La litanie des questions / The litany of questions

Translation from the French into the English

Melody : Jean-Marie Muyango

Text : Marie-France Collard, Jean-Marie Muyango, Dorcy Rugamba

Music : Garrett List

The Chorus of the Death returns to the stage, two Rwandan women take Bee Bee Bee by the arm and seat her gently but firmly on a chair facing the audience. The Chorus stands behind her in a row, Jean-Marie Muyango begins to sing.

A. RTLM (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines)

Murabyumve muli menge / Mubirebe mubikenga / Ibyo Byuma byamamaza amakuru / Byandun´i mikima, ubwenge / Bukayoba

Intaati y´impyisi yiyabiza maka / Tuli mu ndili yazo / Yemwe muramenye

Ni nde uzibagirwa RTLM / Yahamagaye za ntavumera / Ikazibutsa kwica n´impinja / Ngo izo mwumva zibika ejobundi / zali amagi

Listen to them, be on your guard / Look at them, but beware of them / These machines which spread information / They infect our hearts / And pollute our minds

A cunning hyena starts to bellow like a cow / We are in their lair / Please be on your guard

Who will forget RTLM / Which brought these bloodthirsty men together in a mob / Telling them not to forget to kill even infants / The cocks that crow today were but chicks yesterday / These were their words

1.

But do they know? / And will they say it?

2.

Will they say that / Shingiro, son of Mbonymutwa / leader of MDR power / the Hutu extremist party / declared on RTLM / “Do not forget that even Rwigema (Leader of the Rwandian Patriotic Front) left the country / on his mother” s back

Will they say that for us / Rwandans / this means: / “Today, we face problems / because we let the / children live in 59”

3.

Will they say that / Shingiro / who is presumed reponsible for / genocide / lives freely in Belgium?

4.

Will they speak of / the man from Liège / Georges Ruggiu?

5.

Will they say that he lent his / voice to RTLM, calling the / Bahutu to hunt down the / batutsi, the Bahutu traitors and / the Belgian soldiers?

6.

Will they say that the RTLM / continued to broadcast messages / of hate during the genocide / from the so-called humanitarian / French Turquoise zone?

7.

Will they spaek / of Leon Mugesera´s speech / on 22^nd November 92?

8.

Will they say that he asked / the bahurtu to send back the / Batutsi to Ethiopia / by the shortest route / the Nyabarongo river / because as they said / “they must allbe liquidated”

9.

Will they speak of Colonel / Bagosora sent on 2^nd / Dezember 92 to Arusha / to destroy the peace agreements / who declared / “ I´am returning to Kigali to / prepare the apocalypse”?

10.

Will they speak of the sixth issue / of the Kangura newspaper / published in December 90 / proposing a new racist bible / the Ten Commandments of the / Bahutu?

11.

Will they speak of the Eigth / Commandment of the Bahutu / “Every Muhutu must stop pitying / the Battutsi”?

12.

Will they say that the cover / of the sixth issue of Kangura / carried a photo of Mitterand, / saying “It is when times are bad / that you discover / your true friends”?

13.

Will they speak of the genocide / of the Bagogwe / the Batutsi of the northern / mountains in the prefectures / of Ruhengeri and Gisenyi / in January and February 91 / and in February 92?

14.

Will they say that / no one was worried / following these massacres?

15.

Will they spaek of the fax / sent by General Dallaire / to the UN on 11^th January 94 / which did not receive a reply?

16.

Will they say that he asked / for the protection of an informer / “Jean-Pierre an important / politician, member of the / government”?

17.

Will they say that Jean-Pierre / confided to General Dallaire / that the Interhamwe had drawn / up lists of all the Batutsi of / Kingali with the presumed aim of / exterminating them?

18.

Will thex say that Jean-Pierre / added / “my personnel – the / Interahamwe - / can kill up to 1000 Batutsi in 20 / minutes”?

19.

Will they say that the Belgian / secret service / had received the same / information?

