He didn’t Die Easy; The Search for Hope Amid Poverty, War and Genocide

A collection of poetry and reflections by African Writer Mary Kimani

The Guilt of the Observer.

Published in The Medical Passport, Volume 2 Issue 3 April 2007

By Mary Kimani

If you ever find yourself in Rwanda, make sure you visit the St Jean Guest house in Kibuye province, South West of the capital, Kigali.The guest house is situated behind the Kibuye Catholic Church. The church and the Guest House were the scenes of some of the worst killings carried out during the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

Most massacre sites in Rwanda have huge mass graves littered with crosses. But behind the Kibuye guest house there is only one grave and one cross perched at the edge of a cliff face, overlooking the blue tranquil waters of Lake Kivu. It’s a very quiet place. Here you can hear birds sing and crickets chirp.

The grave is surrounded by green foliage; and trees with branches that hang above the cross as if to shelter it from the sweltering equatorial sun. It is a place of haunting beauty juxtaposed with staggering sorrow.

I came across the tomb during my first visit to Rwanda in June 2001. I was following the story of one of the men responsible for the massacres in Kibuye province. Obed Ruzindana had been arrested within 3 years of the genocide and brought before the Tribunal for Rwanda, a UN court established in Tanzania to prosecute those responsible for 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

I joined the tiny newsroom at the lobby of the UN court on October 1, 1999. It was the beginning of what would end up as a six-year journalism stint covering Rwanda.

I made my first visit to Kibuye to get the reactions of the population to the Appeals Court ruling on a sentence handed to Obed Ruzindana- the ‘so-called’ ‘butcher of Kibuye.’ Prior to arriving at the UN court, I had read about the crimes committed in Rwanda, but listening to the evidence was a wholly different experience.

Ruzindana is not called the butcher of Kibuye for naught. On May 11, at the height of the genocide, he and his co-accused used a megaphone to urge wounded Tutsis to come to a church. The wounded Tutsis were told that Red Cross staff members were waiting to assist them. But when they emerged from their hiding places, Ruzindana stepped out of his vehicle and shot at a woman and two girls.

Ruzindana then ordered two women, whose hiding place his militia had discovered, to be brought to him. One of the women was 16 year old Beatrice. Ruzindana tore open her blouse and then slowly cut off one of her breasts with a machete. He then cut off her other breast and tore open her stomach. Beatrice died as a result of the assault. The UN court gave him a 25-year sentence for his role in the massacres. Rwandans felt it was appalling that he should get away with anything less than life in prison. I agreed, but I wasn’t the court.

I went to Kibuye for the last time in April 2005. Two years earlier my employer had transferred me from the newsroom at the UN court and stationed me at our offices in Rwanda. My work was to help produce feature films which we screened in prisons and villages. In the films we asked Rwandans to speak about the justice systems, how they felt about them and the challenges they faced trying to live together after so much killing. It was a very fulfilling time, but by April of 2005, the project was folding.

My last story was on the trial of Mika Muhimana. He is described as the rapist of Kibuye. Mika was accused of having raped over 27 women during the course of the genocide. All the women he raped were subsequently killed. He was found guilty of eight rapes and murders. The court sentenced him to life in prison.

The story of Mika and the women he raped was not unique. Although no proper statistics exist, it is estimated that about 250,000 women were raped during the genocide. In the course of the rapes, some were infected with HIV AIDS and about 5,000 got pregnant and gave birth to rape babies.

A small UNIFEM funded research among 1000 women members of one survivor group found 70% of them to be HIV positive. These women are poor. They have no access to medicine, and are dying one by one.

I have interviewed quite a number of women raped and infected with HIV AIDS. One is already dead. Of all the stories I have been told, two stand out in my mind. I met Beatah Mukankuranga in Gitarama, Central Rwanda. She was twenty seven. Her entire family had been wiped out during the genocide. She had been gang raped and impregnated. A year after the genocide she discovered she was HIV positive. There were no anti retrovirals available at the clinics in her district. Even if there were, she could barely afford the transport costs to the nearest centre. She was sick, weak and couldn’t work. I asked her how she makes ends meet. She looked at me, and then stared out into the distance. I had to strain to hear her answer. “We thought we survived. We were wrong. Ours was a slow death.”

I interviewed Jacqueline Nyirasoni at the compound where my news agency had its studios. She was one of those women who did not want their status known, so they preferred to our studios rather than be interviewed at home. Stigma is one of the biggest problems for these women. It makes them avoid taking tests or seek assistance.

