Thread by @NorbertMusana

Its an absolute shame that @Cambridge_Uni is providing a platform to a genocide sympathiser. #JudiRever #Kwibuka27

Judi Rever’s claims of Akayesu’s innocence are typical of how these genocide scholars take incomplete information to serve their denial. But this one hits close to home. Akayesu is guilty because we have seen and experience his acts first hand.

In the first days of the Genocide, it is partially true that Akayesu resisted alongside Tutsis (including my grand-father & uncles). However, this was not due to empathy towards Tutsis. It was merely internal partisan conflict that preserved into the early days of the genocide.

In 1992, MDR (in which Akayesu claimed partisanship) ran a campaign and even commited violent acts (burnt homes, harassment, killings) of MRND members chasing them away from Taba. Till April 1994, MRND members were not welcome in the commune of Taba (currently in Kamonyi.)

On the 18th April 1994, a meeting happened in Gitarama mobilizing all the communal bourgemestres including Akayesu. Jean Kambanda, then prime minister, re-iterated that the only goal was the extermination of Tutsis and Hutus were to unite around that cause.

Realizing he was no longer an enemy to MRND, Akayesu returned ready to begin genocide acts that had already been going on across the country. The night of the 18th, he came back to Gacurabwenge and passed by my grandfather’s house but did not stop to say hi as he usually did.

Suspecting Akayesu had betrayed them, my granddad decided to send away his children and grandchildren to hide (my older brother and sister, Musangwa & Delphine). The next morning, my grandparents also fled. Apparently, right before Akayesu came to search for them with Interahamwe

On April 20th, my aunt, Christine, and siblings had gone to hide at a school and a group of Interahamwe came & announced men and women should be separated. My brother Musangwa (10 years old) left our aunt & sister behind and was taken to be killed along with other men and boys.

They hacked him above the eye and stabbed in the neck, and he fell unconscious. Luckily, he survived and went to hide in a hole at our grandfather’s neighbor. He spent two months there until June when the neighbor’s family was also attacked by Interahamwe and he had to leave.

He was later caught by an Interahamwe who took him to Akayesu for questioning. Akayesu had continued leading massacres in Taba and Gitarama but had not found everyone. My aunt Christine, and sister, Delphine, were still missing so he forced my brother to reveal where they were.

When they were found, Akayesu wanted to have them killed. However, a high-ranking soldier of the regime (we have not found out his name yet) ran into him, and took my aunt and siblings away from him (to show the World that not all Tutsis had been killed), and had them jailed.

My aunt Christine, my brother Musangwa, and my sister Delphine stayed locked up at the commune until late June. As Inkotanyi approached, many perpetrators became anxious and started planning to flee to Zaire (present-day Congo). Akayesu included.

Before he fled, Akayesu returned to the commune to kill my aunt Christine specifically. Our family believes he feared as a member of the family he was once friends with, she’d live to tell the story of his crimes. Christine was killed by him right before he fled.

As for my siblings, they stayed in the jail with other many children who are beleived to have been locked up at the Taba commune. Until now, whether they were taken later to be killed, whether they were taken to Zaire as well, our family still doesn’t know.

27 years later, out of the 8 people who were at home on the night of the 18th, only one uncle survived, 2 bodies from our family in Gacurabwenge were recovered (my grandparents). We never found the bodies of my aunts Christine, Munyana & Mutoni, or the whereabouts of my siblings.

My sister @eva_bwiza is named after out aunt Christine. For she refused to flee and abandon our siblings, she paid the ultimate price. Akayesu himself tortured and cut, our uncle Sempambwa was into tiny pieces, because his older brother had joined Inkotanyi.

Sempambwa is the one who had managed to take my aunt Christine and my siblings to the school, on his way back, as he crossed the street he ran into Akayesu, and met his fate. We remember him 🙏🏿

All to say, people like Judi Rever forget we can put names to the stories they are trying to diminish. Akayesu is a genocidaire, he was the first person in history to use rape as a tool and be charged with rape as an act of genocide. He ain’t no savior, nor was he a good man.

Anyway all of this to say people like Judi Rever forget we can put names to the stories they are trying to diminish. Akayesu is a genocidaire, and yet she is very comfortable talking abt him as an old innocent friend who was falsely accused.

I believe, a lot of the politicians/scholars in the Western world are not too happy we survived. Because, we are able to call them out on their cowardliness, and like Akayesu, they are not too happy we are able to talk about 1994, as it is an embarrassing moment for them.