B. The UN

Murabyumve muli menge / mubirebe mubikenga / Ibyo byuma byamamaza amakuru / Byandun´I mikima, ubwenge / bukayoba / Intaati y´impyisi yiyabiza maka / Tuli mu ndili yazo / Yemwe muramenye

Loni Yahagakikiye abishi / Itabara abanyamahanga / Badusiga twali inshuti zabo / Inkota isigara yikubanga / Bashorera imbwa barataha

Listen to them, be on your guard / Look at them, but beware of / them / These machines which spread / Information / They infect our hearts / And pollute our minds

A cunning hyena starts to bellow / like a cow / We are in their lair / Please be on your guard

The UN supervised the killers / and rescued the expatriates / The latter abandoned us / although we w3ere friends / The sword fell all the harder / They fled taking their dogs with / them

1.

Will they say the first contracts / by the Habyarimana government / buying arms from Egypt / were signed by Foreign Minister / Boutros Boutros Ghali? / Will they say these arms / purchases were underwritten by / the Credit Lyonnais?

2.

Will they say that arms / continued to be delivered / throughout the genocide / from Goma, and in the Turquoise / zone? / Will they say that the Turquoise/ zone allowed those carrying out / the genocidee withdraw to / Zaire?

3.

Will they say that Francois / Léotard the French Defence / Minister when visiting the / Nyarushishi camp in June 94 / shook hands with the prefect of / Kibuya Clement Kayishema / the chief organiser of genocide / in the region?

4.

Will they mention / the damning testomony in / Janvier Afrika / on the role of French soldiers / in the training of the / Intrahamwe militia?

5.

Will they say that the following the / massacrte of ten Belgian / paratroopers, Belgium withdrew / its contingent from the Minuar / although it was the best- / equipped and the most efficient?

6.

Will they say that the Belgian / Foreign Minister Willy claes / declared he had put pressure / on the UN to withdraw / completely the Minuari?

7.

Will they say that on 6^th April / 1994 there were 2500 UN forces / in Rwanda and that by the 21^st April / there were no more than 270? Will they say that they / supposedly couldn´t / use force?

8.

Will they say that the UN / mandate did allow them to / protect the civilian population / and that they did nothing?

9.

Will they say that there wasn´t a / penny to stop the genocide / while billions werer instantly / available for cholera victims / in the camps in Zaire? / Will they say that the interim / gouvernment responsible for the / genocide was nonetheless / received by the UN on / 18^th May 94?

10.

Will they say that the first / Humanitarian task of French and / Belgian soldiers was to evacuate / the White nationals / abandoning hundreds of / Rwandans their friends, / neighbours, employees / to the massacres? / Will they say that the Americans / opened a bureau in Nairobi / to receive the cats and dogs of / White expatriates?

11.

Will they speak about a French / aircraft which on 9^th April / without the knowledge of / journalists evacuated high / dignitaries of the genocidal / regime among them Agathe / Habyarimana and her brothers?

C. 1959

Murabyumve muli menge / Mubirebe mubikenga / Ibyo byuma byamamaza amakuru / Byandun´I mikima, ubwenge / bukayoba

Intaati y´impyisi yiyabiza maka / Tuli ndili yazo / Yemwe muramenye

Reka mbibutse itanu n´icyenda / Nibwo icyorezo cyadutse iwacu / Inkongi n´inkota birahoga / Bamenesha abana b´u Rwanda / Abasigaye batsembwa na tsé-tsé.

Listen to them, be on your guard / Look at them, but beware of / them / These machines which spread / information / They infect your hearts / And pollute your minds

A cunning hyena starts to bellow / like a cow / We are in their lair / Please be on your guard

Allow me to remind you of 1959 / When the pogroms began in our / country. / Fire and iron came onto the / scene / The children of Rwanda were / hunted / And the survivors decimated by / the tse-tse fly.

1.

Let them not forget to sday / that we Rwandans / were the first refugees in Africa

Let them not forget to say / that in reply to our repeated / requests / to return to Rwanda / Habyarimana replied each time / “No, you may not, the country is / too small, too pour and too / overpopulated.”

