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When children remember: A history of the Tutsi genocide through the eyes of children (1994–2006)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2019
Abstract
Drawing on a corpus of accounts written by survivor children in 2006, this article looks at the Tutsi genocide through the eyes of children, enabling us to see the radical social and emotional transgressions of 1994 from a new angle. As members of society and prime targets of the genocide, these children tell how the world of their childhood was turned upside-down, through the unique intensity of their own words. An idealized “before”, inhabited by the beloved characters of their parents, brothers and sisters, is brutally swept away as everything they have known becomes inverted. Forced to watch killings and cruelty, they adopt survival strategies that show how thoroughly they understand the radical nature of what is unfolding. An extreme distrust of adults will forever mark these children – now orphans – who still live in “the time of the genocide”.
- Type
- Voices and perspectives
- Information
- International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 101 , Issue 910: Memory and war , April 2019 , pp. 37 - 57
- Copyright
- Copyright © icrc 2019
References
1 The author shall not attempt to provide an exhaustive bibliography, but it is worth mentioning the pioneering work of Pignot, Manon, Allons enfants de la patrie: Génération Grande Guerre, Seuil, Paris, 2012CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pignot, Manon, La guerre des crayons: Quand les petits parisiens dessinaient la Grande Guerre, 1914–1918, Parigramme, Paris, 2004Google Scholar; Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane, La guerre des enfants, 1914–1918, Armand Colin, Paris, 2004Google Scholar; Coquio, Catherine and Kalisky, Aurélia, L'enfant et le génocide: Témoignages sur l'enfance pendant la Shoah, Bouquins Series, Robert Laffont, Paris, 2007Google Scholar; Jablonka, Ivan (ed.), L'enfant-Shoah, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2014Google Scholar; Heberer, Patricia, Children During the Holocaust, Documenting Life and Destruction: Holocaust Sources in Context Series, USHMM and Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2011Google Scholar; Craveri, Marta and Losonczy, Anne-Marie, Enfants du Goulag, Contemporaines Series, Belin, Paris, 2017Google Scholar; Girardeau, Zérane (dir.), Déflagrations: Dessins d'enfants, guerres d'adultes, Anamosa, Paris, 2017Google Scholar.
2 Kanyamanza, Claudine Uwera and Brackelaire, Jean-Luc, “Ménages d'enfants sans parents au Rwanda”, Cahiers de Psychologie Clinique, No. 37, 2001–02Google Scholar.
3 M. Pignot, Allons enfants de la patrie, above note 1, p. 12.
4 Gerlach, Christian, Sur la conférence de Wannsee, Collection Opinion, Liana Levi, Paris, 1999, p. 29Google Scholar.
5 One can read the powerful account of Rony Zachariah, who was working for Médecins sans Frontières in Rwanda at the time. He was told how his staff were murdered at Butare University Hospital, including one of his nurses, who was a Hutu but pregnant by her Tutsi husband. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH), Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, 1999, p. 374, available at: https://tinyurl.com/yxf3r6dh (all internet references were accessed in March 2019).
6 Republic of Rwanda, Ministry of the Interior and of Local Government (MINALOC), Dénombrement des victimes du génocide, Final Report, Kigali, 2004, pp. 22, 24. According to this report, children aged 14 or younger accounted for 50.1% of the victims of the genocide.
7 Physicians for Human Rights, Recherches effectuées sur le site de l’église catholique de Kibuye (Rwanda), comp. William Haglund and Robert H. Kirshner, Vol. 1, Boston, MA, 24 February 1997 (French version), p. 40.
8 Ibid., p. 40.
9 MINALOC, Raporo y'imirimo y'ibarura ry'abacitse ku icumu ry'Itsembabwoko n'Itsembatsemba hagati ya tariki ya 01 Ukwakira 1990 na tariki ya 31 Ukoboza 1994, Kigali, 1998, p. 12. The author would like to express her warmest thanks to Assumpta Ingabire for facilitating access to the archives of MINALOC.
