice described it, proved ephemeral.
What troubled Maurice in particular, since late April, was the sight of the students who
had threatened them deep in conversation with peasants who lived in the area.
Some students told us that come what may, they were going to kill us. They would leave
the school to make contact with the peasants living in the neighbourhood. By then, there
were no Tutsis left in the area near the school.
According to Aimable, “we could see Fr. Emmanuel talking to various people who we
later learnt helped to plan and carry out the massacre of 7 May.”
At the time, we didn’t know most of their names. We just used to see them coming to talk
to the gendarmes, to the students like Clément Uwamhoro who worked with the
gendarmes, and also to Fr. Emmanuel. They included:
•
•
•
•
•
Jean Damascène Niyonsaba, from cellule Agateko in sector Kibeho;
Sandara Nzeyimana, alias Bwarayaze, the son of Sekabati. He comes from cellule
Uwababanda, sector Rwamiko in commune Rwamiko;
Vincent Ndayisenga, alias Manyinya from Mpanda in Runyinya;
Berchmans Nyirimbabazi from cellule Agateko in sector Kibeho;
Innocent Turatsinze, the son Munyarukiga, from cellule Agateko.
The names of several of these men are cited below in the chapter on the massacre.
Given the prevailing climate, said Gisèle, “disagreements between the students were
inevitable.”
Some of them wanted us to go home so we could be assassinated on the way. They were
continuously meeting with the interahamwe who lived near us. Those of us who knew
that our relatives had been killed, resisted the idea of returning home.
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2 May: Enforcing Separation Along Ethnic Lines
On the morning of 2 May, the students were in the canteen having a breakfast when there
was a sudden disruption. Espérance spoke about the sequence of events.
We had hardly started eating when a group of students, accompanied by gendarmes, burst
in. Ignace, known as Padiri, a 4th year economics student, blew a whistle. A certain Jean
Damascène, who appeared to be their leader, shouted: ‘Stop taking your breakfast! It has
been poisoned by the Tutsis.’ We all dropped our mugs on the table.
The gendarmes who escorted the students were well-armed, said Espérance. She recalled
the names of some of the students who came in.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ignace, nicknamed Padiri, was in his fourth year of economics and came
originally from the north;
Jean Damascène Nsengiyumva, in the fifth year of economics, is from Kibuye;
Solange Uwamahoro, fourth year economics, is from Muhima in Kigali;
Juvenal, fourth year economics;
Jean de Dieu, alias Rukokoma;
Ildéphonse Mujawayezu.
After he ordered us to stop eating, Nsengiyumva continued his speech: ‘Every Hutu
should follow us to the Kibeho College of Arts. The Tutsis shouldn’t even think about
coming!’ The Hutu students then headed towards the College of Arts.
What Maurice remembers, in addition to the sound of the whistle, is that no one
questioned the orders. He explained why he was not surprised.
Immediately afterwards, all the Hutu students left the school. I had already noticed telltale signs, such as the conversations of certain students with the militia. The student
leaders who had been attending the meetings with the peasants were urging the other
Hutu students to leave the school. They told them to head in the direction of Kibeho.
Many of the students kept on hurling terrible words at us, telling us that we were inyenzi
to be squashed. Among the ring leaders were:
•
•
•
•
Damascène, from Kibuye;
Butare, from Bugarama in Cyangugu;
Gaudence, in the fourth year of economics;
A very dangerous boy from Mudasomwa.
When the students inside the canteen were being separated, Espérance noticed that Fr.
Uwayezu was not in the room.
The headmaster joined us shortly after we got to the Arts College, which shows that he
was very much aware of the whole plan. He was accompanied by gendarmes and our
prefect for discipline, Fabien Karekezi.
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The questions Fr. Uwayezu asked, and his behaviour at the time, created further doubts in
Espérance’s mind.
As if he didn’t know, the headmaster asked if the porridge had been poisoned. Rukokoma
immediately replied, telling him that it had indeed been poisoned, and that the Hutus
could not continue to live with the enemy. Instead of taking the time to talk to the other
students first, Fr. Uwayezu approached the students who were standing next to the
gendarmes and said something to Nsengiyumva and Ignace in secret.
“When they had finished talking, Fr. Uwayezu told them: ‘It’s not you who have to
live as refugees, but the Tutsis instead.’”
The priest immediately set out to reverse the situation, as recounted by Espérance.
He then ordered us to return to the school and sent a gendarme to go and get the Tutsis
from Marie Merci.
That’s how we were separated. It was virtually the last time the Hutus and Tutsis of
Marie Merci were in contact.
The next step, said Aimable, was to verify who was a real Hutu, so those who claimed to
be Hutu, but who were suspected of being Tutsi, could also be asked to leave.
Fr. Emmanuel was there. He gave his blessing to this last selection by allowing those
who were suspected of being Tutsis to be asked to come forward. Whoever was identified
as Tutsi by the people standing near him or her was immediately sidelined. The following
are some of the students who were told to go and join the Tutsis:
•
•
•
•
•
Cyrille, in year five, studying economics;
Moїse Musabyimana, in year four, an economics student;
Claire, a third year student in maths and physics;
Boniface Nyabenda, a second year student in economics;
Eric, in year three of bio-chemistry.
