The pyres of Faaite... epilogue (4)

End of a nightmare

At the end of the second part of the testimony of Monette Tetavahi, six people have died by the stakes of Faaite. It still takes long hours before the gendarmerie saves Monette and three other women.

Bruno Fouchereau's book

About two o'clock in the night of 3 to 4 September 1987, Monette Tetavahi from inside his fare, hears the howls of Cyrenia Teata at the stake in front of the Church of Faaite...

She is frightened but can't show it: she must reassure its four terrified children. And her husband is not there: he is part of the illuminutty's band...

Waiting for the morning of September 4, 1987

"(...) I was at home with my children, crying. I was scared. I did not know how to reassure them. I heard Cyrenia Teata screaming because she suffered in the fire.  A youngman watched her with shouting:  "Ask forgiveness from the virgin! Ask forgiveness to Mary!" (...)

Painfully, Monette remembers...

I wondered where my husband was and what he did. I knew he had gone to collect all the firewood for the fires...  That he had brought those who had been burned, and he too had helped build the stake. (...)

How could he change like that? He never beat me, he had never even yelled at me. And there, the few times I saw him, he was being much tougher on me. He was just yelling at me for I still pray and for I keep telling him to stop all that. He even hit me. I hardly slept that night (...).

The dashed hope of the passage of the schooner

In the morning when people started to wake up, they saw the horror that had happened during the night, but they didn't understand. They were afraid. Everyone was afraid. Then there were who wanted to call the police for help, and only then they saw that the CB was broken.

Fortunately, we knew that the schooner was to come this week.  Some went to the reef to monitor. These are children who first heard it. They shouted and we made signs. But it was for nothing.

Some  notes of Monette intended for me

Afterward we have known: the people of the boat had only seen a huge cloud of black smoke. They had tried to contact us with CB and as we didn't answer, they warned the police. They have alerted Mahina Radio (the post centralizing all calls radio boats in the French Polynesia area).

They wanted to enter the lagoon to see what was happening, but they said that there was so much smoke that they didn't even see the pass. Us, we didn't know if they had seen us. We only heard the boat was going away (...).

.

The torture of Monette Tetavahi

I was locked up at home with the children. I was scared. I heard people shouting outside, but I didn't dare go out (...).

Afterward they picked us. There were four women, the four wives of the murderers. They took us to the village square; we were tied and they put us each in the middle of a pile of Case tires (construction equipment) so we could not leave. And there they sprayed us with gasoline.

Me… they tied me with my four children tightened on my stomach. They were there on my belly and gasoline watered; like me. All five together.

It was my husband who picked us. He is too who has tied us and put us there. He was very angry and he said it was my fault because I did not want to worship the Virgin Mary in my prayers. I did not recognize my husband (...).

The memorial at the location of the pyres at Faaite

We stayed like that almost two hours, me, my children and the three women : fill-ups of gasoline  and full sun.

Just when they were going to burn us, we heard the helicopter (...).

The miracle survivors of "the pyres of Faaite"

The helicopter was heard long before it lands. It couldn’t land in the village, it went to the other side of the motu (...).

From that moment, they are no longer taking care of us. There was one who went for the Case. He began to dig a big hole, right in front of us on the other side of the square. The other went around to recover the bodies of the six who died. They put them in the hole and they handed over the soil (...) for covering them.

It is only after when the police arrived on the church square. They caught them, and then taken away. And it is only after they have released us (...).

Later, there was a judge, or I do not know who he was, who came to see me and said: "You will have the courage to tell the truth, even if it's your husband ". But no one ever questioned me.

The new church St. Mary Magdalene of Faaite

Yet I was always there. But nobody asked me anything, never. Neither the police while they were doing the investigation at Faaite, nor during the trial, nor after. They haven't asked me to speak in court. Yet I wanted to talk, to say what I had experienced.

Until today, I always wanted to say because there are false things that were told.  And the real culprits, they were not asked anything about. They haven't been prosecuted. And I believe this is unfair.

Today, I'm happy here, but I need to tell all this to let people know the truth about what happened at Faaite.

I could have died, there.”

Thanks to Tetavahi Monette for his trust and sincerity. But also for having the courage to plunge into the horror of her memories so that, the largest number of persons know what happened in Faaite in the month of September 1987.

See too about “the pyres of Faaite”and the atoll of Faaite:

-          Faaite an atoll of Tuamotus

-          When heaven becomes hell (1)

-          Monette, a survivor testifies(2)

-          The slaughter of innocents (3)

-          Epilogue: end of a nightmare (4)

An article of Julien Gué

Translated from French by Monak

Copyright Julien Gué. Ask for the author’s agreement before any reproduction of the text or the images on Internet or traditional press.