2.

Will they say that 59 was mainly / the revolt of the Hutu elite / against the Tutsi elite? / Will they speak / of the turn of the Church / in the 50s / braeking the alliance / with the Batusti chiefs / and taking sides with the Hudu/ ethnic cause?

3.

Let them not forget to say / that Monsieur Perraudin / was its chief instigator

Let them not forget to say / that this self-seeking turnabout / of the Church and the Belgian / trusteeship / signed our death warrant.

4.

Will they say that / the bleak future of the country / began on 17^th November 1959 / based on Belgian Colonel Guy / Logiest´s decision / to support only the Hutu ethnic / cause?

Together:

He entered Rwanda on the / 11^th of November / He knew nothing about the / country / He had read one book about it

5.

Will they say / The alliance between the machete and the incense-holder / dates from his epoch?

6.

Will they say that 30 years / before the genocide / Gregoire Kayibanda / President of the first republic / already referred to / the total extermination of the / Batutsi?

D. The Colonials

Murabyumve muli menge / Mubirebe mubikenga / Ibyo byuma byamamaza amakuru / Byandun´I mikima, ubwenge / bukayoba / Intaati y´imyisi yiyabiza maka / Tuli mu ndili yazo / Yemwe muramenye

Ngo abakoloni bajya guca ibintu / Batwadukanyemo amabuku / Umuhutu bamwita umuhinzi / Umutunzi akaba umututsi /Aho kwitwa bene kanyarwanda

Listen to them, be on your guard / Look at them, but beware of / them

These machines which spread / Information / They infect our hearts / And pollute our minds

A cunning hyena starts to bellow / like a cow / We are in their lair / Please be on your guard

To divide us, the colonials / introduced identity cards / The Muhutu for the farmer / The stockbreeder became / Mututsi / Instead of all being called sons / of Kanyarwanda

1.

Let them not forget to say / that of / my fathers´s five brothers / three were called Batutsi / because they owned / more than 10 cows / and two, Bahutu / because they owned / less than 10?

Let them not forget to say / that for them the batutsi were

1.

the descendants of Cham / of Noah / Tibetans / Ethiopians / a race of lords / the Hamitic race / the jews of Africa

the Mututsi was:

1.

noble / invader / feudal / stock-breeder / aristocrat / lord / oppressor / tall / handsome / intelligent / cunning / foreigner / lazy / born to command / liar / against the Whites / communist

the Muhutu was:

1.

Bantu / commoner / indigenous / serf / farmer / peasant / slave / oppresed / little nigger / crude / simple / docile / available / authentic / native / friend of the White man / Good Christian

The Mutwas was:

2.

a monkey / a pygmy / with a heavy soul / a negligeable quantity / a cheat / ferocious / dirty

1.

Let them not forget to say that / we were above all / Banyarwanda

(together)

we spoke the same language / we worshipped the same god / we shared the same culture

2.

Will they say that our identity / was first that of our clan / of our lineage / of our region / of our army corps?

3.

Will they speak of the 17 clans / of Rwanda, which included / Bahutu, Batutsi and Batwa / without distinction?

4.

Let them not forget to say / that it was the Belgian / trusteeship which introduced the / idntity card mentioning the / ethnic group in 1931

5.

Will they say that we had no / word to say “ethnic group” / and that they used the word / ubwoko meaning “clan”?

6.

Will they speak of lineages / of the godfathers of Kubandwa / of Bahutsu who became Battutsi / of Battutsi who becam e Bahutu / of the many marriagees / between Battutsi and Bahutu?

7.

Will they speak of Abasyete / the Batutsi clan / of Twa origin?

8.

Let them not forget to say / that before colonisation / each Rwandan on his hill / was answerable to three / authorities – the chief of lands , / the chief of pastures, the chief / of the army and that he could / have access to the King himself

9.