10 CNLG Archives (CNLGA), story C44USC (born in 1984). The names of those who provided testimonies have been anonymized.
11 Audrey Kichelewski and Judith Lindenberg, “‘Les enfants accusent’: Témoignages d'enfants survivants dans le monde polonais et en yiddish”, in I. Jablonka (ed.), above note 1, p. 35.
12 Literally, “Orphans have neither top nor bottom.”
13 CNLGA, story C54NG (born in 1979).
14 CNLGA, story C73IVC (born in 1981).
15 CNLGA, story C44USC (born in 1984).
16 According to the national census conducted in 1991, the composite fertility index was 6.9 children per woman of child-bearing age (15–49). See Republic of Rwanda, Ministry of Planning, National Census Service, Recensement général de la population et de l'habitat au 15 août 1991, Kigali, April 1994, p. 235.
17 For instance, a maternal uncle is a marume while a paternal aunt is a masenge.
18 CNLGA, story C67MMGC (born in 1986).
19 CNLGA, story C44USC (born in 1984).
20 Jean-Pierre Chrétien and Marcel Kabanda, Rwanda: Racisme et génocide. L'idéologie hamitique, Belin, Paris, 2013, pp. 160–161. The policy of limiting the number of Tutsi children entering secondary education was ended by the then minister of education, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, in April 1992. This courageous decision led to her being attacked at her home the following month. See Jordane Bertrand, Rwanda, le piège de l'histoire: L'opposition démocratique avant le génocide (1990–1994), Collection Les Afriques, Karthala, Paris, 2000, p. 195.
21 CNLGA, story C11UP (born in 1981).
22 CNLGA, story C91KB (born in 1978).
23 CNLGA, story C2BJB (born in 1984).
24 In 2000 and 2006, Rwanda underwent extensive reorganization. The boundaries and names of the administrative units were altered to such an extent that one needs to work with two maps, one showing the situation as it was in 1994 and another showing the current situation.
25 On this topic, see, among other sources, Committee for the Respect of Human Rights and Democracy in Rwanda, Victims of Political Repression Since October 1 1990 in Rwanda, Kigali, 15 December 1991.
26 CNLGA, story C90NJCC (born in 1986).
27 HRW and FIDH, above note 5, pp. 243–246.
28 The author would like to thank Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau for his valuable assistance in analyzing these texts; the physical traumas they describe sometimes caused a numbing horror.
29 Dyregrov, Atle, Gupta, Leila, Gjestad, Rolf and Mukanoheli, Eugénie, “Trauma Exposure and Psychological Reactions to Genocide among Rwandan Children”, Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2000CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
30 Ibid., p. 6.
31 The Kabarondo Church massacre was closely examined in 2016 and 2018 by the Paris Assize Court during the initial trial and appeal in the cases of Tito Barahira and Octavien Ngenzi, who succeeded each other as burgomasters of the commune. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide and crimes against humanity. Until 12 April, the parish priest Father Oreste Incimata maintained a register of those who had taken refuge. According to his testimony, at least 1,500 people died in this attack: High Criminal Court, Paris, hearing of 30 May 2018. An estimate by the Diocese of Kibungo puts the number of victims at 2,000. See the diocesan bulletin of Kibungo, Stella Matutina, No. 112, June 1995, p. 7. The author would like to thank Brother Benjamin Ngororabanga and Jean-Népomuscène Ntambara for making her welcome at the Dominican library in Kacyiru.
32 CNLGA, story C46HY (born in 1982).
33 Baqué, Serge, Dessins et destins d'enfants: Jours après nuit, Hommes et Perspectives, Paris, 2000, p. 103Google Scholar.
34 For a full account of the genocide at Nyarubuye, see Rutazibwa, Privat and Rutayisire, Paul, Génocide à Nyarubuye, Éditions Rwandaises, Kigali, 2007Google Scholar.