Because his Tutsi identity had not been detected, Bénôit, 14, had remained at Marie
Merci.
Those who were told to join the Tutsis, for example a certain Joseph who came from
Kaduha and Edmond Muberuka, were betrayed by their neighbours.
Bénôit mentioned one of the people cited by Aimable.
Moïse Musabyimana showed that he had a Hutu ID card. But his neighbour from
Cyangugu, Egide, argued that it was impossible for Musabyimana to say he was Hutu
since he, Egide, knew his paternal uncles and aunts and they are all Tutsis.
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The fact that they did not have ID cards had given them the confidence, said Espérance,
that they could pass themselves off as Hutus. They did this, she added, “because they
knew that asking the Tutsis to go and live elsewhere was to mark them out as the enemies
of the Hutu people.”
Because a large number of students had not yet attained the age of ID cards, issued at 18,
other considerations came into play, commented Gilbert, in deciding who was a Tutsi.
Even though the criteria for ethnic selection was largely based on facial features,
especially the shape of the nose, some Tutsis could be mistaken for Hutus.
But the news about the massacre of Tutsis all around us made it much easier to know
who was a Tutsi. It was very difficult to appear calm while information about the
elimination of Tutsis in different communes was circulating. This is why, towards the end
of April, a large number of Tutsis became really agitated and gave themselves away.
Gilbert gave this explanation for the conduct of Fr. Uwayezu.
The whole episode, involving the porridge which had been poisoned by the Tutsis, was
just a charade, a way to send them to their place of execution.
“Our headmaster ordered the Hutus to return to Marie Merci and sent the Tutsis
somewhere else after he was sure that all the Tutsis had been singled out.”
He was around when the Tutsis who had claimed to be Hutu were pointed out.
Maurice talked about how they were led to the College by two gendarmes.
Suddenly we, the Tutsi students, found ourselves alone in the school. The gendarmes who
were meant to protect us and Fr. Uwayezu, followed the Hutu students. Two of the
gendarmes came back and told us that the Hutu students had refused to return to the
school. They said they told them that they would never return to the school so long as we
were there. The priest had decided to stay with them. Our headmaster sent two gendarmes
to accompany us to the College of Arts. They made us leave Marie Merci so fast that we
didn’t have time to carry our belongings. On the way, we met the Hutu students on their
way back to Marie Merci, as ordered by Fr. Emmanuel.
Whichever group of students remained behind at the College, the speed with which the
necessary arrangements were made raised questions in Espérance’s mind about Fr.
Uwayezu.
The students of the College were away for the holidays. How could their facilities be
made available for our use without the intervention of our headmaster? He must have
made some sort of arrangement with the College authorities because we found the
gendarmes there, waiting for us. This showed all of us that the ground had been wellprepared in advance. The gendarmes, who stayed behind under the instructions of our
headmaster, were there to supposedly guard the Tutsis.
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The company Fr. Uwayezu kept at the time created further suspicions.
Shortly before the Tutsis from our school were chased away, different people from
outside kept coming to talk to Fr. Uwayezu and the gendarmes. They also found the time
to speak with the students who had stopped us from eating the porridge, saying it had
been poisoned by the Tutsis and who had told us to form a distinct group from them.
The conditions under which they lived at the College led Maurice to this harsh
judgement.
We lived in extreme distress from the moment we were taken to the College of Arts.
Some of us already knew that our parents had died in the massacres at the Parish of
Kibeho. Others simply had no idea what might have happened to their relatives. We felt
abandoned by our headmaster. This lack of moral support and our intense hunger, since
we were not allowed to eat the food prepared for Hutus, made everything unbearable. We
were placed under the watchful eye of 12 gendarmes. They gave us what little food we
had to prepare. And of course we couldn’t sleep. We weren’t given blankets or
mattresses, so we had no protection against the biting cold, and we were too anxious to
sleep.
The boys were worse off than the girls, said Eliane, because at least the girls could use
their wrappers as covers.
But surrounded by a dozen armed gendarmes, and with terrified boys their own age as
their only potential defence, the girls faced other dangers as Gisèle pointed out.
We were more afraid than ever, so we hardly slept. These gendarmes harassed us and
wanted to rape us, but we held our ground. We would lie on the dining room tables
because they refused to put us in the dormitories where there were beds. We had not even
been able to bring blankets because we had been forced out of school and they took our
things as we were leaving, even our mattresses.
Their spirits were raised when a high-level group visited them at the College.
A Moment of Hope
A day or two after the students were split up, an impressive delegation, accompanied by
Fr. Uwayezu, first called on the Hutu students at Marie Merci. Espérance was in the
audience.
17
The day after we were separated, we were visited by a number of officials including:
•
•
17
The préfet, Laurent Bucyibaruta;
Monsignor Augustin Misago18;
There is some confusion as to whether the meeting took place on the 3rd or 4th of May.
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•
•
•
•
Military representatives;
The inspector of schools;
The bourgmestre of Mubuga19;
The bourgmestre of Rwamiko [Silas Mugirangabo].
