Genocide survivor holds on to faith in face of horror

BY MAUREEN MCGUINNESS

Immaculee Ilibagiza has fond memories of kneeling with her parents and brothers every night to pray as a family.

"We also prayed before every meal," she told The Evangelist. "Sunday was the best time: to dress up and go to church. Then we would talk about what the priest had to say. These are the things I cherish."

Her memories are all that she has left; she lost all of her family but one brother to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Ms. Ilibagiza will share her story of survival and forgiveness at Siena College in Loudonville, March 12.

Tribal differences

In her book "Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Genocide," Ms. Ilibagiza tells of her life before the genocide, her three months in hiding and her journey toward forgiveness.

Growing up in Rwanda, she didn't even know that there were different tribes in her close-knit community. She first learned of them when she was ten. When a teacher did an ethnic roll call, she was sent out of the classroom because she didn't know which tribe she belonged to.

Her older brother told her to stand up when her friends stood up, as that was what he had done. Her friends were Hutu, but she was actually from the Tutsi tribe.

Welcome home

She didn't know her tribe, she explained, because "everyone was welcome in our home, regardless of race, religion, or tribe. To my parents, being Hutu or Tutsi had nothing to do with the kind of person you were. If you were of good character and a kind human being, they greeted you with open arms."

The differences between the tribes were difficult for her to detect.

"We had virtually the same culture," she wrote. "We sang the same songs, farmed the same land, attended the same churches and worshiped the same God. We lived in the same villages, on the same streets and often in the same houses."

Violence

When the genocide began, Ms. Ilibagiza was home from college to celebrate Easter with her family.

Looking back on the events that unfolded, she is grateful that she had the opportunity to be with her family to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

The violence "happened three days after Easter," she said. "I think this is significant."

Lenten message

Ms. Ilibagiza said Lent can be a time of growth and change for Catholics: "Lent is such a great time for the graces from God. Lent is a great time for the world."

While some balk at making Lenten sacrifices, she said that sacrifice and suffering can be powerful tools of change.

"There is a benefit from suffering," she said. "Suffering can be cleansing. Pain is not bad; it can change the world."

In hiding

She knows what she is talking about. During the genocide, she and seven other women were hidden in a small bathroom by an Episcopal minister.

From their refuge, they could hear the screams of their friends and family members as they were killed, many hacked to death with machetes.

They also heard the killers boasting of the number of people they had slaughtered and listened as the men searched the minister's house, looking for them.

Time of terror

The minister couldn't feed the hidden women regularly; when he did, he brought them scraps thrown out by servants. Water was also scarce. When she went into hiding, Ms. Ilibagiza weighed 115 pounds; when she emerged, she weighed 65.

In hiding, "we tried to sit," she wrote, "but there wasn't enough room for all of us to move at the same time. The four tallest had to push our backs against the wall and slide to the tile floor, then pull the smaller girls down on top of us.

"We sat in an uncomfortable heap, too afraid to adjust our positions or to even breathe too heavily. We waited for the gray light of dawn to fill the room, then carefully pried ourselves apart to take turns standing and stretching. A two- or three-minute break was all we allowed ourselves before resuming our awkward positions on the floor."

War and peace

Despite all of the suffering she endured, including the murders of her family, Ms. Ilibagiza has a message of forgiveness: Revenge does not bring peace.

"I know what it is like," she said. "I had a good reason to [want revenge]. If I can forgive, you can do it."

Her road to forgiving those who killed her family started with prayer.

"I asked God to help me forgive," she said. "I was experiencing so much pain. I asked God to help me learn to smile again. The first step is to ask God for help."

She took comfort in some of Jesus' last words on the cross: "Forgive them, Father; they know not what they do."

Prayer's solace

While praying, she realized that the killers were also children of God.

"Their minds had been infected with the evil that had spread across the country," she said, "but their souls weren't evil. Despite their atrocities, they were children of God. I could forgive a child, although it would not be easy."

(Immaculee Ilibagiza will speak about her experiences at the Siena College Alumni Recreation Center in Loudonville, March 12, 8 p.m. Admission is free. Contact Dr. Edward LaRow at 783-2457.)

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