Pacifique Mukeshimana

Genocide in Rwanda, 1994

Interview

By: Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

Date: December, 2003

Source: Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Frontline. "Portraits/Pacifique Mukeshimana." December, 2003.

About the Author: The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit media network owned and operated by the approximately 350 public television stations based in the United States. Since 1983, PBS has produced Frontline, a television newsmagazine and public affairs program.

INTRODUCTION

Rwanda is a nation located in east central Africa. A Belgian protectorate at the end of World War I (1918), Rwanda was granted its independence by Belgium in 1962. The population of the country, numbering approximately seven million persons, is almost entirely comprised of two ethnic groups, the majority Hutu, and the minority Tutsi peoples.

Rwanda had been the subject of serious internal divisions in the early 1990s, including military action taken by an opposition group known as the Rwandan Popular Front, a Tutsi-centered political party that operated in exile. In 1993, an accord was negotiated between the Rwandan government and its various opponents. The United Nations (UN) authorized the deployment of a peace keeping force to Rwanda to assist in the implementation of the peace accord.

In early 1994, the Rwandan government increased its efforts to perpetuate an ethnic division between Hutus and Tutsis, as a means of circumventing its obligations to include Tutsi political parties in the Rwandan government. On April 6, 1994, an aircraft carrying Rwandan President Habyarinana was shot down, an event that precipitated the coordinated actions of the Hutu-dominated government against the Tutsi minority.

The commanders of the United Nations forces in Rwanda had expressed concerns to the UN leadership that hostilities in Rwanda appeared ready to escalate in April 1994. Requests were made by the Rwandan UN commander that the UN force be strengthened, as fears were expressed to the UN leadership that the Tutsi population was in peril. The UN forces were ordered to remain in their barracks in April 1994, when the first genocidal actions were taken by the Rwandan government. The UN forces were later permitted only to assist in the evacuation of foreigners from Rwanda.

Commencing in mid-April 1994, the Rwandan government directed its armed services, local militia, and police to drive Tutsi people from their homes, for the purpose of looting their property and killing them. Civilians were encouraged to participate in the killings, in exchange for a share of the murdered person's belongings. It is estimated that between 500,000 and 800,000 persons were murdered in Rwanda between April 1994 and the end of July 1994, ninety percent of whom were Tutsi.

Pacifique Mukeshimana, the subject of the documentary prepared by PBS for the program Frontline in December 2003, was a twenty-year-old Hutu civilian at the time of the Rwandan genocide. Mukeshimana was one of the thousands of Hutus co-opted into the genocide process commenced by the Rwandan government against the Tutsi minority.

PRIMARY SOURCE

Pacifique Mukeshimana, 20 years old during the 1994 genocide, admits that he killed two people during the bloodletting. After spending seven years in prison, he returned home to his village in May 2003 as part of a program that granted early release to prisoners who have confessed their crimes.

THE PERPETRATOR:

I participated in the genocide. I killed a man's wife—named Karuganda—with one other person. I hit her with a club and the other one finished her with a knife.

I also killed a man named Muzigura. I joined a crowd of people at around 2 p.m. These people were shouting loudly, and when I got there I realized they were holding Muzigura. I got a machete from one of the men who were there and then I hit Muzigura, cutting him on the thigh. Another man finally hit Muzigura on the head with a pickaxe and he died.

I knew the people I killed. They weren't hidden. One was caught by a crowd of people and the other was sitting outside her house.

I got involved, first of all, because of ignorance. Second, people got involved because of the temptation to loot the victims' belongings. Then finally, there were bad authorities who were teaching people that they had to kill their [Tutsi] enemies. People got involved because they believed in it. Most people participated massively. I believe it was because the government kept on encouraging people to kill. Most of my friends were involved. At the end of the genocide, I fled to Congo. I came back with the help of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. They brought me back to Kigali and I was arrested there. There were people who knew me and they denounced me.

I was in prison for seven years. I want to thank the organizations, such as the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, which taught us the importance of confessing. I was convinced that it was important to confess because I became a Christian. Reconciliation is not possible if there is no truth. Rwandans were the source of this genocide. I killed my fellow Rwandans and so the solution has to come from Rwandans. On April 15, 2000, I decided to confess and apologize for what I did.

