The Anthropology Of Genocide - WNLibrary

the rwandan genocide of 1994 165
from other countries in UNHCR camps, had given instructions to immigration
personnel to refuse entry visas to all Rwandans. Having been deposited in Nairobi
by Belgian or U.N. evacuation planes, the Rwandans found themselves with
nowhere to go and nowhere to return. As my fiancée and I were also denied entry
visas for several hours until we received help from the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, we
had ample time to talk to the stranded Rwandans. Virtually all of them had lost
numerous family members, or spouses, lovers, and friends. All were suffering from
their confinement at Nairobi airport. Unable to bathe, shower, or change clothes,
all looked haggard and unkempt. Their only permitted amenity was sleeping at
night in tents put up by the UNHCR just outside the terminal building. We were
also surprised to learn that most of them also complained of constipation.
In effect, the Rwandans were somaticizing their ordeal. Having narrowly escaped
death, the refugees now found themselves at the end of whatever affective,
familial, and economic life they had led in Rwanda and at the beginning of a new
life as yet undefined in terms of where they would live or what they would do. None
at the time had much confidence that the situation in Rwanda would be quickly resolved.
Most were resigned to the probability that they would never return to
Rwanda and that all the other members of their family were dead. In virtually all
ways that one can envision human existence, whether in social or psychological
terms, the lives of these refugees had reached an impasse. Coupled with this state
of suspended animation was the fact that the Rwandans were virtual captives at
the Nairobi airport, anxiously awaiting the results of delicate negotiations between
the UNHCR and the Kenyan government. It was thus appropriate that their bodies
express these various modes of obstruction through symptoms that made sense
in terms of Rwandan cultural experience.
The image of the body as conduit was not discernible only in modes of somaticizing
psychological distress on the part of victims; it could also be seen in the techniques
of cruelty used by the perpetrators of violence. Perhaps the most vivid example
of this during the genocide was the practice of impalement. Recalling Liisa
Malkki’s observation concerning the 1972 violence against Hutu in Burundi, Rwandan
Tutsi men in 1994 were also impaled from anus to mouth with wooden or bamboo
poles and metal spears. Tutsi women were often impaled from vagina to mouth.
Although none of the refugees that I interviewed in Nairobi spoke of having witnessed
impalement, it was reported in Kenyan newspapers that I read during the
summer of 1994. More recently it has been cited in an African Rights report entitled
“Rwanda: Killing the Evidence” as a means by which perpetrators of the genocide
still living on Rwandan soil terrorize surviving witnesses (Omaar and de Waal 1996).
For example, the report cites the case of a certain Makasi, a resident of the Kicukiro
suburb of Kigali, who, several months after the genocide, found a leaflet shoved under
his door threatening his life and that of several others: “You, Makasi are going
to die no matter what. And it will not only be you. It will be Bylingiro as well. Let
your wife know that she will be killed with a pole which will run from her legs right
up to her mouth. As for Charles’ wife, her legs and arms will be cut off ” (ibid.:15).