Human Page #2

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"Why do you kill the soldier?

"Doesn't the soldier have a family

"waiting for him, just like us?"

I say to him:

"He's wrong and we're right."

"Why, Dad?"

I say:

"He kills families and children.

"He destroys mosques.

"We defend all that."

We always try to be clear

to the children.

We tell them that we took up arms,

because we had to,

not because we wanted to.

I don't like having blood

on my hands...

or the idea that I killed someone.

Nobody likes that.

I'm not afraid of death.

I'm not afraid if it's for Syria.

I'm not afraid if it's for my father.

If he wasn't dead,

I would be afraid of death.

But I'm no longer afraid.

Even if my throat is cut

or I get blown up.

What matters is joining my father

or going back to Syria.

During the genocide...

I was separated from my parents

and I lived alone

in the sorghum fields.

I spent at least two weeks there.

Then,

someone took me.

She asked me who I was.

But as I was very little,

I couldn't distinguish

between Hutus and Tutsis.

I didn't really know.

She looked at me and started touching

my fingers, my skin.

She told me I was a Tutsi

or mixed race.

She told people to shoot me,

to eliminate me.

I asked why,

what I'd done wrong.

After that,

there was a lot of shooting.

I ran away.

All along the way,

there were corpses and blood.

Then I sat down and asked God

that His will be done.

I was lucky to survive.

I went home.

The door was smashed in.

In front, there was a hole

where a shell had fallen.

I went in

and found my father lying there.

I saw my brothers too, behind him.

My father

had opened the door to them.

He told them

there were no combatants.

They told him to step forward.

My mother and brothers were lined up.

"Join them."

As soon as he moved,

they started shooting.

He got a bullet in the back.

He fell.

They started shooting at my brothers.

At the time of the massacre,

in 1982, I was a young student.

I didn't hate anyone,

I felt no hatred.

But that massacre

made me question many things.

I asked myself:

"Who loves me? Who hates me?

"Why did this happen?"

I thought more about it

and all that brought about in me

a love of hatred,

a love of vengeance.

Man isn't born with those feelings.

They grow

over the course of your experiences.

Both love and hatred.

Would you forgive me

if I kill your father or brother?

If no law stands in my way?

If your rights are scorned?

Would you forgive me

if I'd killed your brother,

father or mother?

No, certainly not.

No way.

I will never forgive.

Even if my head is cut off.

One evening, while in the reserves,

my unit had to stop a suicide attack

by capturing a terrorist

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