Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak [Hardcover]

Jean Hatzfeld (Author), Linda Coverdale (Translator), Susan Sontag (Preface)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0374280827 | ISBN-13: 978-0374280826 | Publication Date: May 19, 2005 | Edition: 1st

In April-May 1994, 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis were massacred by their Hutu fellow citizens--about 10,000 a day, mostly being hacked to death by machete. In Machete Season, the veteran foreign correspondent Jean Hatzfeld reports on the results of his interviews with nine of the Hutu killers. They were all friends who came from a single region where they helped to kill 50,000 out of their 59,000 Tutsi neighbors, and all of them are now in prison, some awaiting execution. It is usually presumed that killers will not tell the truth about their brutal actions, but Hatzfeld elicited extraordinary testimony from these men about the genocide they had perpetrated. He rightly sees that their account raises as many questions as it answers.

Adabert, Alphonse, Ignace, and the others (most of them farmers) told Hatzfeld how the work was given to them, what they thought about it, how they did it, and what their responses were to the bloodbath. "Killing is easier than farming," one says. "I got into it, no problem," says another. Each describes what it was like the first time he killed someone, what he felt like when he killed a mother and child, how he reacted when he killed a cordial acquaintance, how 'cutting' a person with a machete differed from 'cutting' a calf or a sugarcane. And they had plenty of time to tell Hatzfeld, too, about whether and why they had reconsidered their motives, their moral responsibility, their guilt, remorse, or indifference to the crimes.

Hatzfeld's meditation on the banal, horrific testimony of the genocidaires and what it means is lucid, humane, and wise: he relates the Rwanda horror to war crimes and to other genocidal episodes in human history. Especially since the Holocaust, it has been conventional to presume that only depraved and monstrous evil incarnate could perpetrate such crimes, but it may be, he suggests, that such actions are within the realm of ordinary human conduct. To read this disturbing, enlightening and very brave book is to consider in a new light the foundation of human morality and ethics.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This book features the testimony of 10 friends from the same village who spent day after day together, fulfilling orders to kill any Tutsi within their territory during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. While their anecdotes are shocking at first, they detail how an ordinary person with an everyday life in a farming village can be transformed into a killer. As one man explains, "if you must obey the orders of authorities, if you have been properly prepared, if you see yourself pushed and pulled, if you see the killing will be total and without disastrous consequences for yourself, you feel soothed and reassured." A reporter for Paris's Libération, Hatzfeld has a remarkable ability to pry into the killer's memory and conscience. One Hutu tells how "a pain pinched his heart" when confronted with an old Tutsi soccer teammate he was obligated to kill. Others describe the regrets or nightmares they have now that the genocide is over (and they are in prison). But for the most part, the interviews reveal the killers' naïve expectations for forgiveness and reconciliation once they are released. Hatzfeld offers an analysis of the psychology of the perpetrators and how the Rwandan genocide differs from other genocides in history. Steering clear of politics, this important book succeeds in offering the reader some grasp of how such unspeakable acts unfolded. Agent, Valerie Borchardt at Georges Borchardt Inc.(June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

French journalist Hatzfeld, the author of several books on war atrocities, offers a close-up look at the thoughts, motivations, and regrets of 10 of the Hutu killers who participated in the slaughter of their Tutsi neighbors. An estimated 500,000 Tutsis were murdered in May and April of 1994 when ethnic tensions were whipped into a frenzy following the death of Rwandan president Juvenal Habayarima, a Hutu. Now imprisoned for their participation in the slaughter, the 10 men Hatzfeld interviewed offer incredible accounts of how they moved from ordinary lives, albeit ones filled with simmering tensions with their Tutsi neighbors, to the ragtag army employed to kill with machetes. Some recall the coercion needed to secure their participation, while others were eager for the task. Many recall the methodical nature of the slaughter and the bloodthirstiness of some of their compatriots as they made sure that no man, woman, or child was spared. A killer recalls looking into the eyes of his victims and the stares that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Chilling and thoroughly absorbing. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (May 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374280827
• ISBN-13: 978-0374280826
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #833,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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63 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Structurally flawed but ultimately valuable collection and analysis of interviews, October 26, 2005