Our headmaster also came with them.
The préfet addressed us by saying: ‘As you might have heard on the radio, the Abatabazi
government [the interim government] has stopped the massacre of Tutsis. So I’m
requesting you to tell all the Tutsis in hiding to come out. We shall make sure they are
safe.’20
The message was not what Espérance had expected.
Some of us were surprised that the préfet was not interested in reconciling us with our
Tutsi colleagues.
Espérance learned after the genocide that the group subsequently proceeded to the
College of Arts.
Diogène also spoke of the subjects the men chose to focus upon and those they did not
broach.
Several leaders including the préfet, Laurent Bucyibaruta, came to see us the day after the
students were taken to the College of Arts. Our headmaster hosted them. There were also
some high ranking soldiers with them. They had the power to reunite us, but that was not
part of their agenda. They came to our school to talk to our group of Hutus first. The
préfet told us that the government had declared an end to the massacre of Tutsis. He then
asked us to let any Tutsis hiding amongst us, if there were any, to come forward.
To avoid exposure, Bénôit kept a low profile.
With the visit of Bucyibaruta and Monsignor Misago, ethnic segregation was approved,
or rather blessed. Consequently, the Tutsis were condemned to stay on their own at the
College. They didn’t know who I was, so I stayed at Marie Merci.
At the College, the Tutsi students initially felt relief and encouragement that so many
senior officials, representing the local government structure, the army and the Church,
18
Bishop Augustin Misago has, since 1994, faced consistent criticism for his actions, and inaction, during
the genocide, including his role in the massacre of 7 May at the College of Arts in Kibeho. He was arrested
in Rwanda, in relation to the genocide, on 21 April 1999. He was released a year later, a move that was
strongly condemned by survivors of the genocide who saw the release as a political gesture towards the
Church.
19
The bourgmestre of Mubuga, Charles Nyiridandi, was killed by militiamen during the genocide over a
dispute about looted property. He was replaced in May by Innocent Bakundukize who was working in
agriculture at the commune office of Mubuga.
20
Telling Hutus who were protecting Tutsis in hiding that the killings had stopped, was common in May
and June, and was intended to flush out any remaining survivors.
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had come together to speak with them. Maurice, who mentioned the same individuals
earlier cited by Espérance, described their exchanges.
They were accompanied by our headmaster and François-Xavier Kayigamba, our prefect
of studies. Their presence was an opportunity for us to voice our worries and to beg them
to give us some sort of promise or reassurance that we would be okay.
Bucyibaruta was the first to take the floor.
He told us that the Hutus had refused to live with us, but that this shouldn’t worry us
because Tutsis were no longer being massacred.
Saying he was “not convinced” by the préfet’s speech, Maurice decided to speak up.
Since I was the oldest among the students, they chose me as the person to lead them in
their wait for death. We expected to die this time. The préfet began by asking us to speak
about our problems. I replied to his question by saying: ‘We only have one problem. We
have been betrayed by our friends and we don’t know for what reason.’ I told him of the
horrible conditions we were living in. I also informed him that some of us had learned of
the deaths of their relatives at the Parish of Kibeho, and that those who came from far had
no news about the fate of their families. I concluded by telling him that we considered
them our remaining parents, and that our lives were in their hands.
I added that it was up to him to do as he wanted. I told them: ‘You can see we are ninety
youngsters here without our mothers, our fathers and without any other member of our
families. You are the only relatives we have here right now. If you allow us to live, we
will live. If you wish us to die, then we will die.’ The Bishop gave the impression that he
was moved by my comments and the fact that we were there, still alive. He told us:
‘Don't worry. Calm down. Nobody from outside is going to mistreat you.’
Then the whole group left. A new group of ten gendarmes were left to protect us. We
stayed on at the College from the 4th to the 6th.
He also had a question for the préfet and his companions.
I asked what exactly had made the Hutu students separate themselves from us. There was
no response.
It was Bishop Misago, said Maurice, who replied instead of Bucyibaruta.
Misago urged me to calm down, insisting that no harm would befall us.
The meeting petered out without “a real fruitful conclusion”, in Maurice’s words, but he
took advantage of their presence to make a final plea.
We told them that we were banking on them to evacuate us to a safe place. The préfet
replied that he would send a bus to evacuate us.
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With the benefit of hindsight, Maurice described the visit as a “surprise to give us false
hope that we would survive.”
After being given assurances about their security, Eliane remembers they were asked to
state how many of them were at the College.
We established that we were more than eighty, [eighty-eight].
The advice Bishop Misago gave them left Eliane bewildered.
The Bishop requested that we do not continue to provoke our Hutu neighbours who were
at Marie Merci. He told us not to continue to listen to the RPF radio and the slogans of
the inkotanyi. He said we should not show that we were pleased by the progress being
made by the RPA [in the war against the Rwandese Armed Forces]. He added that we
should not mistrust the Hutu students.
None of the things he asked of us had any foundation. No one had either a radio or
cassettes. There were no longer any conversations with the Hutu students, not since the
massacre at the Parish of Kibeho.
