Tweet
worth a read.
Not So Innocent
by Aïcha el Basri, 2004-01-19
The trial of one of the women accused of genocide and crimes against humanity in Rwanda has been taking place in Arusha, Tanzania, in total indifference since 2001. And yet, Pauline Nyiramasuhu is not anybody. At the time of the genocide that claimed the lives of 800,000, mostly Tutsis, she was the Minister for family-well-being and the promotion of women.
At all times, and especially in times of war, women, their bodies and souls, become a place of vengeance; a battlefield between enemy camps. Mass rape of women has paved the path of human history, from ancient times up to the present.
It is not surprising that the 20th century is no exception to this rule. It is enough to remember the 200,000 Asiatic women who were deported in 1937 from Taiwan, Korea and China in order to ensure “the comfort” of the Japanese army. Or, recall the thousands of German women raped by the Russians. The Vietnamese women who were raped by the Americans. The Algerian women who were raped by the French. Or, later, the Bosnian women who were raped by the Serbs.
For a long time, international law considered these rapes, however frequent or massive they were, as either an attack on women’s honor, or simply unfortunate conduct on the part of poorly behaved soldiers. It was not until 1946 that a law passed by the Allies in the aftermath of World War II defined rape as a crime against humanity.
More than fifty years later, a court with international jurisdiction, in this case the International War Crimes Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR), recognized for the first time that rape was a “crime against humanity.” It could not be otherwise because the rape of about 250,000 women accompanied the horror of the genocide that cost the lives of three-quarters of the Tutsi population.
This victory for international justice was nonetheless tarnished by the fact that among the accused who appeared before the ICTR, there was a woman, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko: the ex-Minister for family well-being and the promotion of Women. Eleven counts have been charged against this woman, among which are genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Since June of 2001, several witnesses, principally Tutsis who escaped from the Rwandan genocide, have appeared before the ICTR accusing the former Minister.
In his admissions of genocide, the Hutu ex-Prime Minister, Jean Kambanda, identified Pauline as one of the five members of his privy council, in which the genocide plans were drawn up. It all happened in the spring of 1994 in Butare, the town that held the greatest concentration of Tutsis in Rwanda. Following the revolt that the Tutsis raised against the Hutus, who were armed to the teeth, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was sent back to her native city to execute a genocidal mission.
Pauline’s Genocidal Mission
Peter Landsman, who led the investigation for the New York Times, reports that, “Soon after Pauline's arrival in town, cars mounted with loudspeakers crisscrossed Butare's back roads, announcing that the Red Cross had arrived at a nearby stadium to provide food and guarantee sanctuary. By April 25, thousands of desperate Tutsis had gathered at the stadium. It was a trap. Instead of receiving food and shelter, the refugees were surrounded by men wearing bandoleers and headdresses made of spiky banana leaves. These men were Interahamwe, thuggish Hutu marauders whose name means ‘those who attack together.’”
“According to an eyewitness I spoke with this summer in Butare,” Landsman adds, “Supervising from the sidelines was Pauline, then 48, a portly woman of medium height in a colorful African wrap and spectacles […] a 30-year-old farmer named Foster Mivumbi […] who has confessed to taking part in the slaughter, told me that Pauline goaded the Interahamwe, commanding, ’Before you kill the women, you need to rape them.’ Tutsi women were then selected from the stadium crowd and dragged away to a forested area to be raped, Mivumbi recalled.
Back at the stadium, he told me, Pauline waved her arms and then observed in silence as Interahamwe rained machine-gun fire and hand grenades down upon the remaining refugees. The Hutus finished off survivors with machetes. It took about an hour, ending at noon. Pauline stayed on, Mivumbi told me, until a bulldozer began piling bodies for burial in a nearby pit.”
As compelling as these accounts are, Pauline was obstinate in pleading her innocence. In 1995, before her arrest, she granted an interview to a journalist from the BBC in which she affirmed, “I cannot even kill a chicken. If there is a person who says that a woman— a mother—killed, then I'll confront that person.” Will she confront about one hundred prosecution witnesses whom the court has called to testify, and the thousands of escapees from genocide who did not have the courage to testify? Will she find in her motherhood the ultimate refuge to prove her “presumed innocence?” Only history will tell.
A Woman Who Was Just as Bad as Men
For the moment, Pauline’s trial is taking place amidst the same international indifference that prevailed during the Rwandan genocide. And when the New York Times magazine gave first-page coverage to the enquiry into the first woman accused of genocide, the response from Michele Landsberg was not long in coming. This Canadian feminist took the magazine to task for having singled out Pauline, whose only fault was to have been a woman who was just as bad as men or even worse.
