Survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide Immaculée Ilibagiza believes Trinidad and Tobago should learn from other countries in an effort to avoid similar incidents of ethnic violence.
She disclosed this during a media briefing yesterday at the Hyatt Regency, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain.
Ilibagiza is one of the world’s leading speakers on peace, faith, and forgiveness. She is also a best-selling author of Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.
“You realise hate is like a snake, it is in different shapes but the damage is the same. What happened in Rwanda, with people who look completely alike, one with a bigger nose, one with a smaller nose, that was the beginning of tribes in Rwanda so I would advise learn from outside, and realise hate is just hate, it is not about people of different origins. Don’t be like us, don’t do what we did to ourselves… please learn from other people and be wise,” she said.
She advised women who also experienced hate throughout their lives that there was always hope and God. “There is a time I didn’t have nothing, when I came out the bathroom after three months, my family was gone, every home was destroyed, the only thing I had was the rosary my father gave me, all I had was God, the Almighty,” she said.
Ilibagiza was one of eight women who spent 91 days confined in a bathroom of a Rwandan pastor’s house. She entered the bathroom as a 115-pound university student with a family and came out, weighing just 65 pounds, to find out her entire family had been killed in the genocide with the exception of one brother who had been studying out of the country.
When asked how long it took her to forgive those who wronged her and her people she said about a month.
“For three months, we haven’t showered, haven’t brushed our teeth, sharing a plate of garbage food. It took maybe a month, I went through a stage, I went through rage, there is no way God would want me to forgive them. I remember hurling out of anger, sweating of thinking of what I could do, I blew up the country in my mind…then I moved into a time through prayer when I knew God was there,” she said. Ilibagiza arrived in Trinidad yesterday afternoon from New York.
She will be giving lectures today and tomorrow at the National Academy of Perform-ing Arts (NAPA). She is also expected to pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar tomorrow at 9.30 am. some parts of the story were borrowed from NewsDay.
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