Let them not forget to read / the letter that Monsieur Leon / Classe of the Congregation of / White Fathers / wrote to the Belgian / administrator Voisin

10.

“the greatest harm that the / government could do / to itself would be to suppress / the Mututsi class

11.

A revolution of this kind would / lead the entire country into / anarchy and into a bitterly anti- / European communism.

12.

As a general rule, we would not / have better nor more active / chiefs, capable of understanding / progress, and even more so, / accepted by the peoble than the / Batutsi who have a true sense of / leadership and real political tact.”

13.

Let them not forget to say / that they brought with them / their disputes and their wars / Walloons against Flemish / Catholics against Protestants and / Muslims Belgians and English / against the Germans and that / many of us died in the wars of / the Whites.

14.

And even if they don´t forget to / speak of it how could they say / the burning of the whip / the burden of forced labour / the bite of hunger

(together)

it wasn´t their flesh that was / bruised / it wasn´t their blood which / flowed and dried / it wasn´t their children who / perished

E. Precolonial Rwanda

Murabyumve muli menge / Mubirebe mubikenga / Ibyo Byuma byamamaza amakuru / Byandun´I mikima, ubwenge / bukayoba

Intaati y´impyisi yiyabiza maka / Tuli mu ndili yazo / Yemwe muramenye

Mubarize abakunda kuvuga u / Rwanda / Niba bibuka umwami / wimitse / Kalinga / Igsiumzi cyarutsindyie abanzi / Ni Ruganzu rugambilira / abahunde

Listen to them, beon your guard / Look at them, but beware of / them These machines which / spread information / They infect our hearts / And pollute our minds

A cunning hyena starts bellow / like a cow / We are in their lair / Please be on your guard

On my behalf ask those who / speak of Rwanda / If they remember the king who / enthroned the emblem drum Kalinga / Igisumizi who won back the / country from enemies / It was Ruganzu, the / swashbuckling hero of Bafunds

1.

Will they speak of the noble king / Gahindiro who decreed that / one could not refuse milk / to anyone who asked for it / in any home?

2.

Will they speak of all that was / banned by the Church and the / colonial administration and was / for us a guaranty for peace and / unity / the ritual of Kubandwa / the cult of Ryangombe , and the / insults of his son Binego / the tradition of the blood pact, / Kunywana / our cult of the ancestors, / Guterekera / our divination practices, / Kuraguza?

8.

Will they say that if our history / like that of any nation, is not / without / wars of conquest of palace / intrigues / never in living memomry / before the colonisation of / Rwanda / was there any ethnic conflict / between the Battutsi and the / Bahutu?

F. Church

Murabyumve muli menge / Mubirebe mubikenga / Ibyo byuma byamamaza amakuru / Byandun´I mikima, ubwenge / bukayoba

Intaati y´impyisi yiyyabiza maka / Tuli mu ndili yazo / Yemwe muramenye

Ese bazi ko Kiliziya yakuye / kirazira / Musinga yari yabikenze / Abapadiri bamuta I shyanga / Badukura ku mana y´I Rwanda / Dusigura dusenga alitari

Listen to them, be on your guard / Look at them, but beware of / them

These machines which spread / information / They infect our hearts / And pollute our minds

A cuning hyena stats of bellow / like a cow / We are in their lair / Please be on your guard

Do they know that the Church / has lifted all the bans? / Musiga had a premonition / the White fathers would exile / him / they force us to renounce / Rwanda´s God / To pray at their one and only / altar

1.

Will they speak of Father Alvoet / who declared

“History began for us in 1959, / everything that went before was / Battutsi culture. I lived painfully / through the revolt of the Bahutu / since there were corpses, but / deep down I was happy…”

2.

“I buried the first Batutsi chiefs / at Gitarama, twhile the Bahutu / pranced with machetes, crying: / “they must return to Abyssinia”; / they did not mind us burying / these people, / they simply said to us: “come / back tomorrow, we will have / more.”

3.

Will they say that the baptism / certificate / was compulsory / to admit children / to school / to have a career in the army?