By 

Magic Man (Brigadoon) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (Hardcover)

In Susan Sontag's powerful preface, she argues that "everyone should read Hatzfeld's book" in order to truly understand what happened in Rwanda. The most striking revelation that emerges from these interviews with Hutu farmers-turned-killers from the Rwandan genocide is that they don't really know why it happened; they were swept up in the crowd. Not swept up once, but day after day for months of arduous hunting and killing. While the farmers mention other motives (looting, old animosities), the repeated claim is that the organizers were responsible and that farmers like them just got caught up.

While the book grants some real perspective, and I'm glad that I read it, I have two major criticisms: Hatzfeld could definitely have fixed one and perhaps not the other. First, the book is choppy. Hatzfeld interviewed the Hutu killers in a Rwandan prison, and he interviewed with each one individually. However, the book is organized by themes, so the author presents a chapter entitled "The First Time" and there includes a couple of paragraphs from each prisoner describing their first killing. While this gives effectively expresses the variety of experiences, constantly jumping back and forth between the ten interviewees leaves the reader little opportunity to get to know any of them. Uninterrupted histories from each prisoner (a la Studs Terkel) would have allowed more of an opportunity to get to know each and understand them better as people.

Second, the prisoners seem so guarded that it is unclear how often we are hearing genuine insights. Of course we would expect these prisoners to be guarded, not wanting to risk damaging their chances of clemency. But Hatzfeld doesn't explain why he uses a Tutsi survivor as his interpreter; it doesn't seem to be the best choice to put the subjects at ease.

That said, the book yields flashes of insight. Ignace, an elderly Hutu who has long held bitter feelings towards the Tutsis, appears to admit genuine regret, at least of his own emotional discomfort: "I had not foreseen that this memory would work at me so viciously." It also highlights a number of themes: for example, the killers seem not to understand just how hard it would be for a survivor to forgive them. They feel that with some physical discomfort in the Congolese refugee camps and a note of apology sent to a survivor, forgiveness has been earned. (Hatzfeld provides an excellent analysis of this in the chapter "Bargaining for Forgiveness.")

Ultimately, what another killer says is true: "This truth is impossible to understand for anyone who was not there beside us." This book is frightening: it shows very normal people who allowed themselves to be swept up in and ultimately executors of a horrific series of events. I wish that the book were better, but as it is, Sontag is probably right that everyone can learn from trying to understand the bizarre experience of these farmers.

Two notes: first, the back of this book includes a photo of the killers and a short bio of each; reading this at the beginning can help you identify the speakers as you progress through the book. Also, an excellent general book on the Rwandan genocide is Gourevich's We Regret to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families. That provided excellent background for this book.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "every one should read this book" (Sontag, in intro), May 9, 2006

By 

M. Hron - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (Hardcover)

This is simply an AMAZING -- yet horrifingly stomach-churning --collection of testimonials by killers of Rwanda from the rural region of Nyamata. And like Sontag points out in her intro, "every one should read this book."

There have been innumerable books and documentaries of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda -- a highly controversial, long-obfuscated and often-misunderstood atrocity... However, very few of these accounts relate the actual perspectives or testimonials by ordinary Rwandans. Though several survivors have actually written testimonials of their experience, not one of them has yet been translated into English!!(eg. Yolande Makagasana's memoir in French), once again revealing the shameful Western ethnocentric attitude to this atrocity (Imagine for example if available accounts of Holocaust survivors had never been translated from German!) Hatzfeld's collection of testimonials therefore offers us a perspective that is completely lacking in the morass of publications about Rwanda, many of them written by journalists, academics or political attachees, who spent less than a month in the field in Rwanda... (And of course, who stayed at fancy White accomodations like the revamped Hotel Milles Collines during their visit... ) It offers a crucial and critical intervention necessary for understanding the human impact of the genocide in Rwanda...

