Jean Damascene Ngoboka, a perpetrator of genocide in Rwanda, said he was not at peace for many years because he was haunted by his crimes committed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group.
“I experienced nightmares. I lost my sleep because of my crimes committed during the genocide. It can scare me,” Ngoboka said. Ngoboka, 45, no longer gets a good night’s sleep and moves freely around Bumbogo in Kigali’s Gasabo district, where he took part in massacres in the Tutsi ethnic community.
In the aftermath of the genocide, the Rwandan government promoted efforts to unite Rwandans, but Ngoboka said he, as the perpetrator, had a very heavy heart and was worried that survivors would harbor resentment against him. Ngoboka has fresh memories of when, in 1994, a vehicle with armed police arrived in his area in the Gasabo district allegedly chasing soldiers from the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA), the liberation warriors who stopped the genocide.
The police commander ordered all young people in the area to join after ordering that all drinking joints be closed. Ngoboka, who was around 17 at the time, recalled that several young people picked up machetes and clubs and, together with armed officers, attacked the home of an elderly woman who was only identified as Leocardia who was accused of having escaped RPA soldiers. Leocardia was killed immediately even when no rebel tracks were found in her home, allowing residents to prepare for more murders, he said.
For him, the first attack confirmed extremists’ intention to eliminate members of the Tutsi ethnic group. Meanwhile, the search for rebels and members of the Tutsi ethnic group in surrounding areas continued, he said. In the following days, RPA fighters launched an attack spreading extremists and rescuing some Tutsi targets in the area.
Fearing arrest after the July 1994 genocide, Ngoboka moved to another area of Kigali, where he remained until 1996 when he returned to his home in Gasabo. But in the village there was concern and fear of probable revenge by relatives of those he had played a role in killing. That was when he thought of the idea of surrendering to the authorities.
He was arrested and imprisoned in the Gikondo prison in Kigali for seven years. In prison, it was around the same time as the government set up traditional courts called Gacaca to try genocide cases. The prisoners became sensitive to the need to admit crimes in order to facilitate the work of the traditional courts. Ngoboka agreed to confess before a Gacaca judge and was sentenced to six years in prison after sentencing. Since he had already been in prison for seven years, he was released. After being released, he spent time remembering what happened. He gathered the courage to approach survivors to seek forgiveness.
She would greet survivors to measure their reactions when they met in community activities and the trade center.
“I could not imagine what genocide survivors thought of me. I was afraid to meet them. I was aware that they knew very well how we killed their loved ones,” he said. But as the days passed, Ngoboka gained the courage to visit the home of a survivor, Donald Kamali, whose mother he had participated in killing. He asked Kamali for forgiveness. And it was granted. He now interacts freely with survivors, who live over ethnic divisions that were manifested during the genocide. He said he regretted being involved in the massacres and found a very interesting parallel to the divisions before the genocide.
“The situation has changed. In the immediate aftermath of the genocide and after my release from prison, I could not meet survivors face to face in the village,” he said. “But today we are interacting on social functions. That was not the case.”
Through the organization, some survivors agree to lose compensation from perpetrators for their property looted or destroyed in the genocide. A large number of perpetrators are members of the same community associations, where they meet regularly to discuss issues, he said. In one case, some perpetrators in the district who received forgiveness from survivors said that they are often the first to arrive when they are invited by a survivor to a social function.
Sitting on the ground in his home in the Bumbogo area, a few kilometers from Rwanda’s capital Kigali, Kamali described how he fled his home in 1994 due to the extremist massacres. If it were not for the arrival of Rwanda’s patriotic army fighters, he would rather die than continue to hide, he said. It took some time to recover. He said that although he could not erase what happened from his memory, he agreed to go along with the perpetrators for the sake of unity and reconciliation. Kamali, 64, said Ngoboka’s decision to apologize was the right thing to do in line with the country’s reconciliation process.
“Even when Ngoboka was involved in the murder of my mother, I forgave him after he really showed remorse and confessed to the murder. I have forgiven him and many others, including those who plundered my property,” Kamali told Anadolu Agency (AA).
“We are now a people,” Ngoboka said, quoting a text message he received from a survivor who invited him to a meeting. During the genocide, Kamali was married to a Hutu wife with four children.
They separated for a month when they fled in different directions. Kamali and his children were targeted for killing extremists. He attributed his survival to the grace of God. He hid in the bushes for days until he was rescued when RPA soldiers arrived in the Gasabo district.
“Caring for resentment would not lead us to reconciliation but it could not revive my dead. Although it is not easy, we have embraced reconciliation with genocide perpetrators,” he said.
The genocide against the Tutsis began on April 7, 1994 and claimed more than 1 million lives, mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
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