Machete Season

In the summer of 1994, two million Hutus fled to the Congo. When they returned two years later, their sense of shame, collective guilt, and concern over revenge and reprisals mixed with the Tutsis’ real anguish to create an atmosphere of absolute fear.

When Hatzfeld arrives, the countryside is quiet. The Tutsis speak only among themselves; no Hutu farmers will speak to him. Usually after a war, soldiers talk about their experiences; even the secret police in the Bosnian ethnic cleansing did so. Hatzfeld believes that their refusal to speak cannot solely be explained by a fear of reprisal alone.

Although the survivors rarely saw the killers in the marshes, they recognized voices. Hatzfeld expects the same refusal to speak from the killers in prison. Yet as inmates, the killers are more willing to talk because the prison walls protect them from the victims’ memories. Moreover, with the protection of the gang, they can confront the killings together.

Pancrace argues that torturing Tutsis was not required; it was something the killers did on their own. When they tortured a Tutsi, usually it was because the Tutsi forced the killers to run after them. They would cut the runner but not kill them, and then they would listen to them suffer.