We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

Although the government cut service to the Hotel des Mille Collines, Rusesabagina realized that an old fax line still had a dial tone. After Thomas Kamilindi, a Hutu oppositionist sheltered at the hotel, gave an interview on a French radio station, a soldier arrived at the hotel to assassinate him. Fortunately, the soldier was an old friend who warned Kamilindi that someone else would come in the future; this never came to be. Rusesabagina repeatedly used the phone line to appeal to those in the government and “focus international attention on the plight of his guests” (135). To the end, he managed to keep his guests safe.

There was also a working phone line at Bonaventure’s refuge, the Church of Saint Famille. Yet, the gun-toting Father Munyeshyaka provided Hutu extremists with “lists of Tutsi refugees at the church, flushing refugees out of hiding to be killed” (136). He claimed to have no choice but to support Hutu Power. Church leadership was divided, with some leaders helping refugees and others supporting the Hutus.

Ironically, some Hutus such as Father Munyeshyaka brought Tutsi relatives to Rusesabagina’s hotel for protection. Father Munyeshyaka told the hotel manager that he was bringing his mother, “my cockroach” (141)—the dehumanizing term accorded to Tutsis. While Rusesabagina did not think that his actions to protect Tutsis were extraordinary, Gourevitch notes that he had a rare conscience (142). The first (unsuccessful) attempt to evacuate the hotel’s guests was made on May 3rd: Confronted by a mob bent on murdering them, the refugees retreated to the hotel, Odette being among them. It was not until the RPF took Hutu prisoners in a battle for control of Kigali that exchanges of refugees were negotiated. Only then were the refugees at the hotel evacuated. Most left by June 17th when a mob of Interahamwe broke into Rusesabagina’s suite. A general intervened on Rusesabagina’s behalf, and he and his family left the next day.

Gourevitch notices the absence of dogs in Rwanda—as the RPF and UNAMIR forces shot them for eating corpses. The Genocide Convention of 1948 obligates its signatories to prevent and punish “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” (149). Yet, signatories ignored the plight of Tutsis in poor, landlocked Rwanda. After the murder of Belgian troops, Belgium withdrew all its forces (150). At the time, Dallaire of UNAMIR had enough soldiers and equipment to protect the Tutsis. However, the UN Security Council reduced the force by 90 percent and did not allow the remaining troops to intervene. Dallaire later took responsibility for the failure of UNAMIR to protect the Tutsis. On the other hand, Gourevitch blames the US for this outcome, as the Clinton administration wanted to avoid involvement given a recent tragedy in Somalia. The US engaged in semantics about the definition of genocide and ultimately delayed action.

France shipped arms to the Hutu government and supplied troops to fight the RPF. On June 22nd, the UN Security Council approved an “impartial” (155) French deployment with a mandate to use aggressive force. Called Opération Turquoise, French forces soon took control of about a quarter of the country in the southwest. Initially regarding the RPF as the enemy, the French later “softened their tone” (158). Regardless of tone, the French supported the same leaders who committed genocide. Gourevitch argues that the operation helped “to permit the slaughter of Tutsis to continue for an extra month, and to secure safe passage for the genocidal command to cross, with a lot of its weaponry, into Zaire” (161).

As the RPF took control of the country, Hutus took flight. The exodus was chaotic, with people crushed to death in stampedes. In the refugee camps across the border, cholera became rampant and death, commonplace. The press covering the fleeing Hutus, those who killed, mistakenly framed them as victims. As such, other countries funded supplies to the camps—where Hutu Power leaders quickly took charge.

Gourevitch expresses astonishment at South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s insensitivity: Unable to appreciate the significance of Rwanda’s ethnic tensions, he chastised Rwandans for Black-on-Black violence. He equated Rwanda with South Africa and depicted the genocide as “a crime against African pride and progress” (178). Hans Magnus Enzensberger, the author of Civil War, argues that in a post-Cold war world, civil wars are no longer about ideas and are therefore about nothing. Emphasizing the importance of the particular people making history, Gourevitch criticizes both Tutu and Enzensberger for making incorrect assumptions about Rwanda. There, the civil war was not a “free-for-all” (182), but a genocide grounded in Hutu Power’s ideology.

Gourevitch goes on to describe Rwanda as “a world in limbo” (181). Even four years after the genocide, in 1998, the country continued to wage war against genocide. Overpopulation and economic incentives are not enough to explain the genocide of 1994. There were several factors, such as the importation of arms and precolonial inequalities which combined to enable the killings. Politics matter, as no international effort was made to stop the genocide.

