Conversations with mass murderers

In "Machete Season," 10 Hutu men recall how they enjoyed slaughtering their neighbors with machetes and clubs -- and six years after the Rwanda genocide, feel no guilt.

By Suzy Hansen

Jul 20, 2005 | The 1994 Rwandan genocide was ignored by most of the world as it raged on. But in years since, the horrific event that claimed 800,000 deaths has garnered worldwide attention, thanks to numerous books and documentaries, and even a Hollywood film. Philip Gourevitch's masterly "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families," based on his dispatches from Rwanda for the New Yorker, became an award-winning bestseller. Romeo Dallaire, the United Nations commander stationed in Rwanda at the time, recently participated in a documentary based on his own memoir "Shake Hands With the Devil." And last year, the tragedy of the slaughter was brought to the big screen in the surprisingly good "Hotel Rwanda," a film starring Don Cheadle that managed to grab three Oscar nominations.

These renderings of the genocide include many unfathomable images of men furiously hacking at other men, of whole communities decimated while seeking refuge in church, of bloated, days-old bodies choking the country's rivers. As by now most people know, in Rwanda, the vast majority of the Hutu population participated in the mass killing of their fellow Tutsi countrymen (as well as Hutu moderates) in only 100 days, a little more than three months. The killing was done without the efficient aid of gas chambers or bombs or machine guns; instead, most of the murders were of the one-on-one sort -- a very personal, laborious killing in which many, many people willingly, almost enthusiastically, took part.

Although Western writers and artists have attempted, and will continue attempting, to translate the reality of a mass extermination, it's a nearly impossible task. They succeed in many ways, but what they can't quite get across is technical: What is it like for one entire population to kill another, day after day, for an entire season of the year? Did the men go to work too? Did they make love at night, and wake up and kill in the morning? Did they read books, get drunk, tell bedtime stories -- all after a day's kill? Did they cry?

"Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak," the second book on Rwanda by French journalist Jean Hatzfeld, attempts to answer some of these questions, and gives this madness a shocking sort of order. Hatzfeld interviewed 10 Hutus six years after the genocide, while the men served time in jail. These Hutus were from the rural Nyamata district (population 119,000), which includes a small town and 14 surrounding hills (Rwanda is lush and mountainous) split almost half between Hutus and Tutsis. Beginning in April 1994, within six weeks, five out of every six Tutsis in Nyamata were killed.

The 10 men, ranging from 20 to 62 years of age, hailed from these hills, where most of them were farmers. "None of them has ever quarreled with his Tutsi neighbors over land, crops, damage, and women," Hatzfeld writes. In fact, they lived next door to Tutsis, played soccer with them, went to church with them. "But these ten banded together," Hatzfeld explains, "because of the proximity of their fields, their patronage of a cabaret, and their natural affinities and shared concerns." Hatzfeld gives the reader a basic sense of who the men are -- the little detail already provided in this review -- but he wisely lets the men talk first before proffering their proper biographies. "That bunch was famous on the hill for carousing and tomfoolery," said Clementine, a local Hutu who is married to a Tutsi. "Those fellows did not seem so bad."

The Rwandan genocide officially began after the death of President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, whose plane was mysteriously shot down on April 6, 1994. The death of the president was the excuse the Hutu extremists needed to begin the killing that they had long planned. (Obviously, Rwandan history is ever more complicated: Hutu extremists had long been paranoid about Tutsi power; at various times Tutsis had suffered, and been slaughtered, at the hands of Hutus; a group of exiled Tutsis organized the Rwandan Patriotic Front, with whom Habyarimana had signed peace accords in 1993. Later, the RPF would enter Rwanda and stop the genocide.)

Hatzfeld's band of ordinary Hutus, incited by extremists broadcasting on the radio, gathered together, singing songs and screwing around, and then headed down to the marshes where they believed the Tutsis were hiding. The new killers indeed bonded immediately: "We gathered into teams on the soccer field and went out hunting as kindred spirits," said Ignace. "We had to work fast, and we got no time off, especially not Sundays -- we had to finish up," said Elie. "We canceled all ceremonies. Everyone was hired at the same level for a single job -- to crush all the cockroaches."

The most difficult part of all of this is to comprehend the moment when men become killers. The Hutus claimed not to have been forced to kill, though they did fear the consequences of not joining in at the beginning. By the time of the interviews, killing strikes them as quite normal. It's not as though their first kill is particularly memorable. Still, they attempt to recall it:

Fulgence: "First I cracked an old mama's head with a club."

Alphonse: "I was quite surprised by the speed of death, and also by the softness of the blow."

Adalbert didn't remember the "precise details" of his first kill: "Therefore the true first time worth telling from a lasting memory, for me, is when I killed two children, April 17."

They meditate on murder like this throughout the book. Elie: "The club is more crushing, but the machete is more natural. The Rwandan is accustomed to the machete from childhood. Grab a machete -- that is what we do every morning." Alphonse: "Saving the babies, that was not practical. They were whacked against walls and trees or they were cut right away."

Next Page: The "important people" turned their backs on Rwanda

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