Cypriet
Cypriet was a sixty-three-year-old farmer from Bugesera district in Kigali Ngali province whom I met five times: in the Gashora ingando in 2003 and several weeks later, following his provisional release into his home community, where I also visited him in 2006, 2008 and 2009.
He was married, a practising Catholic and had attended primary school up to the fifth year. After the genocide, Cypriet fled to eastern Zaire as he feared â€?bad things were going to happen to any Hutu left behind'.[277] Soon after he returned to Rwanda in 1997, he was arrested, charged with genocide crimes and sent to Rilima Prison.Later, after being provisionally released into the Gashora ingando, Cypriet had become a close friend of another genocide suspect, Alphonse, whose experience is described below. In the camp, Cypriet told me that he had confessed to being part of a group that committed murder during the genocide but that he himself had not killed anyone. He claimed to feel remorse for what he had done, but he believed that people committed crimes during the genocide solely because â€?they were told by bad authorities that they had to kill'. Cypriet said that he expected to receive a warm welcome from his community after his release and that he was confident that gacaca would â€?help connect us [detainees] with our neighbours again'. He expected to receive a parÂdon at gacaca because he himself did not commit crimes during the genocide.[278]
When I met Cypriet (along with Alphonse) several weeks later in the central marketplace of a village 30 kilometres south-west of Nyamata, he was much less optimistic about the release process. He claimed to have actively avoided meeting survivors in his village because â€?it is difficult to know the state of survivors' hearts'. He had also heard that many surviÂvors reacted angrily to detainees when they returned from the camps.
Cypriet did not know when he would be called before gacaca but he was not concerned about his trial because â€?gacaca will not put the blame [for genocide crimes] on anyone, because it will be like the old gacaca.' Cypriet said that the future was highly uncertain, especially because his family was very poor and their crops were not producing enough to â€?feed one more mouth', now that he had returned from prison.[279]By 2006, when I next met Cypriet, it was clear that the years had taken an immense toll on him. His face was drawn, his body gaunt and hunched over. He had moved to a new home on the outskirts of the comÂmunity, 50 metres off the main track and nestled among maize crops and banana palms. Cypriet pointed to several large gashes in the mud bricks of his house and said that two months earlier a group of genocide surviÂvors had attacked his home with hoes and pangas. He had not yet raised the money to fix the house. â€?The same thing happened when I first came back from Congo', he said. â€?People here used axes and pangas to destroy my walls. I know who they are because they shouted things at my wife as she was walking to the farm. They said I was a genocidaiτe and should be in jail.'[280]
Cypriet's experience of gacaca had been much less positive than he anticipated during our 2003 discussions. By 2006, his case had been heard at gacaca and he was awaiting his sentence. �I'm worried about gacaca', he said.
Many survivors there gave false information about me. The community mentioned many more crimes than I actually committed... At the start, the judges agreed with me that I was innocent but now they're considerÂing the new information from the survivors. I've gone to gacaca every time there has been a hearing here. I haven't missed a single hearing. The judges do good work but not all of them are wise. They do what they can but they often believe people's lies.
Cypriet said he had resigned himself to being found guilty at gacaca and that he would probably be sentenced to community service.
This worÂried him greatly as he believed he was physically too weak to build roads or houses or tend communal gardens, as many other suspects convicted at gacaca had been forced to do. â€?I may have to go to TIG', he said. â€?I'm waiting on the judges' response. If I'm told to go, I'll go. I have no choice.' He said that at gacaca he had condemned others who had comÂmitted murder during the genocide and therefore he expected leniency from the judges in exchange for his cooperation. â€?I didn't commit any crimes [during the genocide]', he said, â€?so I'm still hoping the truth will prevail. That is what I'm praying. But I think the judges will say I should be punished.'[281]A sign of Cypriet's frailty, the next two times I visited his home - in 2008 and 2009 - he was bedridden with malaria and unable to speak to me. â€?He has been like this since he came back [from prison]', his wife Agnes said. â€?We have to ask young relatives and friends to help with the farming because he is too weak.'[282] The judges in Cypriet's gacaca jurisÂdiction agreed with this assessment. Although they found him guilty of aiding the group murder of a forty-three-year-old Tutsi man during the genocide, they determined that he was physically incapable of particiÂpating in community service. One of the gacaca judges told me:
We were convinced that he had committed that one crime but not some of the others [that people were accusing him of]. This happens at gacaca - people say many things... We knew about the attacks on his house, how he had been threatened when he came back to the community. His wife also spoke about this at gacaca. We listened to everything. We decided he had already spent many years in jail and this should decrease his senÂtence. He was supposed to do TIG [as his punishment] but, as you have seen, he is very old and weak. You cannot ask an old man like that to do TIG.[283]