Return to Rwanda
Peter Matthey served throughout Australia and overseas, including Rwanda during his 33 years as an Air Force medical assistant. Now a reservist with No. 22SQN, Peter returned to Rwanda late last year and shares his journey.

Rwandan children collect water at Cyangugu. The scenes from Rwanda have changed in the eleven years since Peter Mathey served as a medical assistant.

The new Kigali Genocide Memorial.

Hamissi and Peter Matthey were thrilled to catch up on Peter’s return to Rwanda.

I had a few concerns about going back to Rwanda, and flying into Kigali certainly brought back heaps of memories. The air, as usual, was thick with smoke and I kept thinking about our arrival with the United Nations 11 years ago.

The Kasombe terminal at Kigali hasn’t changed but has been repaired along with all the surrounding buildings. There were no UN aircraft to be seen.

After making our way through immigration and customs smoothly, we took a taxi to the Okapi Hotel and phoned Hamissi who was one of the interpreters with ASCI and II, and who became a good mate when we were in Rwanda.

It was a pretty special moment for me when he arrived at the hotel. He was over the moon that one of his Aussie mates had come back to his home country – this time under different circumstances.

Our first night in Kigali was peaceful, different to what I had known before.

On a tour with Hamissi the next day I had an opportunity to take in my surrounds. The town had come a long way — traffic lights, housing estates, and a golf course in the centre.

We also visited the hospital where I worked in 1995. It has been converted back to a medical clinic/private wing of the local hospital. The rooms have been done up and the old room I had shared was immaculate.

The following day we travelled by bus — a 14-seater with 19 people on it — to Gisenyi on Lake Kivu. There we talked to a lot of locals, including two Rwandan boys who had never spoken to Aussies. They thought it was great and we met a few of their family members, one walking with us the next day up to the Congo/Rwandan border at Goma, 2km away.

Back in Kigali we met up with Hamissi again and continued our tour. The stadium that housed UN troops a decade earlier is now up to international standards, and the old UN HQ is the UN Justice Commission.

Our tour of the newly constructed Genocide Museum was a solemn, moving experience, but also very interesting. So too was our visit to the Belgian Memorial down the road from the UN Hospital. The memorial, established and owned by Belgium, commemorates the killing of the Rwandan Prime Minister and 10 UN soldiers.

The next day we spent two hours hiking up to the Dian Fossey Memorial. Although Rwandan soldiers accompanied us to protect us from wild animals and poachers, the area is quite safe.

The people we met were wonderful, including Salim, the Pakistani owner of a local Indian restaurant. He was in Kigali with his family during the genocide and had a few stories to tell, particularly about the Australians who looked after his brother when he was shot.

Hamissi later took us on a lengthy drive south-west of Kigali, on the Congo/Burundi border in an attempt to find and meet up with Jacko, a young Rwandan boy who was shot during an attack on his village in 1995.

He was special to all of the Aussies who cared for him for several months and taught him some of the English language.

We thought after we left that that would be the last we heard of him. However, he is still alive and lives in Cyangugu.

Hamissi had gone to a lot of trouble to find Jacko — he had one of his local mates from the town looking out for him, leaving a message at his house that Hamissi wanted to see him.

Unfortunately, his memories of the genocide meant that Jacko couldn’t believe Hamissi was looking for him, instead he thought it was a ploy to get him, so he disappeared.

I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see Jacko. It would have really made the trip even more special. It is sad to know he is still afraid after all these years.

On the way back to Kigali we stopped at the Murambi Genocide Museum. This visibly shook us up, especially Hamissi. Around 44,000 people of all ages had been killed in this one spot.

The bodies were exhumed, treated for preservation and laid out on trestle tables in this old school. A visit to the National Museum in Butare was an interesting last stop on the way back to Kigali.

At least now we know we’ll go back. The government has done wonders – the Rwandan people believe in them and they are happy.

I left in 1995 and the impression of Rwanda formed during my deployment, had stayed with me until now. Now I have a clearer, more focused picture of Rwanda. I’m happy I went back.

If you’d like to know more, email Peter at:prmatthe@dodo.com.au

---

Who is Jacko?

Peter Matthey was less than a metre from this silverback gorilla during a Sabinyo Mountain trek.

Thirteen-year-old Jacko lived in a village not far from the Rwanda/Burundi border at a place called Bugarama.

One day in 1995 all the men in the village were forced at gunpoint down to the river, where they all were shot.

Jacko was wounded and lay underneath bodies for a few hours until he saw the blue berets of the UN Military Observors who were able to transport him by helicopter to the Australians at the UN Military Hospital in Kigali.

Jacko survived and healed well. He remained at the hospital for about four months, until ASCII left in August 1995, even though he was under threat many times and despite the fact he was originally handed over to UN Military Police for safekeeping.

After the Australians left, Jacko tried his hand at chicken farming working for a local priest in Kigali, before going back to Bugarama.

Ten years on and Jacko still fears for his life, because he can identify the perpetrators of the shooting.

TOP

 

.