Sometimes in April (2005 TV Movie)

Cleophas Kabasita: Valentine

Quotes 

• Valentine : [Answering his question about the defendant]  Yes. I knew that he was a leader of the municipality. I felt that he could have protected us, but he did nothing.

  Judge Arusha : Did the defendant ever personally participate in the rapes?

  Valentine : I never saw him rape anybody... but he didn't protect us. He would tell the Interahamwe: Don't ever ask me again how a Tutsi woman tastes! He was a coach encouraging his players. I heard him say, and these were his exact words, "Tomorrow they will be killed"...! The next day, on the street, an old woman told me that all the girls who had been with me had been killed. She told me I had to leave. I could barely carry my baby, but I left... I hid in a sorghum field.

• Judge Arusha : [after Valentine finishes her testimony]  May I ask, why did you make what must have been a difficult decision to come to Arusha to testify in this tribunal?

  Valentine : I saw that this man did and I felt responsible to testify about this man's betrayal of the people who I entrusted to him.

  [Looking at defendant] 

  Valentine : When a man leads assassins, he is also an assassin.

• Valentine : [Testifying in the tribunal, as a secret witness]  A soldier took my baby off my back and put him on the floor. He penetrated me... he kept me until he's had me a second time. Later, I do not remember exactly when, but the Interahamwes held us in another room. And they raped all the girls...

  [grimacing at the memory] 

  Valentine : A young man threw himself on me. As he was taking off his pants, he told me there is no place for me now. After that, he did humiliating things to me... He didn't even care that I was a mother!

  [sighs] 

  Valentine : I heard the young girls scream, but I could not see them...

  [hesitates] 

  Valentine : When the second man was finished, a third man came and... he made me lie down again...

  [distressed] 

  Valentine : He raped me! In that moment, I just wanted to die...!

  [bows her head, weeping, and rises again] 

  Valentine : Then a fourth man came and

  [hesitates] 

  Valentine : he took me. At that moment I thought, "God in Heaven, who are these men?"

  Judge Arusha : I'm sorry, but can you tell us what happened next?

  Valentine : The next day, they Interahamwe came and they made us go back to that house, but they had to drag me there like a dead person... I was dead.

  Judge Arusha : Where was the defendant? Was he in the Cultural Community Centre during this time?