Gisèle was also at a loss to understand Bishop Misago’s intervention.
We told them we were being persecuted by some of the students. Monsignor Misago
responded by saying: ‘They told me you provoke them by singing and dancing inkotanyi
songs.’
François-Xavier Kayigamba, the prefect of studies at Marie Merci, also attended the
meeting. Imprisoned in Rwanda as a genocide suspect until he was released towards
2007, he accepts that he used the school files to determine the ethnicity of Tutsis where
there was a doubt. He made the following comments about the delegation’s discussion
with the students and about the position of Fr. Uwayezu.
Neither the préfet nor the other officials considered the worries raised by the Tutsi
students. They ignored their call for adequate protection. The préfet promised to evacuate
them the following morning. Nothing was done until finally, they were killed.
I blame Father Emmanuel for hiding the truth he knew very well. He was aware of the
abuses endured by the Tutsis at the hands of some of the students, but he didn’t want to
talk about it in public. The presence of these authorities would have been an ideal time to
save these children. If the team led by the préfet had wanted to save these students, they
would not have ignored the plea of the youngsters who asked to be evacuated.
The steps taken by the gendarmes at the College, on the night of 6 May, show a degree of
meticulous planning. Eliane spoke about the selection of specific students by the
gendarmes.
Gendarmes invaded our dormitory. They asked us banal questions, like who we were,
what we were doing there, who had chased us out of Marie Merci and similar questions.
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There were some Hutu students amongst us who were afraid that their physical
appearance would not permit them to pass off as Hutus. But since the school authorities
had verified the files of the students, the gendarmes had the names of these students,
Eden Shemererwa, Claire Uwamahoro and Yves.21 They made them leave us.
Gisèle also recalled the late night visit by the gendarmes which led to the departure of
Eden and Claire, and to the loss of their key.
The gendarmes also took the key from us so we couldn’t lock the door.
The purpose of these careful preparations became apparent a few hours later, on the
morning of 7 May.
21
According to other sources, Claire and Eden were not Hutus and it is not clear why the soldiers led them
away.
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4
“WE REALIZED WE WERE ON OUR OWN”
7 May, The Massacre Unfolds
By the end of 7 May 1994, most of the 88 young boys and girls who had been isolated at
the College of Arts lay dead, killed by the gendarmes Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu had
brought for their “protection” with the consent of Lt. Anaclet Hitimana, by some of their
fellow students and by the militiamen recruited and organized by Damien Biniga, the
deputy-préfet of Munini. They were massacred only days after Laurent Bucyibaruta,
Bishop Augustin Misago and other powerful and influential figures had told them that
“nobody from outside is going to mistreat you.”
Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu was nowhere to be seen during the massacre of his students.
Despite his physical absence during the hours in which the massacre unfolded, Fr.
Emmanuel Uwayezu must respond to the charge that he bears substantial responsibility
for their deaths. He was their headmaster and the students were his wards. By failing to
take action against the students who intimidated and threatened their Tutsi colleagues, he
gave them free rein, until they insisted on physical separation along ethnic lines. He took
the decision, at the height of the genocide, to force the Tutsis out of his school and to
segregate them in a nearby college, exposed to the cold, without adequate food and
frightened for their lives. He left their “security” to a group of gendarmes who had
already, on 14-15 April, participated in the massacre of about 20,000 Tutsis at the local
Parish of Kibeho. He is accused, by Hutu students, of holding meetings, in the days prior
to 7 May, with the students and local residents who would later spearhead the killings on
the 7th. He refused to pay heed to their cry for help and consistently assured them that
they had no reason to worry about their security. On the day they were killed, when the
students, who had no means of self-defence, most needed him, he simply disappeared,
only to re-appear some days later.
As the testimony of Augustin, a farmer from Runyinya in Butare shows, militiamen were
mobilized not only from the communes of Munini, but even from the neighbouring
communes of the préfecture of Butare.
I became involved in the massacre of the children after Biniga visited the commercial
centre of Kibeho. After he had talked with some people who lived there, including
Athanase Ndikuryayo22 and Innocent Hitimana, Biniga gave Charles Ndayisaba the
mission of getting a large number of militiamen ready. That’s how Charles came to call
on me. When I got to Kibeho, around 9:00 a.m., Charles took us to the trading centre
known as Agateko, which is behind the church of Kibeho. There we found about 100
militiamen listening to Biniga’s instructions. Biniga had almost finished his speech. He
22
Athanase Ndikuryayo, a well-to-do businessman in Kibeho, was the father of Innocent Hitimana, an
animateur at the College of Arts.
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ended with this phrase: ‘I am entrusting you with the mission of killing these young
inyenzi!’
After Biniga left, we walked under the command of Corporal Nshimiyimana.23 There
were also about a dozen soldiers. We surrounded the school and blocked all the exits
which would give the children a way out.
The massacre started at about 10:00 a.m. The support of people living in the vicinity and
of pupils from Marie Merci was critical, added Augustin.
