One season of machetes

One season of machetes is a book of Jean Hatzfeld published into 2003 with the editions of the Threshold. The author reports to it testimonys of killers of the Rwandan genocide condemned for their acts.

Hatzfeld first of all discussed with survivors, of which it brings back the remarks in the naked one of the life , then was interested in the way in which the killers lived the same event, partly following questions of readers. A friend and interprets Rwandan gave him the idea to meet prisoners condemned to longsufferings, which would speak more readily than about the people in freedom and put it in contact with a group of men that he knew before the genocide. Hatzfeld met them in prison in 2001 and 2002.

Witnesses

They are ten buddies imprisoned after judgment in a penitentiary of Rilima. They are men like the others, farmers of the family piece on the hills around the town of Nyamata, teachers, monk. In spring 1994, they were made to the keen torturers their neighbors, members of their team of foot, people with whom they sang with the mass of Sunday, of friends. They was at the same time workers and fêtards but not particularly racist. One had even married Tutsie. They had “simply” in heart to do the work well who was prescribed to them (without threat or important punishment if they were concealed). They did not seek to save anyone. They entrusted freely to Hatzfeld without concern of decreasing their responsibility, responsibility which they did not seem to feel.

Step and reflections of the author

Jean Hatzfeld was not attracted by the genocidary ones. It is the request of the readers of its preceding book which put it on their track. Whereas it collected their testimonys, it wondered why and how it had been possible with these men to kill in this manner. With the wire of testimonys, the reader gathers bits of answer:

it is easy to obey when the instruction is simple; “The rule n° 1, it is to kill, the rule n° 2, it did not have there. ”
resquiller could cost a beer rack;
plunderings rewarded those which had killed well;
the “solution” which was proposed regulated their problems of vicinity and appeared radical to them;
the process had been prepared for several months, these slaughters seemed the inevitable outcome the shortly after the assassination of President Habyarimana;
the escape of the “White” their left the possibility of acting with their own way in their making believe that they marked nor would not be punished;
they did not see any more the human being behind Tusti but well the “cockroach” as anti-tutsie propaganda had persuaded some.

The constraint was not very important. To express its dissension could lead to dead but to trail and make the minimum stated only to some remonstrances. The killers who speak showed zeal at the time of slaughters and when they speak about it, they seem very little to regret their gestures. It would be said that when they killed, they did not know if it were well or badly. When they testify, they seem trustful in the future, hope to turn over on their premises and take again their place in the family and their life “like front”. None realizes really of what it made.

The author gathered testimonys by topics and there inserts precise comments on what the words which it reports inspire him, restored in more general considerations and historical summaries. He does not show, is not indignant. While making tell these atrocities, it puts the reader in a position to seek to inform themselves and to wonder about “how one could let do that. ”

The interwiews which made it possible to collect these testimonys were individual and confidential. None knew what the others had answered. When there was a problem (lies…), Hatzfeld joined together them to level the problem then took again the collection of testimonys.

The title

One season which lasts from April at May. The slaughters organized in days and plunderings of the evening replaced usual work with the fields. “Nobody went down any more to the piece. What good is it to dig, then qu" one collected without more working, qu" one satisfied oneself without more raising? ” Jean-Baptiste, p. 72. Slaughters were accompanied by plunderings: they collected what to grow rich: money, beers, bananas to make alcohol, equipment, sheets (to cover their housing and enclosure), cows (usually raised by Tutsis). They consumed them abundantly the evening even.

As for the machetes, they are their tool of predilection during work to the fields: to cut corn or the banana plantations. The Rwandan ones grow with a machete. These tools proved adequate “to cut” Tutsis.

Considerations of the author

With the wire of the answers of the killers, Hatzfeld makes discover what is a genocide and in what it differs from a war.

The genocide is an institution of State. A whole mechanics led there. It is a concerted project of extermination. An anti-tutsis climate had reigned for 30 years in Rwanda, propaganda was done by the radio, Interahamwe prepared the Hutus to accept the idea of extermination, i.e. to denounce Tutsis then to pass to slaughters. In this state, they removed all those which are aimed, men, women and children (who constitute the future of those that one wants to remove). A genocide is distinguished from the war by the absence of engagements. Slaughters take place only in one direction. That exceeds the cruelty or the torture which could take place in war.

The killers of a genocide do not feel responsible. They tell, without cracking. Everyone took part, none does not feel guilty separately. They spoke without tiredness, irritation, never being let go to their emotions. When they tackle the question of forgiveness, they regard this last as due and do not imagine that this last cannot be to them granted.

Distinction and adaptation

Prix Femina test in November 2004
the work was adapted in play in 2006 by the Passeurs company of Memory (put in scene of Dominique Lurcel).

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