“It was a woman whose husband, brother-in-law and her two children I had killed. Her name is Maryia. When I first went to her to ask for forgiveness, she didn't do it. She didn't say anything. But later she forgave me. The sign that confirmed she forgave me is that if she has fruit juice or even wine, she will share it with me. Same for me, if I have wine, I will share it too. That is one of the signs that showed she forgived me. /// We took another step after forgiveness, we became like a family. My children could then go to Maryia's place and spend a day, and inversely each kid come to each other’s place. We went further than to forgiveness, now we consider each other as family.”
“When I was in the refugee camp, I had time to think. And as a Christian there, I realized that even though they were Tutsis, they were still human beings. I thought about the Bible and what was said in church. So, I realized that even though they were Tutsis, they were still human beings. That’s where I started to feel guilt. When we came back, I realized that the victims’ families were from my own clan, that we were actually still a family. That was another thing that made me realize that I was wrong.”
“Further, it was an ideology that claimed that the Tutsis were your enemies and you would not rest as long as they were alive. For Hutus, at that time, killing someone was not a crime. When it wasn’t a crime, it was very easy to kill because we knew we wouldn’t face any consequences. [Speaking in Kinyarwanda]. Moreover, when President Habyarimana’s plane crashed, it was seen a fact. We were told that he was murdered by the Tutsis. They told us ‘what do you want more ? this is a clear signal that they will kill you all, so if you don’t kill them first, they will kill you’. Those were our convictions to start killing Tutsis.”
“The man was around 85 years old. He was old. The first child was seven, the second was five. The man’s name was Gakoko. The children were named Heziryayo for the first one, and Ndayambaje for the second one. I killed the man with a machete. I didn’t kill the children, they ran to the mining site and died there. /// I also killed [the old man’s] brother, Maryia’s brother-in-law whose name is Kawanika, with a machete. [Speaking in Kinyarwanda]. There was a big pit in the mining site, and we threw the two murdered people’s corpses there. The children, who ran to the site, were sent alive to the pit and died inside, probably suffocated by the weight of the other bodies.” [Editorial note: Philbert was condemned also for the murder of both children. Even after years, his mind has troubles with description of concrete deeds.]
“In 1991 the RPF (French: Front patriotique rwandais, FPR) attacked the government. The government told us that if they succeeded, they would take our country and that we would be refugees ourselves. We were afraid. So the discrimination and persecution of Tutsis started. In 1994, when the genocide started, they told all the Hutus to go to roadblocks to prevent Tutsis from fleeing to Burundi. I was chosen as one of the people responsible for monitoring the roadblocks.”
The source of evil is certain. I’m the one who fleshed out the evil; if you’re lucky, you know in advance that something is evil before you do it instead of committing something you regret afterwards.
Philbert Ntezirizaza, a Hutu Rwandan, was a middle-class husband, and father, when the genocide began in 1994. The same year, he was called at roadblocks and participated in killings of a Tutsi family. After the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Tutsi-led armed group, took control of the country, he fled to Congo and became a refugee. He only returned in his country in 1995, with the intention to face punishment rather than living as a refugee in hiding. He was condemned of twelve years’ imprisonment for his involvement in the genocide but later released on amnesty in 2003. Seeking forgiveness, after being back at his hometown, he struggled to find reconciliation with Maryia, a family member of those he had murdered. ***This story has been recorded within the Ph.D. of Mr. Ondřej Kolman, whose applied research was carried out as part of the grant system of the doctoral program of the Metropolitan University of Prague.***
