Arusha — For generations, Rwandans got to learn about Bisesero hills from geography text books in school. Bisesero lies in the east of Rwanda and is part of the famous Congo-Nile water shade. In April 1994, this serene region described by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, as "steep, undulating hills, often separated by deep valleys", went into the annals of Rwandan history - a bloody entry to be precise - just as a hundred or so other genocide sites.

Bisesero holds the unenviable label of having been one of the worst scenes of massacres during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. According to witnesses, of the 50,000 Tutsis who had taken refuge in the hills since April 7, 1994, only one thousand remained by the time French troops arrived during "Opération turquoise" at the end of June.

ICTR detainees and Bisesero

The first indictment by the ICTR referred to that region. On May 15, 2003, the ICTR passed its latest judgement in the case against the former minister of information, Eliézer Niyitegeka. It is for genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Bisesero, his home region, that he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

More than ten people have been arraigned by the tribunal for crimes committed in those hills.

According to the joint indictment against the former prefect of Kibuye, Clement Kayishema and that of Obed Ruzindana, a businessman, "the region was the target of near-daily attacks" in the period between April 9 and June 30, 1994. The two were sentenced to life and 25 years in prison respectively. The prosecution said that the attackers used firearms, grenades machetes, spears, clubs and other weapons.

The prosecution continues that the attackers were made up of gendarmes, communal policemen from Gishyita and Gisovu, armed civilians and Interahamwe, "an unofficial para-military group made up exclusively of extremist Hutus".

During the judgement of the former director of Gisovu tea factory, Alfred Musema, who was sentenced for life on January 27, 2000 for crimes committed in Bisesero, the chamber found that a large scale attack took place on Muyira hill directed against 40,000 Tutsi.

"The attacks began in the morning. Some of the attackers came to Muyira hill on foot, while others were transported aboard vehicles?". The chamber continued that "the attackers were armed with guns, rocket launchers and traditional weapons and they were chanting anti-Tutsi slogans".

Thousands of Tutsis were killed in that attack. Witnesses placed the number of attackers to "as many as the grass in the bush".

The massacres sites in Bisesero are numerous; Muyira, Murambi, Ku Cyapa, Kabatwa, Nyarutovu continued coming up during proceedings that dealt with that region. In the summary of judgement of the joint trial of Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana and that of his son, Dr. Gérard Ntakirutimana, the judges gave an example of how Pastor Ntakirutimana "had transported attackers to Murambi church and ordered that the roof be removed so that it would no longer be a refuge for Tutsi". There is no precise figure of the number of victims in that attack, but what is certain is that there were a "high" number of deaths in all places attacked. During Musema's trial, it was pointed out that over 300 Tutsis were burnt to death in Nyakavumu cave.

At the beginning, the prosecutor had intended to hold a joint trial to deal with all crimes committed in Bisesero, but later had to rethink the strategy as some of the suspects were not arrested during the same period while others were still at large. (An example is the mayors of Gishyita and Gisovu, Charles Sikubwabo and Alloys Ndimbati. Another is a former restaurant owner going by the name of Randikayo). Bisesero region lies between Gishyita and Gisovu communes.

Also on the list of those who committed crimes in Bisesero are two other former ministers: the former minister of interior, Edouard Karemera and that of finance, Emmanuel Ndindabahizi. The prosecution maintains that Karemera ordered the commander of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) in Gisenyi, Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva to send troops to Bisesero "allegedly to fight the enemy, yet the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF, a Tutsi dominated ex-rebel movement currently in power in Kigali) were not in the region. The only people in the region were Tutsi refugees who were fleeing from the massacres".

The minister was answering a call for reinforcements by Clement Kayishema, to "mop" up the region. The former prefect claimed that the word had been suggested by the local commander of the gendarmerie and that he never knew the exact significance.

Kayishema's defence counsel tried to give a positive sense to the term but failed to convince the judges who considered it to mean "cleaning up".

Ferocious resistance

The reasons given that made the Tutsis take for the hills of Bisesero have given rise to numerous interpretations. But all concur on one thing: the hills were supposed to be safe havens.

According to many defence witnesses, Tutsis were lured to take refuge in the hills by Radio Muhabura of the RPF, because they would find protection there. Nevertheless, the chambers came to the conclusion that there were no RPF fighters in the region between April and June 1994. Other witnesses, particularly those for the prosecution, said that the region's rugged terrain was seen by the refugees as of strategic advantage in resisting the attackers.

Populated in large part by Tutsis, Bisesero region was also considered by the refugees as somewhere that would be safe from attacks. In a very short time, that feeling of safety quickly evaporated. On arrival on what was to become the hills of death, the refugees first had to organise their own defence.

In its report published in 1998 entitled "Rwanda: resisting genocide. Bisesero April-June, 1998", African Rights, a London-based organisation for the defence of human rights, brought to light the defensive strategies of the refugees on Muyira hill.

According to the report, the refugees elected as their leader an inhabitant of the region, one Aminadab Birara who had helped organise similar resistance during the violence in 1959. Simeon Karamaga became his assistant.

Birara who was killed before the genocide, had taught them to meet the attackers head-on and mingle with them and force them to retreat. "When we saw them coming, I would go in front of everybody and ask them to lie down. The militia would approach us, shooting as they advanced. When they saw that we were all lying down, they would come up to us. I would ask the Abasesero (Tutsis originating from Bisesero) to get up and go amongst the militia. In this way they would not be able to throw grenades nor could they shoot us with their guns because there was a risk that they would kill their own people", narrated Simeon Karamaga to African Rights.

"Our commander Birara, would stay behind everyone to keep an eye out for those who were afraid. He would hit anyone who refused to advance. Women and children were also obliged to bring stones and clubs. Our commander would try and hide the Abasesero corpses during the fighting so that the others would not suddenly become frightened." He continued saying that the old people were with the cows at the summit of the hill.

In 1998, the Rwandan government erected a monument at Kucyapa in honour of the victims of Bisesero. During the occasion, the then president Pasteur Bizimungu praised the resistance and courage of the refugees. That resistance, always cropping up during testimonies before the tribunal, has also attracted the attention of researchers.

In his book, "La Phalène des collines" (the moth of the hills), the author, Kously Lamko, currently the director of the University Arts Centre in Butare (Southern Rwanda), declared in an interview that Bisesero held a special place in remembering genocide.

"All over the country, people were led like cows to their slaughter, having given up to death in advance. In Bisesero, they fought for nearly one month. That is what I call the 'epic of the victims'. The heroes did not come from the ranks of the attackers, but from those who perished as they fought. To me the losers were those who killed".

Though their exact numbers are not known, three months of quasi-daily attacks claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people in Bisesero, and the region still bears that scars of that human madness. But just like Murambi (Gikongoro, 35,000 victims), Nyarubuye (Kibungo, 20,000 victims) Ntarama. (Kigal rural, 5,000 victims) and other massacre sites in Rwanda, the people of Bisesero are together trying to stitch back the social fabrics.

The biggest challenge lies in the rehabilitation of those who committed the crimes. The mechanisms for finding a solution for this will only be triggered off by the semi-traditional Gacaca courts. Herein depends, in great part, national reconciliation.