Nyirasoni lives in Nyamirambo, a populated low income but vibrant area of Kigali. She too contracted the HIV virus after being gang raped during the genocide. Her only source of help is AVEGA, a genocide widows’ association. They have a small clinic and a medical officer available. Every once in a while they also have a trauma counselor. There is nothing high tech or sophisticated about the outfit. Most of the staff members are locally trained, most have learnt on the job. I asked her what they are able to do for her. I still have a notebook where I wrote her response. “I go to them when I am sick. I really have many problems. Ever since I got infected I have many medical problems. When I go to the clinic they give me Aspirin, if they give me a better drug it is Paracetamol. They can’t help much.”

I left Rwanda in May 2005. They were just beginning to implement a joint US government and Global Fund program to reach more of these women. The numbers of those who can access drugs has improved to about 10,000. But thousands more aren’t being reached.

My next job (for 8 months) was with a regional humanitarian organization based in Nairobi, Kenya. Interestingly my first assignment with them was back in Rwanda. Only this time, I was using Rwanda as a conduit to Goma, a town in the Kivu province of Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire). The militia that had undertaken the genocide in Rwanda fled to Eastern Congo in July 1994. Their use of Eastern Congo as a base precipitated a war that lasted over ten years and brought in armies from over six countries in the region. Each of them, as well as Congo’s own army has been implicated in the rape of women.

Goma is an urban centre. Most of the women I met there had fled to Goma after their villages were burnt down and their husbands killed. Most had been gang raped.

The violence of the rapes in Congo was astounding. Most women did not survive the actual rape and mutilation. Many had ruptured uterus, fistulas, and torn abdominal cavities. Had I not been sitting with the women who had lived through these crimes, I doubt I would have believed the stories. Goma has two main health centers; one ran by Doctors on Call (DOC) and the other run by Medicins du Monde. They treat and handle the emergencies, including operations needed to mend the women’s torn bodies.

The problem is that many women don’t make it to Goma in good time for treatment. Outside Goma, the nearest town with a good medical centre is inaccessible by road. DOCS and Medicins du Monde are overstretched. Other smaller clinics exist as well as a general hospital, but often there are no medicines and no trained staff. Emergency procedures are largely free, but treating ailments such as malaria is not. Most of these women have lost their entire livelihood and have little or no money. They cannot afford hospital charges.

Dr Rachel Kende, is a Congolese medical doctor. She and seven other women set up ANAMADE, a small local group that tries to provide basic assistance and shelter for women raped and infected with the HIV virus. What they have achieved, using a monthly contribution of 20 dollars each, is humbling. With land contributed by one of the founders they have set up a dispensary, a safe house, and a few classrooms.

Unfortunately, nature has been cruel. In 2004 when the nearby Nyirangogo volcano erupted, their small dispensary and school were overrun by lava. When I visited, all Rachel could show me was the re-erected dispensary. All medicines and equipment had been destroyed. Although the classes had been re-erected the floor was unfinished and full of lava stones. Nevertheless, it was still being used by over 200 children who studied in shifts.

One of the women under Rachel’s care is Nyota Mbulu. In 2002, she and eight other women were kidnapped from a public transport bus, gang raped and dumped in the jungle.

She was rescued by Medicins Sans Frontiers. She recovered from her extensive injuries, including knife wounds and a ruptured uterus, but she learned she was HIV positive.

Nyota’s story is one of the saddest I have ever come across. Some well meaning NGOs come into such areas and offer anti retrovirals to these women, then after some time they realize they don’t have enough funds and logistical support to sustain such work and pull out. Nyota suffered this fate. She was put on medications for three months and then the charity supporting the drugs pulled out. When I met her, DOC was trying to help her and had put her on a different course of anti retrovirals, but her health had already suffered. She couldn’t sit, she couldn’t work, and she had no family members left.

The stories I covered in Rwanda, and by extension in Eastern Congo, left me gutted emotionally. I felt a bit of a fraud writing about them, filming them and yet not doing anything substantial to actually help them. I felt guilty sitting with them, listening to them pour their hearts out and then going back to the studio, putting together a story and leaving it at that. There are many initiatives ostensibly aimed at helping these groups of women, and many of them are very helpful, but the truth is that the challenge is enormous and there is need for a lot more, especially in Eastern DRC where militias and armed forces continue to rape, mutilate and infect women with HIV AIDS even as I write