Interview with Honoré Gatera, Director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial
Following his panel discussion at the June 6th seminar on “Gender, Accountability, and Atrocity Prevention” by HL-senteret, PRIO, and STK, the Director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Honoré Gatera agreed to carry out an interview with HL-senteret researcher Ingvill Thorson Plesner. His answers touched upon various facets of the Rwandan genocide directed against the Tutsi, exploring the cultural impact and influences of the genocide as well as the gendered dynamics of its preparation, perpetration, and consequences.
Below is a transcribed snippet of his interview, but you may watch his full interview here:
Interview with Honoré Gatera by Ingvill Thorson Plesner
- Why do you think the genocide happened, and how was it possible?
The genocide against the Tutsi was a plan for more than 30 years, because it's rooted from the bad legacy that we got from the colonial masters, where the national identity was lost, and the leadership continued the racial identity, which led them to planning sporadic killings and identifying the Tutsi as an enemy of the country, even killing them through the years, but also chasing them to be refugees or to become refugees in the neighboring countries until they got to the final solution, which was the genocide against the Tutsi. So the genocide against the Tutsi happened because it was a long way planned by the leadership.
Number two, it happened because the young people, the population, was trained, was educated, was brainwashed, that it is the truth that the Tutsi are the enemies of Rwanda, the national identity was already lost, and convinced that the Tutsi are enemies in the whole process of identifying them, dehumanizing them. The ultimate schedule is to eliminate all of them. And the genocide was possible because of that wrong process of preparing the atrocities of 1994.
- You mentioned dehumanization and seeing a certain group as enemies. Could you develop a little bit on that? What kind of conception of the human did you see? How was that visible in practice, in actions, what really happened?
We, human beings are the same everywhere. However, when a group is targeted for killings such as the killings of genocide, that group started being considered to be like animals. What happened in Rwanda, for example, the Tutsi were called to be snakes, to be cockroaches.
Violence was going on through the years, and mainly in the nineties, 1992-1994, the Tutsi were being arrested, they were being tortured, they were being killed, and no one could bring those perpetrators to justice, or there was no accountability at all. Even some of the perpetrators of those crimes were being rewarded because they've done a nice action to the enemy of the country, to the cockroaches, to the snakes.
The head radio were saying that “please make sure that you scratch the snake before it bites you”, and others were saying “you know, the cockroaches are very bad insects, please scratch them before they escape”. So that’s already to show you how they were dehumanizing them to the small insect of a cockroach to the snake, which has a really bad image among human beings. So they were people who wouldn't get any consideration in the community, but who are candidates to torture, to imprisonment, and in the end to death.
- So what was the gender aspect of the genocide, you would say?
Right. The gender aspect of the genocide in Rwanda is one aspect where you see the most powerful atrocities being committed, because rape was used as a weapon of genocide in Rwanda.
So women, girls were being raped not only to torture them, but also to kill them progressively, or even some of them be impregnated with children of perpetrators. We have cases of those who were raped and infected with HIV and of course, the perpetrators knew that this is what they're doing. There are those who of course were raped and they couldn't anymore work, for example, they lost their physical abilities, they lost their mental abilities, and they died along the process.
But not only that, because we also needed to mention that when we talk about gender, the case was not only focusing on women, but also men, young boys who were being raped by women perpetrators, and mothers who were killing their own children because they were previously married to Tutsi husbands, and they didn't want the Tutsi blood to be in their line of blood, and they could kill their own children, fathers who could also do the same thing to their own children.
So the gender aspect during the genocide against the Tutsi is an aspect that had the most horrible experiences of the atrocities during the genocide. We even know it that in the process of accountability in the ICTR, with this process of where rape was internationally approved that this is a tool of genocide, is a crime of genocide.
From those cases that were processed in Russia, and now at least from that base, we know it's being addressed in international law. But it's not only that because we also have other cases like Valerie Bemeriki, and we have Nyiramasuhuko Pauline and his son who did commit the most unbelievable atrocities in regards with the gender- with rape and so on.
So meaning that, yeah, during the genocide against the Tutsi, many of the victims witnessed the horrible experiences towards gender. But also there are some brave people, women who were hiding neighbors and friends. So when you talk about it, there are the victims in one aspect, there are the perpetrators in another aspect, but also there are rescuers. Which gives you an overview or a chance to explore gender in one angle or the other during the genocide.
Not only the genocide against the Tutsi- and in any other conflicts or other atrocities being committed, because sexual violence or other violence are committed at times, gender plays also into somehow refraining to continue the crimes that are being committed as the case of the rescuers in Rwanda.
To know about the genocide’s legal ramifications and accountability processes, the current relationship between Hutu and Tutsi, Honoré’s personal experience as a genocide survivor, and his takeaways coming from these atrocities, you are encouraged to watch the complete interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bxcrlh9DwU
Ingvill Thorson Plesner also interviewed Erik Møse after the panel session. His interview is available here: https://www.massatrocityresponses.com/blog/interview-with-mose