And before the slaughter, they also took their weapons

WORLD NEWS

TUESDAY, 29 MAY 2001

W O R L D N E W S S T O R Y
Rwandan widows face slow-motion genocide
28 May 2001

KIGALI (Reuters): Seven years on, history's fastest genocide reaps a slow-motion harvest of death.
Jeanette Uwimane lost her husband and five children in the 100-day slaughter of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.

Hutu extremist killers stuffed the small corpses of the children into a pit latrine, then subjected her to repeated rape as a sex slave.

She contracted the HIV virus that causes AIDS, and now her ailing body is a daily reminder that the evil which destroyed her family will one day reach out from history for a final reckoning.

A photograph on a table in her small single-storey house shows Uwimane in happier times, a vigorous young woman wearing an amused expression and a spectacular Afro hairstyle.

At 39 she remains beautiful but is a shrunken figure. Lesions cover her arms. She can flash a brilliant smile, but in quiet moments she tells visitors it masks her true emotions.

"You see my smile. But inwardly I am suffering," she says.

WIDOWS WANT TO TESTIFY

Like thousands of other AIDS-infected genocide widows, she wants to tell her story in a court of law before she weakens further, to help render justice and possibly hasten long-awaited compensation for the two of her children that survived.

But it is a race against time as the trials of accused killers remain slow and disease spreads through her body.

Uwimane is one of 25,000 members of the AVEGA-AGAHOZO, an association of genocide widows who have banded together to try to survive despite a host of genocide-related ailments.

Bereft of organised medical care, the widows are also ravaged by a range of other sexually-transmitted diseases caused by rape. Some suffer a host of untreated infections, internal disorders and disabilities caused by deep machete wounds.

Like most, Uwimane gets no treatment for AIDS as she ekes out her life in a ramshackle village built by AVEGA with the help of foreign donors near the capital Kigali.

The settlement of 185 houses is unfinished and has no power or running water because Rwandan state funding has temporarily run out. The women walk 5km to plots to grow food and fetch water, but some are too weak to make the journey.

Other survivors live in total destitution in urban areas, with many afraid to return to their villages because their homes are destroyed or they suspect some killers remain at liberty.

Uwimane reflects on the regular meals and medical attention enjoyed by the accused masterminds of the massacres awaiting trial in a modern prison at a UN tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania.

"Those who have comfort are in Arusha," she says with a wistful smile. "The international community prefers to give aid to the detained people, not to the survivors."

Medicines to prolong her life - which could cost $280 a month - is unimaginably costly, says AVEGA official Sylvia Barakagwira who lost her husband in the massacres.

NO COMPENSATION YET

She said an AVEGA study of 925 genocide widows found two-thirds were HIV-positive and 80 percent were traumatised by the loss of loved ones and gang rapes. None have received any form of compensation from a government bereft of resources.

"No single survivor has got any compensation," she said.

"The government says compensation should not be on an individual basis, but the widows will all be dead by the time they set up an alternative programme."

To the widows, conditions for reconciliation do not exist.

"When you see killers all around, and those killers have not confessed, and politicians make speeches about the need for reconciliation, then this is hard for us," Barakagwira said.

"Reconciliation can come only from justice."

The genocide destroyed the normally powerful self-help mechanism of the African extended family, leaving widows bereft of help with the unfamiliar task of tending fields and growing crops.

The widows are grateful to their government for providing security in the country - and for deploying guards for the village after locals from nearby settlements identified the widows as a soft target and began stealing from their homes.

Feelings can run high when foreigners come to visit.

Widows ask visitors about how they are portrayed in European television documentaries, and are curious about the feelings that inspire people in rich countries to give aid.

"You must not see us as if we are mountain gorillas," said genocide widow Marie Bahizi.

"We are not a tourist attraction. We are living an unbearable life."

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