This reaction of denial that finds these truths too unbearable to speak, masks a profound discomfort with the fact that Pauline was not just any woman. She was the Minister in charge of ensuring the well-being of the family and improving the condition of women. What is more, she was educated. In 1992, she was one of the very few women who were enrolled in law school in Rwanda. She was a woman who, it is claimed, authorized her son Shalom to rape as many Tutsi women as he wanted, the very same women she was supposed to be helping and protecting.
The silence that surrounds this case is explained by the fact that there are no extenuating circumstances to the crimes of which this woman is accused. In this regard, we must recall that in the heart of Europe, Biljana Plavsic, the former Bosnian Serb President, is serving eleven years in prison. Plavsic was convicted of having planned, ordered, incited and executed acts of persecution and inhuman treatment, among which are torture, transfers, deportations and sexual assaults on Croats and Muslims in Bosnia. Barbarity has no color and submits to no gender rule.
Should one be surprised that women were not merely the victims of genocide in Rwanda? There were many women who, like Pauline, apparently participated in it, against men, but also against women. This phenomenon was sufficiently widespread for African Rights to publish in 1995 a detailed report on the question. According to this report, some 1,200 women from all layers of Rwanda’s Hutu society were sent to prison in Rwanda for apparently having taken part in the genocide and in crimes of a sexual nature. It adds that certain Hutu women captured Tutsi women and asked that they be raped in front of them. In other cases, they used pointed sticks and other instruments to commit rapes themselves. The report is chock-full of examples of unbridled violence against Tutsi women perpetrated by Hutu women.
These rapes and acts of violence perpetrated by some women against others are, to say the least, devastating. They devastate the idea that we usually have of women as beings full of pity and compassion, innocent victims of patriarchy. When rape, the highest level of violence, is committed or encouraged by women, our entire system of societal notions is shaken. Have we not always maintained that rape was a crime stemming from a patriarchy that feeds off misogyny, a monstrous and cruel male need? What can we say then about rape and violence committed by women?
The Rwandan women rapists raise the problem of misogyny with a feminine name, of the role women play in violence against women. If this phenomenon needs to be confirmed, all we have to do is think about the incisions and other genital mutilations that are practiced in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and North America. If this tradition has been perpetuated for some 2000 years, it is essentially because women have ferociously defended it and practiced it on other women. In order to put an end to acts of violence against women, men and children, we must begin by admitting that women are not so innocent.
sexual jealousy?
Not So Innocent
by Aïcha el Basri, 2004-01-19
The trial of one of the women accused of genocide and crimes against humanity in Rwanda has been taking place in Arusha, Tanzania, in total indifference since 2001. And yet, Pauline Nyiramasuhu is not anybody. At the time of the genocide that claimed the lives of 800,000, mostly Tutsis, she was the Minister for family-well-being and the promotion of women.
At all times, and especially in times of war, women, their bodies and souls, become a place of vengeance; a battlefield between enemy camps. Mass rape of women has paved the path of human history, from ancient times up to the present.
It is not surprising that the 20th century is no exception to this rule. It is enough to remember the 200,000 Asiatic women who were deported in 1937 from Taiwan, Korea and China in order to ensure “the comfort” of the Japanese army. Or, recall the thousands of German women raped by the Russians. The Vietnamese women who were raped by the Americans. The Algerian women who were raped by the French. Or, later, the Bosnian women who were raped by the Serbs.
For a long time, international law considered these rapes, however frequent or massive they were, as either an attack on women’s honor, or simply unfortunate conduct on the part of poorly behaved soldiers. It was not until 1946 that a law passed by the Allies in the aftermath of World War II defined rape as a crime against humanity.
More than fifty years later, a court with international jurisdiction, in this case the International War Crimes Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR), recognized for the first time that rape was a “crime against humanity.” It could not be otherwise because the rape of about 250,000 women accompanied the horror of the genocide that cost the lives of three-quarters of the Tutsi population.
This victory for international justice was nonetheless tarnished by the fact that among the accused who appeared before the ICTR, there was a woman, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko: the ex-Minister for family well-being and the promotion of Women. Eleven counts have been charged against this woman, among which are genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Since June of 2001, several witnesses, principally Tutsis who escaped from the Rwandan genocide, have appeared before the ICTR accusing the former Minister.
In his admissions of genocide, the Hutu ex-Prime Minister, Jean Kambanda, identified Pauline as one of the five members of his privy council, in which the genocide plans were drawn up. It all happened in the spring of 1994 in Butare, the town that held the greatest concentration of Tutsis in Rwanda. Following the revolt that the Tutsis raised against the Hutus, who were armed to the teeth, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was sent back to her native city to execute a genocidal mission.
