A Rwandese national by birth, he arrived in the DRC with his mother as part of the mass migration from the neighbouring state after the 1994 genocide and lost contact with her after being given into the care of relatives.
In 1997, his new family fled to the Walikale district village of Bushalingwa during the war that ended the 32-year long rule of Mobutu Sese Seko.
It was there that the Mai-Mai recruited him. Habyaremye said he fought with and against numerous militias, as well as for and against the FARDC, the Congolese national army, in the eastern DRC, “to defend our land against the Tutsis. The Tutsis always say they are Rwandans, but they are Congolese Tutsis.”
He does not recall how many skirmishes and battles he was involved in during his six years with the Mai-Mai, but remembers in 2008 a particularly intense period of fighting with the Congolese army against the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a militia established by Laurent Nkunda, which had strong ties with the Rwandan government.
“We were fighting every day for three months. About 20 people I knew were killed and about three others were seriously wounded,” he said.
It was during this time that he was appointed as an intelligence officer, tasked to visit villages to glean information on the movements of militia forces, chiefly because of his knowledge of Kinyarwanda, an official language of Rwanda.
After one intelligence-gathering mission a few years later he returned to his base only to find his colleagues had decamped and moved elsewhere. “It was then that I decided I did not want this life any more.”
He slipped away in July 2011 and was brought to the demobilization camp in the eastern DRC city of Goma, in search of what he told IRIN was “a normal life. I want to live in a country where I am not known.”
He walked for two weeks through the forest, before surrendering to troops of the UN Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO) in Butembo, North Kivu province.
“During those weeks, I explained to villagers that I was travelling to my country. And they gave me food and accommodation. You had to be a friend of the forest then.
“I came helpless, but I knew God would protect me.”
IRIN News
go/mw
Theme(s): Children, Conflict,
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]