30 years after the genocide in Rwanda, one Coutançaise spoke. Didi Louis known as Guérin is 56 years old today. this Franco-Rwandan arrived in the English Channel in 1991, married to Coutançais.
She was in France in 1994 when Hutu nationalists massacred their Tutsi neighbors and the moderate Hutus who protected them. Between 800,000 and 1 million were killed in just three months. And almost all of Didi’s family
Today, he says, he can forgive, but he doesn’t want to forget. She returned to the site last year and collected numerous testimonies.
“They just want to live, live on”
Didi managed to find some of his family members, his daughter and niece and one of his brothers, protected by moderate Hutu. “ He was in a ditch and stayed hidden under the rug all day. He only came out at night. So of course he’s out of oxygen, but he’s alive. He is rebuilding himself, he started a family. And he stayed in Rwanda. Rwandans don’t want to leave the country even after losing their family, after losing everyone, they want to stay and make another family, build the country. They have power, I’m not telling you, they forgive. They live with the one who killed your family, he is the neighbor you see every day. When survivors tell me stories, I just cry and cry. They don’t cry anymore, not at all and they say to me “but we mustn’t cry, we are living, we have to go forward, we have to keep living”. They just want to live, live on***.** “
Today in Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis live together. Live by forgiveness. Didi wants to pass on these testimonies to the younger generations – both French and Rwandan – and raise awareness in high schools and universities.
In 2004, she already brought 8 young French people there. He hopes to start over by working especially with Lebrun High School and the Sentiers de la Mémoire association, “ When I see these young people insisting that we not forget, I want them to lead by example. I talk about it with mothers who confided in me, with women who were raped, and with young people who were born after the genocide. I tell them: there are people who have not been born and who are fighting so that we do not forget the genocide in all the countries of the world, including that small country, our small country, Rwanda. That’s my goal. This is how harmony is created. It is the youth who will change the world. It’s the youth, it’s not us old people. Because we forgive after genocide. But it hurts you. But the young generation will change everything.”