Pauline’s Genocidal Mission
Peter Landsman, who led the investigation for the New York Times, reports that, “Soon after Pauline's arrival in town, cars mounted with loudspeakers crisscrossed Butare's back roads, announcing that the Red Cross had arrived at a nearby stadium to provide food and guarantee sanctuary. By April 25, thousands of desperate Tutsis had gathered at the stadium. It was a trap. Instead of receiving food and shelter, the refugees were surrounded by men wearing bandoleers and headdresses made of spiky banana leaves. These men were Interahamwe, thuggish Hutu marauders whose name means ‘those who attack together.’”
“According to an eyewitness I spoke with this summer in Butare,” Landsman adds, “Supervising from the sidelines was Pauline, then 48, a portly woman of medium height in a colorful African wrap and spectacles […] a 30-year-old farmer named Foster Mivumbi […] who has confessed to taking part in the slaughter, told me that Pauline goaded the Interahamwe, commanding, ’Before you kill the women, you need to rape them.’ Tutsi women were then selected from the stadium crowd and dragged away to a forested area to be raped, Mivumbi recalled.
Back at the stadium, he told me, Pauline waved her arms and then observed in silence as Interahamwe rained machine-gun fire and hand grenades down upon the remaining refugees. The Hutus finished off survivors with machetes. It took about an hour, ending at noon. Pauline stayed on, Mivumbi told me, until a bulldozer began piling bodies for burial in a nearby pit.”
As compelling as these accounts are, Pauline was obstinate in pleading her innocence. In 1995, before her arrest, she granted an interview to a journalist from the BBC in which she affirmed, “I cannot even kill a chicken. If there is a person who says that a woman— a mother—killed, then I'll confront that person.” Will she confront about one hundred prosecution witnesses whom the court has called to testify, and the thousands of escapees from genocide who did not have the courage to testify? Will she find in her motherhood the ultimate refuge to prove her “presumed innocence?” Only history will tell.
A Woman Who Was Just as Bad as Men
For the moment, Pauline’s trial is taking place amidst the same international indifference that prevailed during the Rwandan genocide. And when the New York Times magazine gave first-page coverage to the enquiry into the first woman accused of genocide, the response from Michele Landsberg was not long in coming. This Canadian feminist took the magazine to task for having singled out Pauline, whose only fault was to have been a woman who was just as bad as men or even worse.
This reaction of denial that finds these truths too unbearable to speak, masks a profound discomfort with the fact that Pauline was not just any woman. She was the Minister in charge of ensuring the well-being of the family and improving the condition of women. What is more, she was educated. In 1992, she was one of the very few women who were enrolled in law school in Rwanda. She was a woman who, it is claimed, authorized her son Shalom to rape as many Tutsi women as he wanted, the very same women she was supposed to be helping and protecting.
The silence that surrounds this case is explained by the fact that there are no extenuating circumstances to the crimes of which this woman is accused. In this regard, we must recall that in the heart of Europe, Biljana Plavsic, the former Bosnian Serb President, is serving eleven years in prison. Plavsic was convicted of having planned, ordered, incited and executed acts of persecution and inhuman treatment, among which are torture, transfers, deportations and sexual assaults on Croats and Muslims in Bosnia. Barbarity has no color and submits to no gender rule.
Should one be surprised that women were not merely the victims of genocide in Rwanda? There were many women who, like Pauline, apparently participated in it, against men, but also against women. This phenomenon was sufficiently widespread for African Rights to publish in 1995 a detailed report on the question. According to this report, some 1,200 women from all layers of Rwanda’s Hutu society were sent to prison in Rwanda for apparently having taken part in the genocide and in crimes of a sexual nature. It adds that certain Hutu women captured Tutsi women and asked that they be raped in front of them. In other cases, they used pointed sticks and other instruments to commit rapes themselves. The report is chock-full of examples of unbridled violence against Tutsi women perpetrated by Hutu women.
These rapes and acts of violence perpetrated by some women against others are, to say the least, devastating. They devastate the idea that we usually have of women as beings full of pity and compassion, innocent victims of patriarchy. When rape, the highest level of violence, is committed or encouraged by women, our entire system of societal notions is shaken. Have we not always maintained that rape was a crime stemming from a patriarchy that feeds off misogyny, a monstrous and cruel male need? What can we say then about rape and violence committed by women?
The Rwandan women rapists raise the problem of misogyny with a feminine name, of the role women play in violence against women. If this phenomenon needs to be confirmed, all we have to do is think about the incisions and other genital mutilations that are practiced in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and North America. If this tradition has been perpetuated for some 2000 years, it is essentially because women have ferociously defended it and practiced it on other women. In order to put an end to acts of violence against women, men and children, we must begin by admitting that women are not so innocent.
sexual jealousy?
Comment