I was released and sent to the solidarity camp in January this year. What they taught us in the camp was wonderful. We were taught how one should behave with those he hurt. One has to go and apologize for the things he did. One has to know how to behave in the presence of survivors. Some don't want to forgive, others forgive easily, and others are still angry. One has to know how to behave in front of these different kinds of people and show in his behavior that he's completely changed.

I came home in May, two months ago. I appeared before the gacaca court, confessed and asked pardon from the victims' relatives. They forgave me. I encouraged other people to (confess) because reconciliation will not be possible without recognizing one's crimes. Some people claimed reparations for their things, and my parents sold part of our farm in order to pay back what I destroyed.

I have no vision for the future. To prepare for the future, you need a foundation or a base. We can ask for aid from the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission to restart our lives. I really hope for nothing.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Rwandan genocide directed at its Tutsi population by the Hutu-dominated government is among the most extreme mass killings since the Holocaust was perpetrated during World War II (1938–1945). Unlike the other notable mass killings on the basis of race or religious belief that have occurred in human history, the slaughter of Tutsis by Hutu forces involved persons of very similar backgrounds. The Hutu and the Tutsi people had occupied the same region of Africa for centuries, they spoke the same language, and both groups possessed similar cultural traditions.

The involvement of Pacifique Mukeshimana is also in contrast to the patterns of mass killing previously recorded in history. Mukeshimana had no apparent ideological connection to the actions initiated by the Rwandan government against the Tutsis. He was persuaded to become involved in a horrific killing scene on the promise of looted spoils. There is no suggestion of any personal enmity between the murder victims and Mukeshimana or his co-perpetrators. Given that the murder victims were known to him and his neighbors, it is reasonable to conclude that this man would not have been a likely perpetrator of such acts absent the government decision to move against the Tutsi people.

There is a significant contrast between how Mukeshimana's actions would have been judged in a Western court and the ultimate sentence imposed upon him in Rwanda. The perpetration of an unprovoked double homicide in the United States, Canada, England, or France would attract sanctions ranging from a life sentence, with minimum parole eligibility of twenty-five years, to the death penalty in some American states. Mukeshimana spent seven years in jail, before being returned to his community to be sentenced by the local court.

The function of the local court, the gacaca is intended to achieve the dual purposes of community based justice and the reality of dealing with tens of thousands of persons, such as Mukeshimana, who were complicit in the genocide at a purely local level. Approximately 130,000 such persons were detained in Rwanda, a significant number in proportion to a population of approximately seven million persons. It was estimated that if all of the alleged perpetrators of genocidal acts were the subject of a trial in the normal course, given Rwanda's limited judicial resources, the proceedings could take two hundred years to complete. Further, the country had the dual specter of this significant number of imprisoned persons permanently removed from the workforce and the concurrent cost of feeding and securing them in jail.

Approximately 11,000 gacaca were established throughout Rwanda to deal with the consequences of the genocide. The decisions of the gacaca balance a victim-centered restorative justice approach with that of reconciliation between the perpetrator, his victim, and the community at large. Mukeshimana returned to the village where his crimes occurred, and he is reintegrating himself into the community with the blessing of the elected judges of the gacaca.

The international political significance of the Rwandan genocide continues to reverberate. The International Criminal Tribunal has focused upon the prosecution of the leadership of the genocide, a number that will not exceed 200 cases. Like the Nuremberg war crimes trials (1945–1949) held at the conclusion of the Second World War, the International Criminal Tribunal is seeking to create an incontrovertible historical record of the Rwandan genocide.

The most enduring significance of the Rwandan genocide may be what the United Nations and its various member nations chose not to do as the crisis unfolded with increasing speed in April 1994. There is considerable evidence that the genocide could have been at the least limited had the UN increased its existing military presence as its commander requested. The various governments with an interest in the Rwanda situation did not publicly refer to the mass killings as genocide until the immediate crisis was over in August 1994. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton described the Rwanda genocide as the greatest error in American foreign policy during his presidency.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Barnett, Michael. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Ithaca, New York; Cornell University Press, 2002.

Kuperman, Allan J. The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda. Washington; Brookings Institute Press, 2001.

Web sites

Human Rights Watch. "Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda." April 1, 2004. 〈http://hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda〉 (accessed May 29, 2006).

United Nations. "International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda." May, 2006. 〈http://69.94.11.53/default.htm〉 (accessed May 29, 2006).