{"id":54257,"date":"2025-05-22T13:45:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T13:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/he-killed-over-300-tutsis-served-time-and-now-reintegrated-the-story-of\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T11:42:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T11:42:44","slug":"he-killed-over-300-tutsis-served-time-and-now-reintegrated-the-story-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/he-killed-over-300-tutsis-served-time-and-now-reintegrated-the-story-of\/","title":{"rendered":"He killed over 300 Tutsis, served time and now reintegrated: The story\u00a0of\u00a0\u2018Kimashini\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his home area of Murundi Sector, Karongi District, Habiyaremye became widely known for the sheer number of people he killed during the Genocide against the Tutsi. Gacaca court records show he took the lives of more than 300 Tutsis, many of them his neighbours, acquaintances, and even friends.<\/p>\n

Today, he still lives in the same region. The once densely populated hills of Gasharu Cell, where many Tutsi families had lived, now bear only terraced slopes and forests.<\/p>\n

“That area was home to many Tutsis,” says Mukamatayo Anne Marie, President of Ibuka in Gasharu. “They were completely wiped out. Families like that of Mukakimenyi and Ntoyihuku vanished. No one from those homes is left.”<\/p>\n

\"In<\/figure>\n

The story of Habiyaremye resurfaced during a past commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi, when the Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, Dr. Jean Damasc\u00e8ne Bizimana, cited him as an example of the scale of killings that occurred in the area.<\/p>\n

“One striking case is in Nyamushishi Cell, Murundi Sector, where one man was found to have personally killed more people than any other individual identified through the Gacaca court system,” Dr. Bizimana said. <\/p>\n

“Habiyaremye Bernard, known as \u2018Kimashini\u2019, murdered more than 300 people by name. He even remembers some of them.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

During the Genocide, Habiyaremye participated actively in killings. He recalls how it began:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were neighbours. One day, a man said to me, \u2018They killed my daughter. Now I have no one to avenge me.\u2019 That\u2019s when I started. His name was Tharcisse Nzabahimana\u2014I killed him. After that, I continued. I felt like it would catch up with me if I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, Habiyaremye was arrested and tried under the Gacaca court system. After serving his sentence, he returned to live in the same community he had once terrorised.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose I killed were close to me\u2014neighbours with whom we shared meals, worked together in the fields, and lived peacefully before the genocide,\u201d he admits. \u201cSome were killed by others, but we had all lived together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Habiyaremye says he was not rejected by his community upon return:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been turned away. I eat where others eat. I can\u2019t say I have enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n

On whether he feels remorse, he reflects: \u201cI wasn\u2019t myself\u2014I was like a statue. No one with a heart could do what I did and claim to be a good person.\u201d<\/p>\n

He credits Rwanda\u2019s post-genocide education and reconciliation programmes for helping him and others like him to reflect, take responsibility, and rejoin the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnity and reconciliation have been powerful,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you look around Rwanda, it\u2019s clear the country has been rebuilt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Habiyaremye believes the fight against genocide ideology is everyone\u2019s duty: \u201cIt still exists, but it can be identified and rooted out. That mindset must not find space in Rwanda.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he now lives in peace with genocide survivors\u2014some of whose relatives he killed:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live together, eat together, and talk. No one tells me to go away. I don\u2019t hide, and they don\u2019t avoid me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also thanked President Paul Kagame for restoring national unity and said he now plays a role in building the same country he once helped tear apart.<\/p>\n

\"Gacaca<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His real name is Habiyaremye Bernard, but during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, he became known as \u2018Kimashini\u2019\u2014a nickname likening him to a killing machine because of the speed and brutality with which he murdered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000087763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-54257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000087763,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2h6a0887-57b2c.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2h6a0887-57b2c.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2h6a0887-57b2c.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2h6a0887-57b2c.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2h6a0887-57b2c.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/2h6a0887-57b2c.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000087763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54257"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=54257"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=54257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}