Dying to Live

by Pierre-Claver Ndacyayisenga

  The situation for the refugees, however, had become extremely precarious. After the attack, many left Birava camp hoping to find refuge in camps further away from the Rwandan border. Similarly troubled, the camp’s administration decided to move the camp to Chimanga, eighty kilometers west of Bukavu, further towards the interior.

  The Chimanga camp, opened in 1994 and home to more than 20,000 refugees, was situated in the hills at the edge of the forest which surrounds the Kahuzi-Biega national park. The sparsely inhabited countryside, only accessible by a narrow trail which became impassable during the rainy season, was rich in minerals. You could just as easily buy gold as potatoes at the local market in Kankinda. Close by, the Zairean government had set up another camp at Bulonge exclusively for former FAR soldiers and their families, which was unrecognized by the UNHCR. It was in this remote area, far from civilization, that the HCR trucks let us off and we began our new life.

  In Birava, my wife had brought home a few dollars a month working as a social worker, and I had made about the same as a teacher. There was no work for us in Chimanga; we had to make do with our WFP rations. I quickly realized that I’d have to do something to improve our situation. I still had in my possession all the equipment and supplies from my old brewery, so I decided to get back in the business, but this time as both producer and retailer.

  I opened my tavern in a tent right next door to my family’s living tent, with room for thirty seated patrons. It sometimes happened that I couldn’t brew enough wine to meet the demand and I was forced to purchase some from other banana-wine producers in the camp. I’d wake up early in the morning to visit the brewers. Of course, I needed to drink a bowl to verify the quality of the wine, to make sure it was ready for market and to negotiate a price. If it turned out that I had to visit two or three different producers, I’d be thoroughly drunk before 7 a.m.! This happened more than a few times. Whenever it did, my wife would handle the before-lunch sales while I slept it off.

  With the profits from the business, I decided to open a butcher shop in the camp. With the help of my brother-in-law Joseph, who had been evacuated to the camp with my sister Thérèse following the tragic events in Birava, I bought a cow at the Kankinda market and had it slaughtered by some refugees who had been butchers and veterinarians in their previous lives. Most of the meat was sold to locals. Not too many refugees had enough money to buy any, and those who could afford such a luxury would take a kilo, at most.

  The local traditional leader, a man named Herman Vuningoma, with whom I maintained a special friendship, helped me by sending me customers from among his followers. He was known as the mwami, which means “king.” He was a person of great humanity who was very empathetic to the plight of the refugees. He went so far as to grant them permission to cut timber in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park to make charcoal destined for the Bukavu market, 80 kilometers away. Trucks belonging to NGOs transported the fuel after discharging their aid cargo in the camp. In return, the refugees built him an adobe house, a rare sight in that part of the world. The “king” became worthy of the name, living from then on as he did in a palace. When the Rwandan Patriotic Army later attacked the Chimanga camp, he became one of the first Zaireans from the region to be killed, among so many others, victims of their generosity and compassion towards the Hutu refugees. The people who lived in this camp will never forget him.

  By March of 1996 we were on the move again. My wife’s previous employer in Birava offered her a paid position in the Inera camp. We thought it would be a good idea to accept, enabling us to leave the remote area we were living in, even if it was true that we would once again be close to the Rwandan border and therefore vulnerable to RPA attacks.

  The Inera camp (from the name of the national agricultural research institute which had donated the land for its construction) was located near Kahuzi-Biega National Park, about 20 kilometers from the town of Bukavu and not far from Miti, at the intersection of the roads leading to Goma, to the north, and Walikale, to the west. Along with Kashusha, a stone’s throw away, it was the most populated camp in the Bukavu region. It held the honour of hosting the ousted Rwandan president, Théodore Sindikubwabo and his prime minister, Jean Kambanda, among other notables.

