I’ve just finished watching Hotel Rwanda. Harrowing.
It brought to mind some astonishing excerpts I read in Harper’s Magazine two years ago. The excerpts were taken from interviews by a journalist with Hutu men imprisoned for killing Tutsis in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. No international forces intervened. Because Harper’s is a subscription-only site, and only archives PDFs, here are some transcriptions:
LEOPORD: Killing was less wearisome than farming. In the marshes, we could lag around for hours looking for someone to slaughter without getting penalized. We could shelter from the sun and chat without feeling idle. The workday didn’t last as long as in the fields. We fell asleep every evening safe from care, no longer worried about drought. We forgot our torments as farmers.
FULGENCE: First I cracked an old mama’s skull with a club. But she was already lying almost dead on the ground, so I did not feel death at the end of my arm. I went home that evening not even thinking about it.
Next day was the massacre at the church, so a very special day. Because of the uproar, I began to strike without seeing who it was. Our legs were much hampered by the crush, and our elbows kept bumping.
At one point I saw a gush of blood, soaking the skin and clothes of a person about to fall — even in the dim light I saw it streaming down. I sensed it came form my machete. I looked at the blade, and it was wet. I took fright, and I wormed my way out, not looking at the person anymore. I found myself outside, anxious to go home — I had done enough. That person I had just struck — it was a mama, and I felt too sick even in the poor light to finish her off.
ALPHONSE: Some amused themselves with their machetes. If a Tutsi had worn out a pursuer in a chase, he would be teased with the point of a machete — it could be nasty for him. It was like demonstrating a bad example, except no one was alive to notice.
Saving the babies, that was not practical. They were whacked against walls and trees or they were cut right away. They were killed more quickly, because of their small size and because their suffering was of no use. The babies could not understand the why of the suffering; it was not worth lingering over them.
ALPHONSE [different excerpt]: The days all seemed much alike. We put on our field clothes. We swapped gossip, we made bets on our victims, spoke mockingly of cut girls, squabbled foolishly over looted grain. We sharpened our tools on whetting stones. We traded stories about desperate Tutsi tricks, we made fun of every “Mercy!” cried by someone hunted down, we counted up and stashed away our goods.
We went about all sorts of human business without a care in the world — provided we concentrated on killing during the day, naturally.
At the end of that season in the marshes, we were so disappointed that we had failed. We were disheartened by what we would lose, and truly frightened by the misfortune and vengeance reaching out for us. But deep down, we weren’t tired of anything.
