Rwandan returns to find new hope

The BBC's Zoe Murphy meets a Rwandan genocide survivor, whose emotional personal film of his return home shows for the first time in the UK.

JB says forgiveness is a process - a work in progress

Jean-Bernard Rutagarama is a tall and lean man.

He is the son of a Hutu extremist, but has his mother's "classical" Tutsi traits - once a death sentence in the central African country of Rwanda.

In 1994, Rwanda was the scene of one of the worst atrocities in recent history, when some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by Hutu militias.

During the 100-day genocide people were buried alive, shot, or hacked to death with machetes.

JB, as he prefers to be called, was just a boy when he fled the country with the help of two Western journalists.

Years after the killing had ended, he returned to face the horrors of his past armed with a video camera. The result was the first film by a genocide survivor, called Back Home.

Unique perspective

In a very personal style, JB recalls the horror that gripped his country. Yet he also discovers joy, hope and reconciliation on a personal and national level.

On 6 April 1994 the plane carrying Rwanda's Hutu President, Juvenal Habyirimana, was shot down flying into the capital.

I never thought I would be able to hug her again and then I did - it was one of the greatest moments of my life JB Rutagarama

Within hours of the news breaking, the slaughter had begun. Ethnic tension in Rwanda was nothing new but JB said no-one expected what followed.

"Radio stations were spewing propaganda urging Hutus to seek out Tutsi 'cockroaches' and smash them. The killing spread from village to village. I started to be afraid for my own life."

As the conflict's frontline approached Kigali, JB's father took his three children to the border with Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).

Already divorced, he left JB's mother to face the militias.

"At the first road block they told me to get out of the car. I stood a foot and a half taller than this militia - he had a grin on his face as if to say: 'You're not going anywhere'.

"Looking into his eyes, he really wanted to kill me. The machete in his hand was blood-stained. They joked about how they had not made a kill in a long time.

"My father pleaded with them. 'It's not his fault,' he said, 'I made a bad choice and married a Tutsi.' They kicked and punched me. That was one of many close moments I had."

Why me?

The film lays bare JB's complex relationship with his homeland and own sense of identity, confused by his decision to flee, and by his exile in the West.

JB's brother returned to Rwanda, where he died of malaria

Crossing the border was "a one-way ticket", he says. But it was in a refugee camp in Goma that JB and his elder brother, Jean-Paul, were hired as translators by two reporters.

"We were hired, and in a sense we were saved. They would share food and give us bottled water.

"When the story died they left. They made me a promise that if I even made it out of the situation I should look them up. I did."

JB made his way to Kenya, where the British embassy granted him asylum in the UK. The two reporters welcomed him into their homes and became his "adopted mothers".

JB says he asks himself every other day: "Why me?"

"We connected at some point and they developed a liking for me. I don't know what they liked, and they can't tell me."

Accidental movie

Back Home captures the ultimate joy of reunion with the mother he thought had perished in the conflict.

The joy of reunion is contrasted with reminders of past atrocities

"To have survived in Rwanda in 1994 as a Tutsi is virtually a miracle. All the odds were against you."

It was on a return trip that he learned she was still alive.

"It was a rollercoaster of emotions - I wanted the moment to come sooner, we'd been waiting for so long.

"I never thought I would be able to hug her again and then I did. It was one of the greatest moments of my life."

Such unique intimacy is perhaps owed to the fact that JB never intended his film to be shown, describing it as a sort of personal diary he could show his grandchildren one day.

His footage was so compelling that he interchanged the role of journey maker with filmmaker.

Teaching tool

Central to the film is the issue of reconciliation.

Some 12,000 local community "gacaca" courts were set up because the country's conventional courts were overwhelmed with genocide suspects and unable to try all those responsible.

I hope that by people knowing what happened in Rwanda, they will not close their eyes and let a genocide happen again

Perpetrators seek forgiveness from the families' of those they victimised, and ask to be accepted back into society.

"I think there is a need and a hunger for reconciliation between people. That is what is pushing the gacaca to work."

But JB remains sceptical: "Some people are using gacaca as a 'get out of jail card'. They confess and everything is forgiven."

On a broader platform, he says the film is a "teaching tool". He describes the situation in Sudan's western region of Darfur as "Rwanda in slow motion".

"I hope that by people knowing what happened in Rwanda, they will not close their eyes and let a genocide happen again."

Sudan's government and pro-government Arab militias are accused of war crimes against the region's black African population, although the UN has stopped short of calling it genocide.

Back Home premieres in the UK at the Frontline Club in London on 29 August.