  A few weeks after we moved to Inera, I had the good fortune to be hired as a history teacher in the Adi-Kivu camp, a few hundred meters away, where they had succeeded in establishing a primary and a secondary school by paying bribes to the Zairean controllers to get them to overlook this forbidden activity. In addition, I continued making banana wine, which I sold to retailers, but business was not as good as it had been in the Chimanga camp. The supply was greater than the demand, so much so that we couldn’t get rid of all the wine we had produced. But before long, this would become the least of my worries, as once again, we were forced to pack up our tent and move.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Rout

  of the Kivu Refugees

  A rebellion among the Banyamulenge (Zairean Tutsis of Rwandan origin) began in Uvira in October 1996 and would lead to the destruction of the Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire and the overthrow of the Mobutu regime.

  It is important to note that Kivu has long harboured a large Rwandan Tutsi community. The community was established in waves that occurred at different times in history and for different reasons.

  Prior to the colonial era, the kingdom of Rwanda was controlled by the Tutsis and extended beyond its current borders. With the exception of the south, where it had never been able to score a decisive victory over the kingdom of Burundi, Rwanda expanded through the annexation of neighbouring territory. To establish their dominance over the newly conquered regions, the Rwandan authorities dispatched functionaries, who in addition to their entourage mostly brought ordinary people with them in order to establish colonies. This is how the Rwandan Tutsis first settled west of Lake Kivu, under the sovereignty of the Rwandan monarchy. Other waves of Tutsi migration followed in the region during the nineteenth century, in the context of fratricidal power struggles that pitted Tutsi clans against one another and forced many to flee the ensuing massacres. With the division of Africa among the European colonial powers, these people found themselves incorporated into the Belgian Congo. A final wave of migration, perhaps the largest, took place in the 1960s. The Rwandan revolution of 1959, which led to the abolition of the Tutsi monarchy and the taking of power by the Hutus in 1961, drove much of the Tutsi population out of the country, fleeing the new order and the violence directed against them.

  The Kivu highlands, located between Lakes Kivu and Tanganyika, constituted a fertile ground for these migrants, providing a favourable climate for cattle raising, the main activity of the Tutsis.

  The influx of people did not take place without tension with the local people, who have always considered the people known as the Banyamulenge as Rwandan even though they are officially Congolese or Zairean nationals. The animosity of the local population towards the Banyamulenge flowed from several sources: conflicts over land, frustration with their economic and political success, their lack of social integration (the Banyamulenge having conserved their culture and traditional language, Kinyarwanda) the practice of endogamy and the redistribution of labour within the group).

  In the regional political context of the 1990s, these tensions came to a head. After the violent accession to power of the Hima-Tutsi Yoweri Museveni in Uganda in 1986, the assassination in October 1993 by Tutsi extremists of Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu elected president of Burundi, and the seizure of power in Kigali by Kagame’s RPF, Zaireans began to wonder what was in store for them. Rumours circulated in the country about a plan to build a “Hima-Tutsi empire” in central Africa, which would include Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, western Tanzania and eastern Zaire. Moreover, the active participation of many Banyamulenge in the Rwandan civil war alongside the RPF led to questions about their true loyalties. The native population (descendants of indigenous peoples) were to return to their homes, now that their Tutsi brother
s had taken power in Rwanda.

  In April 1995, the Kinshasa government adopted a series of measures designed to assimilate all Kinyarwanda-speaking refugees in Zaire. The nationality of the Banyamulenge was thereby challenged and their expulsion called for. One year later, they took up arms. Although initially denying their involvement in the conflict, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi immediately sent troops to Kivu to fight by their side, citing security concerns to justify their intervention. Rwanda, through its president, Pasteur Bizimungu, simultaneously claimed territory in Zaire. According to the Rwandan head of state, if the Kinyarwanda-speaking Zaireans were expelled from Kivu, they’d be entitled to claim the land that had previously belonged to them. He called for a “Berlin II” (in reference to the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 also referred to as the Scramble For Africa) to redefine the boundaries of African countries. It was a way of indicating to Zaire that Rwanda felt entitled to claim the territories of North and South Kivu.