The students tried to protect themselves by closing their doors. But the doors were broken
down by guns, and the children were told to assemble on the basketball court. Some
jumped through the windows and tried to force their way through the human wall we had
created, but we chased them. The people who lived in the area pointed them out to us.
Some of the Hutu students ran after them until they had put their hands on them.
He became so immersed in the killings, admits Augustin “that I couldn’t leave the scene
of the carnage without being certain that the Tutsis had been totally eliminated.”
That is why, long after we had finished killing the children, which was around noon, I
continued looking for them well into the evening. I found one student hiding near the
current premises of the Banque Populaire of Kibeho, and killed him.
Juvénal, a craftsman from commune Mubuga, is at a loss to understand his own
behaviour.
I took part in the attack against the Tutsi students of Marie Merci Groupe Scolaire. They
had been hunted by their Hutu peers. I never imagined that I would be involved in
something like this. But on the day the children were eliminated, I was at a roadblock
together with:
•
•
•
•
•
Mayonde;
Isaac;
Meloni;
Nkurunziza, alias Rwerweri,
And two sons of Mutazihana.
We went together with five other militiamen whose names I didn’t know. Around 10:00
a.m., we saw a gendarme coming towards us. I learned afterwards that he was called
Nshimiyimana. He had a gun. He greeted us and then went inside the home of Athanase
Ndikuryayo. He came straight out together with Innocent Hitimana. Nshimiyimana then
told us to join the others who were already at the College of Arts. We ran towards the
school, leaving the gendarme behind with Innocent.
When we arrived at the school, we found militiamen and gendarmes in the midst of
slaughtering the students inside. I recognized some peasants I knew, for example:
23
Corporal Nshimiyimana was deputy to Lt. Anaclet Hitimana. Witnesses in Kibeho often refer to him as
Nshimiye.
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• Niyonsenga, alias Manyinya;
• Damascène Niyonsaba;
• Nzeyimana, alias Bwarayaze.
The massacre was in full force. Some of the students – especially the girls – were being
bludgeoned with machetes on a first floor building. Others were being hit with clubs.
Those who ran away were pursued by gendarmes who shot at them.
Juvénal summed up his own contribution.
I killed two students. I also stole some of their things. I left there at about 2:00 p.m. I
didn’t take part in the burial.
Some of the students ran towards their old school. Espérance, at Marie Merci, could hear
their screams.
We heard their cries as they were struck down by the militiamen who working hand in
hand with the gendarmes. The local population helped the militia and the gendarmes to
uncover the students who were trying to hide. Some of the victims who managed to get
away were killed in the bushes around our school.
Mélanie, one of a handful of students who survived the ordeal, was in the dining hall
where she had gone with others “to pray, to calm ourselves.”
Suddenly we heard noises and saw groups of people, peasants, waving machetes,
massues and other weapons. The soldiers who were meant to be protecting us merely shot
into the air instead of shooting at the attackers who were clearly approaching us with the
aim of killing us. When we saw the direction in which the soldiers were shooting, we
realized we were on our own.
They scattered and Mélanie hid under a staircase.
The peasants ran around, looking for students to kill. From where I was, I watched the
murder of Pascasie, nineteen. I closed my eyes, hoping it would help to hide me. As I sat
there, they killed and killed my friends. I saw them dragging the bodies of the dead
students to bury them. Then one soldier24 said to another: ‘Let us look around to see if
anyone is left.’ One of these two came to look. He noticed me. I made a sign to him to
say nothing, putting my finger over my lips. He said he would say nothing. But then he
went outside and I heard him announce that he had seen so and so’s daughter. My father
had been imprisoned in 1990 and it used to be said that he was a major accomplice of the
RPF.
The soldier’s words brought forth a large group of peasants.
[They] came towards me. They screamed at me: ‘Get out of there.’
24
Since gendarmes were soldiers, they are often referred to as such by witnesses.
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“I asked them for mercy. I didn’t know what I had done. But for the crime of being
a Tutsi, I had to beg pardon.”
One of those leading the attack kept yelling at me: ‘Get out of your hiding place or we
will make you get out with our weapons.’ I came out. He took me by the arm. I just
wanted him to kill me and get it over and done with quickly. He told the other attackers
to go, finish off the others and bury them.
After they left, he allowed Mélanie to hide in the sorghum fields.
Eliane was also in the dining room, and she too had been praying when she found herself
surrounded by militiamen.
They had machetes, spears and massues. They invaded the dining room. Some students
jumped out of the windows. They fell outside and were quickly killed by the militia. In
the dining room, they killed mainly with massues. Every victim was undressed after their
death.
It was then Eliane’s turn.
I received two blows, one on the head and the other on the side. I fell down dead and they
undressed me. By the grace of God, a Hutu student, Clément, who was in the third year
of economics, told them not to touch me because I was Hutu. But it was already too late.
I was stretched out on the ground. He was with the killers. He made me stand up, put on
my clothes and get out of the dining room. I regained consciousness. Among the killers I
saw, I recognized some teachers, in particular Jean-Pierre Musabyimana, Hormisdas
Fatikaramu, Yves and Innocent. There were also some students.
Eliane then watched some of her companions buried before they had died.