Moreover, in this collection Hatzfeld presents us with the perspective of the KILLERS during the genocide. Imagine if the Holocaust was recounted from the perspective of the Gestapo or concentration camp personnel! Simply RIVETING reading.

In the complementary reading "Into the Quick of Life," Hatzfeld offers us survivors' perspectives. Instead of focusing on great saviours (eg. Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda) it again concentrates on the perspective of ordinary people who survived incredible odds in the marshes.

My only misgiving about this set of books is that from a scholarly perspective, I would have wanted to hear more from or about the translator/translation from kinyarwanda. And more about the actual collection of the testimonials, the ways the questions were asked, the interview sessions, the editing of testimonials etc.

I caution readers who may not be familiar with the genocide in Rwanda, that this book is not a textbook that will explain the events moment by moment or analyze the UN, US role etc. Rather it is a collection of perspectives by ordinary people, as speculative and subjective as individual povs usually are...
And extremely graphic and disturbing at that.

I disagree that the book is "confusing" because of its thematic approach. Genocide is not a linear experience, nor is a person's traumatic narration a blow-by-blow account. Instead, with his thematic approach, Hatzfeld offers some of the complexity, nuance and critical analysis of these testimonials.

I also disagree that these confessions seem specious, contrived or 'unreal.' This book is not CSI or Law and Order, where genocide and people's motives or memories as serial killers are collapsed into a 1 minute of logical explanation or confession... Rather this collection proffers various perspectives, half-truths, observations... in yes --the most candid, and yet also most harrowing descriptions of killing that I have ever read. As such is the most compelling account of the banality of inhumanity that I encountered.

As one survivor explains "The things that happened in Nyamata, in the churches, in the marshes, and on the hills, were the abnormal actions of perfectly normal people." (225)

If we were born in Rwanda, and were Hutu, these killers' stories could easily be our own...

It is crucial to remember the facts in the case of Rwanda -- the banality of genocide. Neighbors killed neighbors. On the streets. With machetes. 1/8th of the population of Rwanda was exterminated. Almost one million children were orphaned. As a result more than 120 000 were imprisoned for crimes of murder In the Arusha TRC tribunal, only 26 have been convicted... Thus, since it has been ten years, 50 000 killers have since been released. Victims thus must live as neighbors with the killers of their families. All of these facts, again, affirm the the crucial importance of this book -- which questions the possible future of ordinary Rwandans for generations to come...

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The heart of darkness, July 28, 2005

By 

J. Wright (Indianapolis) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (Hardcover)

I visited Rwanda twice after the genocide, and I've read quite a bit of the history behind the 1994 killings, but this is the first detailed account I've read from the killers' perspective. The author interviewed 10 Hutu men convicted for their involvement in the genocide--all friends from the same community. Hatzfeld organizes his short chapters by topic--such as How It Was Organized, The First Time (their first victims), Looting, etc--and devotes considerable space to verbatim transcripts from his interviews. Machete Season reveals how nearly every Hutu man in one community joined, either willingly or through coercion, in hunting down and killing every Tutsi man, woman and child. The book explores what the men were thinking and feeling at the time of the killings and how they feel now about guilt, repentance and forgiveness.

The book is not as graphic as others I've read, but there are new horrors here, such as the fact that the men continually refer to the killings as "work," and even today they seem to have almost no empathy for their victims and survivors. For most, confession and seeking forgiveness from survivors seem to be merely the means to get out of prison as quickly as possible.

One killer told Hatzfeld, "I think the possibility of genocide fell out as it did because it was lying in wait--for time's signal, like the plane crash, to nudge it at the last moment. There was never any need to talk about it among ourselves. ... We knew full well what had to be done, and we set to doing it without flinching, because it seemed like the perfect solution." After reading this book, I was left believing that all the evil that came out in 1994 is still there, lying dormant.

I appreciated Hatzfeld's style of letting the killers speak for themselves and refraining from parceling out blame or otherwise injecting his own opinions. While giving the reader adequate background on the genocide, he focuses narrowly on one group's experience and as a result has put together an especially compelling narrative.