  Joined by a wide spectrum of opposition to Mobutu, the Banyamulenge rebellion took the organization form of the Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo (AFDLC – Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo). To hide the political and economic ambitions that underpinned their involvement, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, with support from major powers like the United States and Britain, backed a Zairean as the head of the AFDLC, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who was soon to seize the reins of power in Kinshasa.

  On October 13, 1996, when the Banyamulenge rebellion erupted, there were twenty camps located in South Kivu. The fighting that began in the Uvira region gradually pushed refugees onto the area’s roads: some headed to Rwanda, often under armed pressure, others moving south towards Lake Tanganyika, west towards Shabunda, or north towards the town of Bukavu, passing through the numerous camps situated along the route. The Forces armées zaïroises (FAZ) (Zairean armed forces), who from the outset had been unable to withstand the RPA attacks, fled along with the refugees, leaving weapons and ammunition in the hands of the rebels.

  All over the region, the local population was up in arms against the Banyamulenge: The manhunt was on to track them down and kill them. It should be noted that the Rwandans who lived there were not exclusively Tutsi. In colonial times, the Belgian authorities had brought Rwandan Hutus to Kivu to work in the mines and on the plantations. After the Congo’s independence in 1960, the majority were repatriated to Rwanda. Some, however, chose to stay. Among them was my own older half brother, Luke Ndabananiye. Since fleeing to Zaire, I had regularly visited him at his home in Bukavu, and all his neighbours knew me.

  On October 26, a man came to see me at camp Inera to tell me that my brother and his children had been threatened by the local population, who accused them of being Banyamulenge, not knowing how to differentiate Tutsis from Hutus among the Rwandans in Kivu. I went to his neighbourhood to try to convince the residents and local authorities he was Hutu. But by the time I arrived on the scene, the poor soul had already been stoned to death and was buried in the ground. However, there was still a chance I could possibly do something for his sons, who were hiding God knows where. Assisted by two old neighbours, I went to the town hall, where I had my ID papers compared to Luke’s; all elements matched, except the mother’s name, as we had had different mothers. It should be remembered that the Rwandan identity card indicated if the holder was Hutu, Tutsi or Twa, the country’s three ethnic groups. Observing the documents, the authorities at the town hall realized that my brother was classified as a day labourer, a job not typically held by Tutsis, who generally performed administrative jobs. They thus concluded that he was not a Banyumulenge. After paying eighty dollars, I was given two directives to post in the neighbourhood demanding the end of the pursuit of the two sons of the deceased. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete my mission. Just as I arrived at Luke’s house, I heard bombs exploding. The Panzi refugee camp, on the southern edge of Bukavu, was under attack. Panicked, I quickly gave the posters to the men who had accompanied me and hurried off to find my family, twenty kilometers to the north, leaving behind my nephews still unaccounted for. On the Bukavu-Inera road, refugees fleeing Panzi were jammed in by the thousands, recounting the atrocities committed by the rebels of the AFDLC, especially against the Rwandans.

  On October 28, 1996, the city of Bukavu was attacked. Elements of the Rwandan Patriotic Army killed a number of Rwandans who lived there as well as Zaireans suspected of aiding the refugees, among them the Archbishop of Bukavu, Monsignor Christophe Munzihirwa. The survivors fled north towards the refugee camps at Inera, Kashusha and Adi-Kivu, whose populations had multiplied several times in the space of a few days.

  In these three camps, panic was universal. We were expecting an RPA-rebel attack at any moment. The directors of the NGOs had all left. People’s usual activities were replaced by preparations for a possible flight. We wondered what we should take from the tent and especially what direction we should go. We passed the time packing our bags, lifting them to estimate their weight, brainstorming the best ways to keep our family from becoming separated, especially the children, acquiring information on the different directions we could go... We were preparing for the worst, but there was no way to know when the whistle would blow to start the race.

