Shedding light on a lesser known chapter of the Rwanda genocide

FULL STORY: From Fear to Freedom

When Beatha Kayitesi speaks, you need to lean in to listen. Her voice is soft, dignified, careful. English is not her first language and at times she struggles for the correct word or phrase. It is only when you hear her tell her story and look deeply into her eyes that you can understand the pain she has endured.

When she was 22, with nothing in hand and no shoes on her feet, Kayitesi boldly escaped a life of unrelenting discrimination and hatred.

She was born a Tutsi in Rwanda and grew up facing almost daily humiliation at the hands of the majority Hutus.

The world knows about the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when Hutu extremists exterminated more than half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a span of a mere three months.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of that dark episode, Rwanda still harbours countless untold stories of loss, deprivation and inhumanity.

Beatha’s story, From Fear to Freedom, on Global’s 16×9, sheds light on a lesser-known chapter of that nation’s tragedy. It is a living account of the years before the genocide and the attempts to which one person will go to achieve peace.

When I first contacted Beatha Kayitesi, it was actually by mistake. I was attempting to find a Rwandan woman with a similar name who had written books on the genocide. We talked for hours on the phone and I realized she had an extraordinary story to tell. She agreed to share it, but then had second thoughts and gently asked to back out. She had spoken about it before and felt that something profound was taken from her, without anything being given back.

She agreed, finally, to do the interview when I assured her that we wanted to do justice to her life’s experience and that my interest in Rwanda and in her life would continue for years to come. Our whole team felt a keen sense of responsibility and a realization that it was a privilege to have her relate such a deep and painful story.

Throughout our weekend of filming, Beatha was unfailingly respectful, patient and appreciative of how hard I and cinematographer Ryan Knight were working. For all of us, it was an education.

The complex conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes goes back generations, to the late 19th century when Belgium took over running Rwanda as a colony and set up an imposed difference between the two tribes. The Belgians thought the Tutsi to be the superior tribe and gave them higher socio-economic status than the Hutus. Then in the 1930s the Belgians issued ‘ethnic’ ID cards labelling each Rwandan as either a Hutu (85 %) Tutsi (14%) or Twa (1%); essentially administering an apartheid system.

In the early 1960’s Rwanda was granted full independence from Belgium and the majority Hutus asserted their place in society, and in the process took out their resentments on the Tutsis, many of whom lost their lands and fled to neighboring countries.

Then, in October 1990, a rebel army largely composed of Tutsi refugees (Rwandan Patriotic Front) invaded Rwanda wanting to recapture their land and status. This enraged the Hutu led government and drove fear into the Tutsi’s living in Rwanda as waves of massacres against the Tutsi’s took place.

This was a pivotal moment in Beatha’s life.

As we learn in From Fear to Freedom, she had grown up being called a cockroach by Hutu classmates, had felt the sting of prejudice every time she was asked to produce her ID card. Hutu teachers would send her out of the class when key lessons were being taught, making it impossible for her to prepare for exams.

Her mother, who had lived through past waves of violence, could see that another dangerous period was upon them in 1991. She moved Beatha to a boarding school close to home, told her to pack a suitcase and be ready to run.

When the time came, she had to flee so quickly that the suitcase was left behind. She saw a Tutsi woman being stripped and beaten on the street, then witnessed one of her brothers being knocked to the ground as she approached her home. Beatha turned and headed to “God knows where” sticking to the jungle to avoid soldiers, often seeing bodies on the road.

From Fear to Freedom begins with an unexpected image. We see Beatha swimming in a pool and hear her say that Tutsis are brought up as good swimmers. And it is not because they do it only for fun.

“Each time the war comes, the Tutsi would jump into the water because there’s no other way of escaping the Hutu” she says.

So it was for Beatha Kayitesi in 1991. After travelling night and day without food, she reached the Kagera River‚ which marks the border with Tanzania.

“I had to jump in because I had no way of going back,” she said.

“There were many bodies‚ they were being killed and thrown in the river. Some still struggling not dead yet.”

The Tutsi girl’s ability to swim brought her to the other side, to safety, and eventually to Canada.

It meant she escaped the 1994 gruesome, senseless genocide, but she was still touched deeply by it. Her father, younger brother, an uncle and his family and many friends and relatives were all victims of the slaughter.

Beatha had built a life for herself in Canada but in 2005 she felt compelled to visit her homeland.

“I wanted to see it myself, with my eyes,” she said. I was scared.”

Through the civilian based Gacaca courts – a forum for reconciliation- Beatha met one of her former neighbours, a Hutu who had participated in the killings of her family. She showed us a picture of her holding his hand‚ a stunning gesture of forgiveness towards a man who had participated in a heinous crime against her loved ones.

“The healing has to start now rather than continuing to hate each other,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

“I can forgive. But never forget.”

Watch the entire April 5, 2014 edition of Global’s 16×9