35 CNLGA, story C87MFC (born in 1985) (emphasis added).
36 CNLGA, story C72URC (born in 1987).
37 CNLGA, story C88MVC (born in 1986).
38 Ibid. (emphasis added).
39 Ibid.
40 A. Dyregrov et al., above note 29, p. 6.
41 CNLGA, story C42IE (date of birth not indicated).
42 CNLGA, story C88MBV (born in 1986).
43 It is more likely that she spent several days in the pit, but one can well understand that such an experience would make the time seem longer.
44 CNLGA, story C29US (born in 1987).
45 A. Dyregrov et al., above note 29, p. 6.
46 The author found this description in Jean-Paul Turindwanamungu, “Contribution à l’étude de l'impact du génocide sur la schizophrénie”, dissertation in psychology and education science written under the supervision of Jean-Damascène Ndayambaje, Université Nationale du Rwanda, Butare, 2000, p. 77.
47 CNLGA, story C30BD (born in 1984).
48 The account that follows is based on CNLGA story C61HIC (born in 1981).
49 Emphasis added.
50 Regarding Operation Turquoise and French policy in Rwanda from 1990 to 1994, see in particular Republic of France, Assemblée Nationale, Mission d'Information Parlementaire, Rapport d'information sur les opérations militaires menées par la France, d'autres pays et l'ONU au Rwanda entre 1990 et 1994, Paris, 1998; Republic of Rwanda, National Independent Commission Charged with Gathering Evidence to Show the Implication of the French Government in the Genocide Perpetrated in Rwanda in 1994, Rapport final, Kigali, 2007, available at: http://mucyoreport.rw/index.php/report/.
51 CNLGA, story C44USC (born in 1984).
52 CNLGA, story C87MFC (born in 1985).
53 An expression coined in French as dits de souffrance by Arlette Farge in her work Des lieux pour l'histoire, La Librairie du XXe Siècle, Seuil, Paris, 1997, pp. 16–17.
54 From the title of one of the rare collections of children's accounts published in Rwanda: Dukundane Family, Ishavu ry'Abato: Ubuhamya kuri Jenoside yakorewe abatutsi mu Rwanda [The Sadness of the Children: Accounts of the Genocide Perpetrated against the Tutsi], Kigali, April 2009.
55 MINALOC, above note 9, p. 25.
56 Republic of Rwanda, Ministry of Rehabilitation and Social Integration, and UNICEF, Évaluation des besoins des centres d'accueil pour enfants non-accompagnés, Kigali, January 1995, MINALOC Archives, Box 56.
57 If we take the figures available (which we do with caution), the number of these orphanages fell from forty-nine to twenty-five between 1994 and 2003, and the number of children living in them fell from 10,000 to 3,600 over the same period. See Ibid. and MINALOC, National Policy for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children, Kigali, 2003.
58 MINALOC, above note 57.
59 CNLGA, story C31UM (born in 1975) (emphasis added).
60 The author is borrowing this highly apt expression from Anouche Kunth, who used it to describe the survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide.
61 CNLGA, story C81MI (born in 1982).
62 From Darius Gishoma, “Crises traumatiques collectives d'Ihahamuka lors des commémorations du génocide des Tutsi: Aspects cliniques et perspectives thérapeutiques”, doctoral thesis in psychology, Université Catholique de Louvain, 2014, p. 289.
63 Ibid., p. 165.
64 Ibid., p. 167.
65 We have already mentioned the most complete work on the subject – that of Darius Gishoma, ibid.
66 CNLGA, story C91KB (born in 1987).
67 Ibid.
68 CNLGA, story C12RNIC (born in 1982).
69 CNLGA, story C2BJB (born in 1984).
70 In this respect, the present author agrees with the following comment: “The notion of resiliency in children could easily become a new form of denial of trauma among children, whereby political systems evade responsibility for helping war-traumatized children.” A. Dyregrov et al., above note 29, p. 14. Such denial can easily extend beyond the confines of politics and without a doubt helps to salve our own consciences.
71 M. Pignot, Allons enfants de la patrie, above note 1, p. 12.
72 In the words of Saül Friedlander, “Pour une histoire intégrée de la Shoah”, 30th Conférence Marc Bloch, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, June 2008, available at: https://tinyurl.com/yyomgzze.