  In the period after the outbreak of hostilities in mid-October, the Zairean army suffered setback after setback, with heavy losses in men and equipment. Reinforcements sent from Kinshasa via the Kavumu airport, near the Adi-Kivu camp, were unable to stem the tide. The rebels, backed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), continued their advance without meeting any resistance.

  When the Zairean military realized that Bukavu was about to be attacked, they demanded that the refugees enlist and participate in the war effort, claiming that it was a matter for Rwandans to settle among themselves. Former Rwandan Army soldiers and other young people were recruited from the camps at Inera and Kashusha. After receiving training consisting of two or three days of marching bent at the waist and fast low-crawling, they were herded into trucks headed towards Bukavu. For them, it was another opportunity to go up against the RPF, and, with any success, to be able to return to their country. We later found out that except for Kalashnikovs equipped with a single magazine, they received neither the weapons nor the ammunition needed to retake the positions abandoned by the Zairean armed forces.

  The contingent of Zairean soldiers primarily responsible for security in the camps fled en masse, but not before looting everything in their path. They requisitioned every vehicle they could find, starting with the NGOs’ 4x4s, packing them to the brim with food and valuables. They abandoned their military hardware, including heavy weapons. Instead of guns, chickens hung from their belts. They drove west down the Miti-Walikale road, headed for the city of Kisangani, some eight hundred kilometers west of Bukavu. With the Zairean soldiers gone, the refugees were left to fend for themselves, at the mercy of the Rwandan Patriotic Army.

  At eight o’clock Saturday morning, November 2, I was at my neighbour’s, a few meters from my tent, when we suddenly heard the sound of explosions close by. The camp was being attacked from the south. Amidst a terrible and deafening noise, people were running in all directions; this one fleeing, that one taking something back to his tent, another trying to find his family. With all the confusion it was very difficult to know who the enemy was.

  I ran to find my family. A few days earlier, I had removed the pegs securing the tent and loosened the ropes so I could easily fold it up if we came under attack. I had also packed a few things: blankets, clothes, pots, and of course, some food. With the exception of Emmérence, our youngest child who was five, we all knew what we had to do and what we had to take with us in the event of an attack.

  Despite all my preparations and precautions, nothing went as planned when it came time for us to start moving. While I was still trying to fold the tarp, our son Ange-Claude, overcome with panic, sobbingly informed us that he couldn’t wait for us and that we’d find him
up ahead. He was gone with his bags before I could even answer. We followed after him, trying to work our way through the panicked tide of humanity. A few minutes later, I found myself alone: my family had disappeared into the crowd and I had no idea what would become of them. All around me, people were crying, having also been separated from their wives, their husbands, their children, their property.

  At first, I thought it would be possible to walk on the road. But it became quickly clear that it was too dangerous, both because the road was under enemy fire, but also because it was totally congested with vehicles and pedestrians. Some of the refugees still had cars, even in the camps, especially at Kashusha and Bukavu. Along with those who were on foot, I headed into the banana forest that lined the side of the road, staying close to the road in fear of getting lost.

  Three hours later, I had gained a certain distance from the camps and the shelling. The crowd I was moving with climbed back on the road. Exhausted, but still in possession of my bags, I sat on the side to take a short break, not knowing if my family was in front of me or behind me.

  Right while I was asking some people I knew if they had seen my family, I caught sight of my wife with our three children, the youngest hanging on her back. Covered in mud, they were almost unrecognizable. Françoise had decided to let go of our belongings in order to make sure she didn’t lose any of our children.

  We were totally exhausted. Exhausted by the terrible roads we had been marching on under a driving rain and at a rapid pace in our fear of being caught. Fortunately, the enemy had not kept up the pursuit for long. They were too busy finishing off people captured in the camps at Kashusha, Inera and Adi-Kivu, among whom were many patients dying in the hospitals and people who could not keep up with the pace of those of us who managed to escape. These massacres went on for two days, a period which allowed us to increase our distance from our tormentors.