All the students who had been killed were buried near the chapel of Kibeho, at the place
where a basket-ball court had been built. During the burial, which I was forced to attend
by Clément, he told me that I should not have any pity for Tutsis. Many of the victims
were buried before they were actually dead. There were even some who were thrown into
the pits while they were still speaking. For example, when Yvonne was thrown in, she
was asking me to save her. I was completely traumatised. I could only cry.
Eliane said she was taken to the home of François-Xavier Kayigamba, the prefect of
studies at Marie Merci.
I had lied to him and told him that I was the younger sister of a Hutu woman named
Gertrude Kamashyamba who used to come and see him often. She lived in Butare. We
knew each other very well. When I arrived at his home, there was a party going on, to
celebrate what they called ‘the memory of the victory of the Hutus over the Tutsis.’ There
were certain teachers and other intellectuals from the area who were taking part in the
festivities, as well as some gendarmes.
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She had spent barely five minutes there when the militia arrived, specifically looking for
her.
They came to kill me, saying the students had told them that I was Tutsi. The prefect
saved me, saying he knew my sister in Butare very well and she was Hutu. Fortunately,
he had not thought of looking at my school file where it was clearly marked that I was
Tutsi. The militia came back after a few hours. The prefect and some gendarmes
intervened on my behalf. They left.
At about 7:00 p.m., two gendarmes and the driver of the commune office of Mubuga
came to the prefect’s house. They took me away, saying they were going to interrogate
me. They drove me to a house near the College where there were more than a dozen
policemen.
The questions, said Eliane, centred around her ethnic identity and the whereabouts of her
ID card, which she told them she had lost. The interrogation was followed by gang-rape.
They took off all my clothes, leaving me completely naked. They began to beat me and to
play with my body. Finally, I realized that I was going to die from the blows of clubs. I
made the decision to accept everything they were going to ask me.
That is how I acknowledged that Tutsi students wanted to kill Hutus, that we had razor
blades to cut them. I even accepted that I had gone to Kinihira several times to see the
inkotanyi. I even dared to say that I had learnt how to shoot with a gun. The gendarme
handed me a gun and asked me to shoot. I told some lie to save myself. He struck me
with a blow that nearly killed me. I fell to the ground. They put me on the bed. It was
about 9:00 p.m. Then they began to amuse themselves, each one taking his turn. I had no
clothes on. I don’t know how many policemen raped me, nor the number of times they
raped me. Until the morning, they did nothing but rape me. I was completely exhausted. I
could hardly walk.
As soon as he heard shouting around 10:00 a.m., Maurice looked out of the window of
the dining room.
We saw a huge group of people outside waving machetes and other weapons. They
rushed inside and straightaway started hacking the students to death. Instead of helping
us, the gendarmes started shooting into the air to prevent the students from leaving the
dining room.
Maurice rushed out of the dining room and said he “wriggled his way through the
buildings.”
I saw the door of one of the toilets open. I dashed in and locked the door. I could hear the
cries and screams of my fellow-students, the sound of blows and I could see the flow of
blood. While I had been running, other students were also running in the same direction.
All of them were killed near the toilet. After a while, I concluded that they must have
killed everybody.
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Once all those who ran towards the toilets had been trapped and then killed, the assailants
began a search inside the toilets for survivors. Maurice had no choice but to open the
door for them.
To my shock, I discovered that the attackers, about fifteen men, were all local people.
They told me they would not kill me. But they took what money I had and practically all
my clothes, leaving me in shorts. Then they banged the door, saying: ‘We will not kill
you. But others will.’
Maurice moved to another toilet, but was soon discovered. He came out when he was
given the choice “of either being killed inside the toilet or outside.”
This time they took even my underwear. They took me to a hole, about ten metres deep,
and threw me inside. I fell upon some broken glass [from bottles] which had been left
standing upright. As soon as I was thrown in, my feet hit the broken glass. Some pieces
pierced my left foot. The killers then called out to a gendarme. He came and shot at me.
The bullet hit and went through my right thigh. Then they heaped up a lot of mud and
threw it on top of me.
After that they left. But I could hear everything they were saying. I immediately tried to
clear some of the mud away in order to be able to breathe. After about an hour, one of the
attackers came back. He was a young man who had been a friend of mine. He returned to
see if I was really dead. He came on his own. He called out to me. I found I no longer felt
any fear. I feared I was the only one left and in the situation I was in, it was better to die.
I recognized his voice. He asked me if I could walk on my own once he had managed to
unearth me. I told him I did not know. All I knew is that I was still alive. He told me that
it would be best if we waited till the evening and the darkness after which he would see
what he could do. He advised me to be patient and not to give up hope. With his words, I
felt at least some moral encouragement. He left.
But after thirty minutes, said Maurice, the perpetrators returned.
I could hear them saying they were looking for any surviving corpses to throw into the
hole where they had dumped me. They found the body of a young pupil. They threw his
body on top of me, using a lot of mud. He fell right on top of me. His body was heavy
and I could not move, not at all. I felt I was being asphyxiated to death. I said my last
prayer as I really believed it was the end of me. I told God that if he wanted me to die like
that, of course I would. But I also asked God to use his infinite powers to save me.