4.

Will they speak of the Belgian / scholarly disputes imported / directly into our church pulpits.

5.

Will they say how they forbade / us to register our children / in lay schools / under threat of / excommunication?

6.

Will they say that we had to / raise our hands in primary school / so they could separate the / Bahutu drom the Batutsi / and that we were ashamed to be / Batutsi?

7.

Will they say that even today / the landed property of the / Church is 13% of the national / territory while we do not have / enough land to feed all / the families of Rwanda?

Will they say that Rwanda / was called the country of a / thousand development workers?

Will they say that Rwanda is one / of the poorest countries in the / world?

8.

Will they speak of the influence / of the ICD, the international / Christian Democrats? / Will they say that Juvenal / Habyarimana was member of / the Charismatic Renewal / an important personality in Opus / Dei?

9.

Will they speak of the help given / by Father Pristil Greindl / in the translation into / kinyarwanda of Hitler´s Mein / Kampf for the Hutu extremist / Martin Bucyana, president of the / CDR?

10.

Will they speak of Father / Wenceslas priest at the Sainte / Familie?

11.

He handed over his parishioners / and those who sought refuge / in his church to the Interhamwe / he raped women and young girls

12.

In talking about the Batutsi who / were already massacred and in / announcing to us the day of our / doom, Father Wenceslas told us / “The body of our Father / Habyarimana is already covered / by a carpet and on the 5^th July, he / will be even happier.”

13.

Father Wenceslas lives in France / he is a priest in a parish / where he says mass every / Sunday

14.

Let them not forget to say / that Christians have killed other / Christians in churches and / chapels and in front of altars

15.

Let them not forget to say / that some bishops remained / silent and some of them / handed over members / of their own clergy

16.

Let them not forget to say / that some nuns denounced, / handed over requisitioned petrol / and matches and that some lit / the fires themselves

17.

Will they say that two of them / Sister Gertrude and Sister Kizito / Benedictine nuns at Sovu / presumed responsible for / genocide / found refuge at the Maredret / Convent in Belgium / after sending 7000 persons / to their deaths

18.

Let them not forget to say / Here is the result of Rwanda´s / Christianisation! / Here are the teachings of a / theocratic Church!

G. Mourning

Murabyumve muli menge / Mubirebe mubikenga / Ibyo byuma byamaza amakuru / Byandun´I mikima, ubwenge / bukayoba

Intaati y´impyisi yiyabiza maka / Tuli mu ndili yazo / Yemwe muramenye

Nitiwashyinguwe nk´uko / bisanzwe / Baratemmaguye bata mu myobo / Imirambo mu gihugu cyose

Imbwa n´inkona biradushoka / Amagufa zanika ku gahinga

Listen to them, be on your guard / Look at them, but beware of / them

These machines which spread / information / They infect our hearts / And pollute our minds

A cunning hyena starts to bellow / like a cow / We are in their lair / Please be on your guard

We had no funerals / as is the custom / We were cut up and thrown / into common graves / Our corpses were scattered / throughout the country / Dogs and vultures devoured / them / Then left the bones to bleach in / the sun

1.

He who seeks the truth speaks / shadows / He who seeks justice accepts no / pardon.

2.

So many deaths, so much grief, / so many families exterminated / and we are supposed to forget? / It´s true the fire is out / but for how long? / the fire is out, true / but not the fear / and what about the fire within?

3.

The path of reconciliation / does not lead to forgetting / May our bones be picked from / the marshes / from the hillsides and from the / common graves / May our names be written on a / cross

4.

We are these millions of cries / suspended / above the hills of Rwanda. / We are this cloud of accusation / We expect reparations from you / For us, the dead / and for all those who survived / For all Rwandans / and for all men on earth

5.

Through us, / humanity looks sadly at you / What are you waiting for? / We are not a peace / We are not a peace / We are not a peace / We are not a peace

He who seeks the truth speaks / shadows / He who seeks justice accepts no / pardon.