Rwandan Genocide Survivor Recalls Horror

Hid In Tiny Bathroom For Three Months With Six Other Women

(CBS)  When the horde of Hutus had stormed the house, Immaculee actually heard one of the killers shout her name. "I heard somebody calling my name. He said, actually that, 'I have killed 399 cockroaches' and he wanted me to be the 400th."

Cockroaches is what the Hutus called the Tutsis.

"I'm like, 'Oh my gosh.' I was so scared that he knows where I am. He’s so sure. It was like dying alive, really when I remember the pain of that place it was like everyday you are—like something is dying, slowly dying thousands of times, yeah," Immaculee recalls.

The pastor left his bedroom radio on so the women could hear the news. After three months of genocide they heard that French troops had finally arrived in Rwanda to protect surviving Tutsis, and that one French camp was just a few miles away. Immaculee persuaded the pastor to sneak them there in the middle of the night.

They snuck out at two in the morning, on the day Immaculee calls "liberation day."

Asked how they escaped, she says, "We stood up first of all, never really much standing up. I remember fixing my knees, like I couldn’t walk."

But they managed to walk, and run, concealed by the night to the French compound.

"And when we reached the gate, I was like, 'We are Tutsi, please help us,'" she remembers. "So he said, 'Come in' and we went in, and it was the first time in three months that we saw somebody have pity on us."

She was safe, but soon sorry because Immaculee learned that her two brothers, and her mother and father had all been killed. Her father had been shot trying to get food for his neighbors’ children.

The killers put her father's body on a roadblock.

After a hundred days, a Tutsi army formed in exile had captured most of the country and stopped the genocide. Today, Tutsis are still in control and are sharing power with Hutus. The economy is coming back, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis have come back from exile, and the country hopes to attract tourists.

The country may be peaceful, but it’s still on edge. Some Hutus want to resume the genocide, and some Tutsis still want revenge. Immaculee knows Rwandans can never forget but believes they must forgive. Revenge, she told Simon, only prolongs the pain.

"And I don’t want it. I don’t want them after killing my family to give me this luggage in my heart, in my belly, you know, to hold this anger," she says.

So Immaculee has even forgiven Alex, the man who killed two of her relatives and who would have killed her.

Asked if she felt angry when she saw him, Immaculee says no.

"You weren't tempted to take his head and shake it against a brick wall?" Simon asks.

"No, completely in my heart I was aware it won’t change anything. It won’t change his heart. It won’t bring back people he killed. That’s the worst thing," she replies.

"No. But it might’ve felt good," Simon remarks.

"It doesn't. That’s the funny thing. It won’t. I know well," Immaculee says.

Now she's a woman on a mission to spread the story of the genocide hoping it can prevent future atrocities. She has giving lectures; she has written a book; and she is determined to stop the inevitable revisionists who claim the genocide never happened.

"You started to hear on radios, people denying that it wasn’t genocide. And that almost takes your breath away," Immaculee tells Simon. "Like, what I have lived isn’t genocide? What is genocide? Every child, every woman, every man, Tutsi, at least in my village as I have seen, is dead."

[pawprintparadise]

To jo-gee:
Please do not call the Hutu tribe 'cavemen with machetes.' If you could understand the background of this grave situation, you may not be so quick to call them cavemen. I do agree with you that Immaculee is a completely marvelous woman and has been stronger than I could ever imagined being. Many have been merciless and inhumane, yes. However, never call a group of people cavemen, especially when you are not aware of their past and their culture.

European powers made Africa's boundaries without relevance to tribal groups and lands. Rwanda's boundaries happened to contain a minority of the Tutsi tribe and a majority of the Hutu tribe. The foreigners made the Tutsi into the elite tribe, and put them in government over the majority Hutu. The Hutu were seen as inferior, and once colonists left, the Hutu majority was put into government and many Tutsi were exiled. They then came back, and started to commit atrocities against the Hutus. The Hutu majority then started to kill the Tutsi, which they hated for their superior attitudes (given them by the Europeans). They were told to kill or they would die.