The prayer, he said, gave him “a new force and he was no longer prepared to wait for
death.”
I threw off both the body and the mud.
“I looked at the corpse and recognized the face of a young pupil with whom I had
shared a table at the dining room shortly before the massacre.”
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They had left him completely naked. I could not do anything for him except to cover his
body with the mud.
It started to rain while Maurice awaited the return of his friend. Unable to stand up
because of the wound in his thigh and foot, he sat on the mud while a heavy downpour
continued. He remained in that position, he said, until about 7:00 p.m. the following day
when his friend turned up and took him to his home.
He gave me clothes to wear. He came from a very poor family. The family had no
medicines and no way of finding any. They had to hide me in the sorghum fields.
Because most Tutsis in the area had been killed, many of the houses were empty.
Whenever it rained heavily, I would shelter in one of these empty houses and then return
to the sorghum fields when the rain stopped. After two days, the boy told me to be very
vigilant as adults were sending children to search for survivors in the fields. After a week,
the boy told me that there were plans to comb the sorghum fields thoroughly and I could
not remain there.
The friend took Maurice to another hill, near the College of Arts. He hid him in the
ceiling of a deserted home and brought him something to eat every five days. After three
weeks, feeling desperate and convinced that it was only a matter of time before the
ceiling was searched, Maurice decided to leave his hideout. But with his wounds
untreated, his legs had swollen and he found he could not walk. He said he crawled to the
kitchen annexe and made his way to his friend’s home. He was obliged to stay in the
sorghum fields and his friend brought him food in the evenings. On 10 June, a large
number of militia fell upon him while looking for a primary school teacher who had
eluded them. He was given a serious beating and then taken to the home of FrançoisXavier Kayigamba. Maurice says he owes his survival to a watchman who pleaded on his
behalf. He was then given over to the care of nuns who tended to his wounds and
facilitated his transfer to Kigeme in Gikongoro.
Fifteen years later, one of the most vivid and enduring memories Maurice has of the
massacre is the role of students from his school.
I saw some students from Marie Merci, including Damascène and the son of Mutazihana,
a medical assistant at Kibeho health centre. Mutazihana’s son, Clément, who killed a girl
called Georgette from Nyanza because, according to him, she had refused to be his
girlfriend. Others chased the students who tried to escape while some stripped their
former friends that they and others had killed.
Gisèle said she ran out to the sorghum fields, together with a friend by the name of
Yvonne, as soon as she heard a chorus shouting out the word “Power.”
At that very moment, the soldiers fired bullets into the air. It was like a signal to the
killers, who included some students. They came together quickly. They were carrying an
assortment of traditional weapons. We could hear loud screams from the victims.
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Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy: Massacre of His Students at Kibeho College of Arts, 7 May ‘94
Gisèle was given shelter by someone she knew who lived in the area. After the arrival of
French soldiers in Gikongoro, and just before the mass flight of Hutus to the DRC, the
person who was hiding Gisèle alerted Fr. Uwayezu that he was hiding a student. The
priest returned with French soldiers and Gisèle the Hutu students at Marie Merci, were
taken to a camp in Murambi, on the outskirts of Gikongoro town.
It is not clear exactly where Fr. Uwayezu went on the day of the massacre and for several
days afterwards. But he returned to Kibeho and made arrangements for the gendarmes to
give military training to some of the male students and to encourage the students in
general to help locate survivors. Espérance, who had remained in Kibeho, listened to Fr.
Uwayezu’s explanations and his description of what the gendarmes in Kibeho had
achieved.
Teaching all the boys was our headmaster’s idea. It happened in May. The training
started after our Tutsi colleagues were killed. He called a meeting in the dining hall and
told us: ‘It’s time you helped your older brothers (alluding to the gendarmes), who have
done a good job here in Kibeho. I have asked them to teach you how to use guns because
they have to go and fight the inkotanyi. You, on the other hand, are going to stay and help
the locals locate the enemy, who might still be hiding in the bushes.’
Out of curiosity, I once went to see what the boys were doing. I learned they showed up
every morning at the gendarmes’ camp just above the school to learn how to manipulate
guns and grenades.
The presence or absence of Fr. Uwayezu in Kibeho at certain crucial times during the
genocide is an issue that will undoubtedly loom large in the months and years to come as
his role in the killings is weighed and debated.
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Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy: Massacre of His Students at Kibeho College of Arts, 7 May ‘94
5
A QUESTION OF RESPONSIBILITY
Fr. Uwayezu must have foreseen a day when he might be asked awkward questions. If
that is the case, he will argue in his defence that he was not at the College of Arts when
his students died from gunshot wounds, grenade explosions and the blows from machetes
and knives. But to the students who survived the massacre of 7 May, and to the Hutu
students who witnessed the events in Kibeho, his absence is not the issue. What is
relevant and critical, they say, is the fact that he was not present at that moment, since he
had been with them throughout the build up to the massacre in which, according to their
testimonies, he played a determining role.
