Thank you, honourable chair, for giving me the floor.
My name is Jean-Bosco Iyakaremye and I represent the Humura Association. This organization is headquartered in the national capital, and defends the rights of the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda.
I thank the Subcommittee on International Human Rights for having invited me to testify this afternoon on the situation of children who were born of rape following the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.
Before speaking about that situation, I would like to make three clarifications that are important to our organization.
First, in the letter of invitation I received, you referred to the Rwandan Genocide. This isn't just a matter of semantics for the jurist in me. It is a very important question I feel the need to clarify.
As a member of the Humura Association, which is dedicated to the defence of the survivors of the Tutsi genocide, it is my duty to watch over the words that bear the memory of that genocide so that it is never forgotten. It is not the Rwandan genocide, but the Tutsi genocide. The terms have a very specific meaning. Where there is a genocide, there are victims. As everyone knows, the victims of the genocide in Rwanda were Tutsis. People talk about the Armenian genocide because under the Young Turks' regime in the Ottoman Empire, Armenians were massacred simply because they were members of the Armenian people.
In Rwanda, Tutsis were massacred by the Hutu regime. I specify that everywhere I go because this is an aberration. Who would have killed the Rwandans? The Hutu Rwandans murdered the Tutsi Rwandans. And so we cannot talk about a Rwandan genocide. Imagine if people talked about the German, Austrian or Polish—I could go on—genocide, or even about the European genocide. This would make no sense whatsoever. And so I must specify that it was the Tutsi genocide.
The second clarification is the following: I was asked to say a few words about the Rwandan crisis. Once again, it is not a Rwandan crisis. A crisis is a brutal and violent situation, of course, whether on the economic or social fronts. War crimes, for instance, may also be considered a crisis. In the case of genocide, we do not talk about a crisis because a genocide is prepared. It is not a spontaneous event.
Here is the third clarification I would like to make. The rape of Tutsi women during the genocide in Rwanda was not a weapon of war. I need to specify that because a lot of people think that it was a weapon of war.
No, the Tutsi genocide did not take place in the same region or the same theatre as the war. The war took place in one part of the country and the genocide was perpetrated in another. So it was not a weapon of war, but quite simply a crime of envy.
Now that I have made those three clarifications, I would like us to adopt the terms I have just mentioned. Otherwise, without knowing it, we are just bringing grist to the mill of the deniers, according to whom there were two genocides: the Tutsi genocide committed by the Hutus and the Hutu genocide committed by the Tutsis. They say, among other things, that the two make up the Rwandan genocide. So, by using the expression “Rwandan genocide”, you are supporting the case of the deniers, without knowing it. So there you have it.
I will now get to the core of my testimony, which concerns the situation of the children born of the rapes that took place during the Tutsi genocide. Twenty years after the genocide, these young people, as you can appreciate, are living in a very difficult situation. First of all, they are rejected by their mothers because they are a daily reminder of the suffering and atrocities they endured during those difficult moments. The very fact of seeing those children reminds them of all of that. Most of these women spend whole days crying.
Secondly, these children are also rejected by the surviving members of their mothers' families, who consider them strangers. This situation is very difficult to accept for the genocide survivors. They lost their family members and they have in their family children whose fathers were the perpetrators of the atrocities.
Thirdly, these youngters are rejected by their peers, who consider them not only bastards, but the children of those who committed the genocide.
Fourthly, these children are rejected by the state itself. In fact, they are not entitled to benefit from the advantages the survivors of the genocide have, such as the school children and universities students whose studies are paid for by the Fonds d'assistance aux rescapés du génocide, the FARG, an aid fund for genocide survivors. In other words, these children are not recognized as survivors of the genocide. As you will understand, it is very difficult for them to survive in such a situation.
Some mothers did not tell their children that they were the result of collective rapes. You must remember that these women, because they were raped by several individuals, do not even know the father in many cases. It is a difficult situation for the mother as well as for the child.
I read an article yesterday where they talked about a woman who rather than telling her son that he was the child of the genocide perpetrators, had preferred to tell him that he did not have a father.
Is that possible? No, of course not.
So, in the main, that is the situation of those children.
I will be happy to answer questions and provide further details if needed.
Thank you.