I am not saying, by any means, that this awful genocide is pardoned because of colonialism, just asking you to look at different sides of the story.

[sumit_lion]

Although this story does explore the tenacity of human behaviour, I would like to set forth that the 60 Minutes should do follow up inquiries on this story. For example, it should explore the history behind the Rwandan Genocide and its link to the Belgians and their act of creating divisions between the Hutus and the Tutis. Secondly, and most relevant, there should be a story connecting the Rwandan Genocide to the Darfur Genocide. This would give viewers the foundation to explore the genocide as it unfurls. My overall point is to inundate 60 minutes audience with the fact that there is a genocide happening in Darfur and that it can be stopped, but the world needs to start acting by becoming aware of human suffering and finding ways to stave this abomination. By connecting Rwanda with Darfur, people can see how interconnected these genocides are.
As an aside, I would like to note that this is a complex topic and 60 minutes has done a good job to public and make the American audience more aware of the world outside our country. I hope this comment help further 60 Minutes investigative journalism.

[label1877-2009]

Great segment on Rwanda. I noticed no mention was directed at President Clinton for not acting to help Rwanda. Can you imagine how many times this would of been mentioned had a Republican been in office at the time?

[sabbali]

While touching, the Rwanda genocide story is devoid of salient historical context for the genesis of the pogrom. The story of Rwanda is no different from that of most societies with a legacy of colonialism, primarily the Western variant. While not excusing the indigenous culprits, the hidden hand and unreported cause of the genocide is the classic modus operandi of western imperialism.

I refer of course, to divide and conquer vis-a-vis exploiting and inflaming ancient enmities between groups in order to control both groups, one through co-option and the other through subjugation. The colonial class system thus sets the stage for festering strife within arbitrarily created nation-states cobbled up by departing colonizers leaving the population to fight over national resources, which the colonizers and their surrogates socialized for themselves all the while!

Thus, in place of Rwanda we can substitute Congo, Nigeria, Sudan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq, to name a few. Such personal pathos of loss, courage, and survival is endemic to such places.

Alas, the story while compellingly emotive, whitewashes the historical context and thus leaves the audience wondering: "just why can't those savages get along?" as we smugly absolve ourselves of complicity.

Have no fear! In the end, the great %u201Cwhite knight in shining armor%u201D embodied in French UN troops saves the day, both complicit.

[mkbjon]

It never ceases to amaze me how terribly people can treat each other. And it continues to amaze me how some people, in the face of unspeakable evil, can rise above it and forgive. We could all stand to learn a lesson from this woman about the human spirit and treating each day of your life as exactly what it is--a wonderful gift.

[jo-gee]

This story is pure dynamite. You can't let it fade out, do a follow up on what the village is doing to recover. This woman is like an ANGEL! AWESOME PRESENCE! How can she be considered INFERIOR to some caveman with a machete?
We of the Boomer Generation have been conditioned to believe that genocide will never happen again in our lifetimes. Our Daddies bragged about saving the world from Hitler; we grew up thinking that our brave fathers had done away with human slaughter. BUT GUESS WHAT?! GENOCIDE IS COMING BACK IN STYLE! I'm telling you all now, pay attention! This could be you!

[linfinster]

That's what can happen right here in the USA .. I saw a UTube clip that has some seemingly well educated man speaking on CSPAN about how the white people need to be exterminated .. and there was some clapping! Think about what THAT could mean ..

[jodschamber-2009]

I believe Immaculee's story. It is very poignant and happens again & again through out history. I am very happy that she & other's lived to tell their story. I find she has a very big heart & soul to forgive the former yardsman that killed two of her family. This is a tradgedy that needs to not be repeated by any man, woman, child in any land. I worry that the violence in Iraq will spill over to genocide. I hope not, but so often history repeats itself. I am happy that she is a speaker now against Genocide, to try to prevent this from happening again in her country or others.