When victims becomes killers

Abstract

When we captured Kigali, we thought we would face criminals in the state;instead, we faced a criminal population. " So a political commissar in the Rwanda Patriotic Frond reflected after the 1994 massacre of as many as one million Tutsis in Rwanda. Underlying his statement is the realization that, though ordered by minority of state functionaries, the slaughter was performed by hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, including even judges, human rights activities, and doctors, nurses, priests, friends, and spouses of the victims. Indeed, it is its very popularity that makes the Rwandan genocide so unthinkable. The book makes it thinkable.