If the disappearance during the massacre was intended as a shield against the future,
Espérance’s testimony throughout this report proves otherwise.
I never saw our headmaster the entire time the Tutsi students were being killed. The
astonishing thing is that he came back just after those who had managed to escape had
been finished off. I guess he thought by being away, he would not be implicated in the
death of the Tutsis.
Callixte was fortunate to have joined those who left for Burundi on 30 April. He mourns
the friends and classmates he lost on 7 May.
I consider Fr. Emmanuel as the person who bears the greatest responsibility for the
massacre of the students. He never showed any interest in protecting us, even though he
saw all the preparations which were being made to ensure that we died at the hands of the
gendarmes.
He also blames Fr. Uwayezu for the death of staff at the school.
The first act of genocide which took place in our school, and to which Fr. Emmanuel
Uwayezu contributed, concerns the death of the Tutsi cooks at our school. They were
gunned down by gendarmes that he had brought, saying they would be there for our
protection. But these gendarmes were the backbone of the militia during the massacres at
the parish. And that’s when they killed our cooks. Fr. Emmanuel did nothing to challenge
the terrible things done by these gendarmes who were accountable to him as long as they
were in our school.
Bénôit also raised questions about the gendarmes, and about some of the officials who
used to call on Fr. Uwayezu.
Why did he say nothing when he could see they were killing people? Visits from people
like the deputy-préfet, Biniga, and the bourgmestre of Mubuga, are also telling. Both men
were among the principal organizers of the genocide in Kibeho.
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What facilitated the massacre, above all, is the fact that all the known Tutsi students were
grouped together in one location. It was Fr. Uwayezu, says Aimable, “who told us Hutus
that we must return to Marie Merci and leave the College to the Tutsis.”
A few more students, who had hoped to pass for Hutu, might have survived if what
Maurice called “a process of de-selection”, supervised by Fr. Uwayezu, had not led them
to the College.
The students who were under suspicion as Tutsis were denounced by their colleagues.
They were then told to join the other Tutsis, all of this in the presence of our headmaster.
Our demise had been planned well in advance.
Bénôit has come to the same conclusion.
All the Tutsis who were trying to keep alive by saying they were Hutu were betrayed by
the people who knew them. And they denounced them in full view of Fr. Emmanuel.
Bénôit was specific in the charges he levelled against Fr. Uwayezu.
•
•
•
•
Complicity in the harassment of Tutsi students at Marie Merci between 1992-1994;
Complicity in the murder of Tutsi employees of the school;
Allowing Hutu students, assisted by the gendarmes, to pick out the Tutsis at the school;
Complicity in the massacre, on 7 May 1994, of the Tutsi students for whom he was
responsible.
The life and welfare of the 80 or so students who were killed at the College of Arts in
Kibeho on 7 May 1994 had been entrusted to Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu by their parents,
and by the Catholic Church in Rwanda which appointed him as their headmaster in a
school that belongs to the Church. He is now in the employee of the Church in Florence,
Italy. Only a court of law can establish his individual innocence or guilt. We hope that
this report will encourage the Catholic Church, both in Rwanda and in Italy, to work with
survivors and justice bodies to investigate and assess that evidence and to enable justice
to take its course.
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6
SOME OF THE VICTIMS KILLED
AT THE COLLEGE OF ARTS ON 7 MAY 1994
1. Paterne Munyaneza;
2. Marie Claire Kaligirwa;
3. Pacifique Nshizirungu;
4. Emmanuel Byukusenge;
5. Emmanuel Nshimiyimana;
6. Emmanuel Ruvenge;
7. Joseph Rwamuhinda;
8. Raphaël Bikolimana;
9. Bertin Munyengabe;
10. Nyamaswa;
11. Jeanne Mukeshimana;
12. Kanzayire;
13. Uwera;
14. Murekatete;
15. Alvera Mukantwali;
16. Claudine Kayitesi;
17. Yvonne Mukakalisa;
18. Roger Rwamu;
19. Claire Mukarukundo;
20. Georgette Mutezinkindi;
21. Anne Marie Uwisanze;
22. Félicité Uwimabera;
23. Chantal Mukansanga;
24. Thérèse Uwizeyimana;
25. Blandine Mukamurenzi;
26. Cyrille Sebagabo;
27. Béate Kantama;
28. Gilbert Karemera;
29. Nsonera;
30. Joceline Ingabire;
31. Alphonse;
32. Marie Aimée;
33. Fidèle Twagirumukiza;
34. Monique Mukandori;
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Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy: Massacre of His Students at Kibeho College of Arts, 7 May ‘94
35. Diane Kampororo;
36. Alphonse Nshimiyimana;
37. Prudence;
38. Sylvie Mukasine.
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Charge Sheet Series, Number 10
Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy: Massacre of His Students at Kibeho College of Arts, 7 May ‘94
Charge Sheet Series No 10
Father Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy
The Massacre of His Students
at Kibeho College of Arts
7 May 1994
The basketball court at Kibeho College of Arts
African Rights
Tel: (+250) 50 36 79
PO Box 3836 Kigali, Rwanda
Email: rights@rwanda1.com
Web: www.africanrights.org
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