The media’s coverage of Rwanda depicts both sides as “equally insupportable” (185) because each side suffered. Such coverage is devoid of a broader context. Events at the Kibeho refugee camp, where at least 2,000 Hutus were reported killed, fit into this frame of reference. The Kibeho camp, located in the French Zone, became the largest camp for internally displaced persons, with more than 80,000 Hutus living there. The Interahamwe threatened civilians seeking to leave and frequently attacked Tutsi survivors and Hutus who might testify against them outside the camps (189). The RPF closed this last camp in April of 1995. When soldiers surrounded the camp, the inhabitants rushed to the UNAMIR headquarters and created a stampede, killing at least 11 children. There were not enough gates at which to process people. As refugees threw rocks at the RPF and attempted to take their weapons, the latter fired into the crowd. Violence among the camp’s refugees, particularly with machetes, occurred as well. Most of the deaths came from the stampede, but the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA)—the RPF’s military wing—and Interahamwe killed many people as well. While most of the refugees returned home, many Hutu Power loyalists escaped across the border. Two RPA officers were later tried and acquitted of allowing the massacre at Kibeho but found guilty of failing to protect civilians. International administrators failed to identify and separate those guilty of genocide in the camps from the outset—thus, the guilty were not held accountable.

In Kigali, Gourevitch meets two monitors for the Human Rights mission—both of whom were at Kibeho during its closing. They recall walking over dead people to pull the living to safety. One remembers seeing a woman among thousands, drowning in the crowd. Gourevitch recalls this conversation during his church visit (Chapter 1): The significance of even a single murder cannot be lost when speaking of genocide and its aftermath.

Paul Kagame, who held the positions of Vice President and Minister of Defense after the RPF took power in 1994, fled Rwanda in 1961 at the age of four—escaping the wrath of a Hutu mob. Living as an exile in Uganda, Kagame—a Tutsi—experienced a harmonious relationship with exiled Hutus. In Uganda, all Rwandans were foreigners, and they acknowledged their common bonds. Kagame befriended a Rwandan refugee named Fred Rwigyema and considered him a brother. In 1976, Rwigyema joined a rebel group led by Yoweri Museveni, seeking to overturn the Ugandan dictatorship. Kagame joined his friend in the fight three years later. With Rwandan exiles joining rebel forces, Dictator Obote “cranked up a virulent xenophobic campaign against the Rwandan population” (214). With thousands expelled to Rwanda, President Habyarimana placed them in camps where many perished. When Museveni’s faction succeeded in taking power in 1986, Habyarimana ruled that there would be no right of return for Rwandan refugees, many of whom were sent back to Uganda in 1984 (214). In 1987, the RPF was formed to overthrow Habyarimana’s regime, with Rwigyema leading its military force.

The RPF engaged in a campaign for international support, tapping the Rwandan diaspora. Both Hutus and Tutsis belonged to RPF, but its military core was “overwhelmingly Tutsi” (216). The RPF’s vision was that of a united Rwanda, not one of Tutsi or Hutu oppression. On October 1, 1990, Rwigyema led a group into Rwanda. Concerned about deserters, Museveni closed the border. Rwigyema was killed on the second day of fighting. In the US at a military training course, Kagame quickly returned to replace his friend as RPF field commander—and proved a brilliant military leader. Developing a disciplined army, Kagame educated the soldiers about their purpose and did not tolerate murder and sexual assault. It was this guerrilla force, the only one in the world, which battled the genocidal government in Rwanda. While some in the RPF engaged in reprisal killings against Hutus, the army exercised “overall restraint” (219) despite finding families and homes destroyed. Although the RPF had the “radical dream” (221) of all Rwandans living peacefully together, it faced the threat of Hutu Power, which re-established itself in the UN camps. Kagame, who imposed checks on his own power (222), was ready for the challenge. The new government abolished the system of ethnic identity cards and jailed its own soldiers for killings. When two soldiers were sentenced to death for reprisal killings, it was a sensitive subject as people had yet to be brought to trial for the genocide (223).

In July of 1994, Kigali and much of Rwanda were in ruins. Homes were destroyed; there was no water or electricity. Death was everywhere, as were orphans. Bonaventure returned to Rwanda and adopted some of these orphaned children. Despite the destruction of the country, with harvests lost and land mines still live, Tutsis—even those who emigrated before the genocide—returned in droves. Gourevitch speculates as to why more than 750,000 Tutsis returned: While there was economic opportunity in rebuilding, the “legacy of exclusion, the pressures of exile, and the memory of, or longing for, a homeland all played a part” (230).

By 1996, newcomers, known as “fifty-niners” (232), comprised more than 70 percent of the people in Kigali and parts of eastern Rwanda (232). At times, there were tensions between the newcomers and survivors of the genocide. Gourevitch observes the “elaborate grid of subcategories” (235) within and beyond the Hutu and Tutsi groupings. Upon returning to Rwanda, Odette experienced these different perspectives. Newcomers did not want to hear about the genocide and yet, the survivors’ trauma continued in the forms of depression and nightmares. Another survivor, Edmond Mrugamba shows Gourevitch the bodies of his sister and her family, dumped in a latrine at their home. While Mrugamba chose not to seek the arrest or killing of those responsible, he wants them “to live forever” (240) with their actions.