Sarajevo, 20 August 2010

The following is a retelling of the experiences of one survivor of the Rwandan genocide, “Witness JJ” as first published in Elizabeth Neuffer’s “The Key to my Neighbor’s House.” Supplemental texts include: “Leave None to Tell the Story” by HRW, “, “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families” by Philip Gourevitch and “A Problem from Hell” by Samantha Power.

Rwanda is a country of hills. Hills, that as the late Elizabeth Neuffer wrote, “ripple across Rwanda, pleating its terrain as neatly as the folds in a man’s tuxedo shirt.”
On one of these hills lived a woman, later to be known to the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) as “Witness JJ.”

Witness JJ came from Taba a small community surrounded by banana and sorghum fields just west of Kigali. By Taba standards, her family of ten was well off, they had two one-story mud brick homes, a large outdoor kitchen and a barn. Life for the women of Taba revolved around physical labor: working the fields, collecting water and cooking. Witness JJ also attended school and eventually married a banana beer salesman, bearing 3 children before her marriage ended.

But in the spring of 1994 the only aspect of Witness JJ’s life that matter was this-her identity card labeled her as a Tutsi. Growing up, the only place Witness JJ felt unhappy was school. Being Tutsi meant that some of her Hutu classmates, following their parents lead bullied her; her teacher blamed poor test scores and attention spans on his Tutsi students. In 1994 the distinction of being Tutsi meant something much more sinister
as the extremist Hutu government in order to keep itself in power, planned the extermination of Rwanda’s entire Tutsi population and politically moderate Hutus.
It was one of the fastest and most efficient killing sprees of the 20th century.

For Taba, the genocide began with the killing of a local teacher. For Witness JJ’s family, it began with the killing of her father and brothers. Witness JJ, her three children and her sister-severely wounded from a machete- tried to escape. Her sister became so weak that she could not continue. Witness JJ hid her in a field, but when she returned for her sister she had disappeared. Worse, in the chaos Witness JJ lost her two older children, all she had left of her family was her baby boy.

Witness JJ and her baby found refuge in the home of coffee farmer-a Hutu. A man, as Witness JJ would later say “He was a Hutu, but one who cannot harm, not everyone killed.” The farmer was too frightened to have Witness JJ hide in his house where the neighbors might see her, but he let her hide in his fields and left scraps of food for her.
His fears of being caught and of what might happen to him were not unfounded.
When the genocide began, the first killed in Kigali were the politically moderate Hutus, most notably Rwanda’s first (and so far-only) female Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana. Hutus accused of helping their Tutsi neighbors were also killed.

By the next morning, the farmer told Witness JJ “You need to go to the mayor’s office in Taba. There are other Tutsi refugees there. The word has gone that those of us hiding Tutsi must give them up. It is too dangerous for you to stay here.”

The one story-red brick building of the Bureau Communal loomed over Taba’s political and civic life. The Interahamwe (extremist Hutu-power militia) were already in the courtyard when Witness JJ entered the building. The militia members began beating the Tutsis as the mayor, Jean-Paul Akayesu stood silent. Despite the beatings and the fear, being held prisoner in the Bureau Communal offered a kind of ‘protection.’
In the daytime Witness JJ had to forage for food, sneaking through the fields to avoid the Interhamwe. But in the evenings, Witness JJ and her baby could rest-she was grateful for the shelter.

The ‘protection’ did not last for long. Akayesu gathered the Tutsis, “wicked people, he declared, no longer have a right to shelter.” With that Witness JJ, her baby and the other Tutsis were again out on the streets. The rainy season already began when Witness JJ left the Communal, her baby cried constantly and the images of the Interahamwe with their machetes cutting into her brother replayed over and over in her mind.

The fear, the running, the hiding, all became too much. With ten other Tutsis, Witness JJ went to Akayesu, begging to finally be put out of their misery and killed-but not with a machete- no-they had seen the how painful it was to die by machete, but with a bullet.

“Kill us, Witness JJ begged the mayor, kill us like the others, shoot us if you will.”
“There are no more bullets. Even if there were, we would not waste them on you”, Akayesu replied. With that, militia members began beating Witness JJ and the other Tutsis.

* * *
A few days later, three militia members came across a woman lying in the fields, her cheeks sunken and her teeth protruding from her mouth.
“This one’s already dead” one of the men said.
“Where are your children, you Tutsi?”, another one taunted.
Witness JJ, weak from a lack of food was not dead, and she left her baby with a Hutu family who promised to take care of him.

The men stripped her naked and began to debate the best ways to kill her. One suggested burying her alive, another, the machete. But the third man hesitated, it was after all, bad luck to kill a woman.

Poison-it was settled. The Tutsi would die, but it would be the poison that actually killed her, not the men.

After everything she had been through-her family killed, losing her children, the torture, the constant running and hunger, the fear-death was welcomed. Witness JJ was grateful that she would not experience the cut of the machete as it sliced through her. She was grateful for death, for an end to her suffering.

Witness JJ drank the insecticide, but she did not die. Instead, after the men left, she threw up the poison. Somehow, she climbed out of the ditch. She stumbled into the hands of soldiers-but it was not the Hutu dominated Rwandan Army or the Interahamwe militia, but the Tutsi led Rwandan Patriotic Front. Years later when Witness JJ told Elizabeth Neuffer about her experience in fields and her incredible experience of survival this way-
“God, did not put my name on the list of genocide victims that day.”

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