immaculee iligabiza
writer. journalist
Left To Tell
+ shannon cook

In 1994, former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana signed a peace agreement in Tanzania with the Tutsi rebels in an effort to end the civil war in his country and simultaneously grant equal rights to the Tutsi tribe. Upon his return to the capital city of Kigali, President Habyarimana’s plane was shot out of the Rwandan sky, killing everyone on board including Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of Burundi. A three month slaughter of nearly three million Tutsi men, women, and children took course as Hutu rebels opposing President Habyarimana’s talk of a moderate government set out to perform an ethic cleansing in Rwanda in hopes of permanently exterminating the Tutsis.

Immaculee Iligabiza survived the atrocities of the Rwandan holocaust. Her resultant autobiography, Left To Tell, is a story of triumph and redemption that ushers us along the inspirational path of spiritual enlightenment. With perhaps the most horrific event in history as a backdrop, Left To Tell teaches us human compassion, how to surrender to the power of love, and how to welcome understanding and find comfort in reconciliation.

Iligabiza’s description of her experience is graphic and reveals every detail of her effort to cling to both her life and her faith. The crux of the story revolves around her time trapped in her pastor’s 3X4 bathroom for 90 days with seven other women as Hutu rebels murdered her family, friends and neighbors. Iligabiza leans heavily on her Christian faith throughout her experience and, making a clear distinction between a life being spared and a life being saved, becomes a firm believer that her life was to be spared. This belief rested on the contention that she had to survive the fate that would befall millions of her country people to fulfill a higher purpose designed for her life. This conviction becomes the primary source of her will to endure.

After surviving the holocaust, Iligabiza credited her faith with not only giving her the strength to live but also a new lease on life. Determined to educate the world about the genocide, she taught herself to read and write in English to let no one forget when the world stood by and watched a nation die and to “restore hope in the hearts of those wounded, especially the children.”

excerpt.
Left To Tell
immaculee iligabiza
2006 hay house publishing

I heard the killers call my name.

They were on the other side of the wall, less than an inch of plaster and wood separated us. Their voices were cold, hard, and determined.

“She’s here…we know she’s here somewhere…Find her-find Immaculee.”

There were many voices, many killers. I could see them in my mind: my former friends and neighbors, who had always greeted me with love and kindness, moving through the house carrying spears and machetes and calling my name.

“I have killed 399 cockroaches,” said one of the killers. “Immaculee will make 400. It’s a good number to kill.”

I cowered in the corner of our tiny secret bathroom without moving a muscle. Like the seven other women hiding for their lives with me, I held my breath so that the killers wouldn’t hear me breathing.

Their voices clawed at my flesh. I felt as if I were lying on a bed of burning coals, like I’d been set on fire. A sweeping wind of pain engulfed my body; a thousand invisible needles ripped into me. I never dreamed that fear could cause such agonizing physical anguish.

I tried to swallow, but my throat closed up. I had no saliva, and my mouth was drier than sand. I closed my eyes and tried to disappear, but their voices grew louder. I knew that they would show no mercy, and my mind echoed with one thought: If they catch me, they will kill me.
If they catch me they will kill me.
If they catch me they will kill me.

Author and Free lance Journalist Shannon Cook also interviewed James Adolphus and Van Hunt for Nat Creole. She currently resides in Brooklyn where she operates a multimedia company SMDM MEDIA GROUP. Her articles have appeared in: Chronic Magazine, Black Elegance, BELLE, Michigan Citizen, Harmony Park News, SOURCE, YSB, Rootz Reggae & Kulcha, Black Womens Web, METRO TIMES, Michigan Chronicle and Everybody's Magazine, and SPICE.