Turning interahamwe: individual and community choices in the Rwandan genocide

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements I would like to especially acknowledge Dirk Moses for his longstanding support of this research. Thanks also to Lydia Mutekano and Wendy Lambourne for their valuable assistance on this project, and to Kirsten McKenzie and Zora Simic for their general encouragement; it has all been greatly appreciated. Finally, thanks to the many people who helped with the editing of various drafts, with particular mentions to Gabrielle Kuiper and Mike Otterman. Notes 1 A bourgemestre was roughly equivalent to a local mayor but with more administrative and executive authority. 2 Cecil Aptel, “The intent to commit genocide in the case law of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,” Criminal Law Forum, Vol 13, No 3, 2002, pp 273–291. 3 Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (New York: Basic Book, 2001), p 246. 4 See Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full, p 282 and Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocode in Rwanda (Paris: Human Rights Watch, International Federation of Human Rights, 1999), pp 270–273. Akayesu and the other bourgmestres attended a meeting on Monday, April 18, run by Rwanda's Prime Minister, Jean Kambanda, and some of his ministers. According to an MRND official who attended the meeting, the Prime Minster accused the uncooperative bourgmestres of being RPF accomplices. ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, p 76 in Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, p 273. 5 Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, p 274. 6 Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full, p 282. 7 This quote is from Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full, p 262. 8 For a general overview of the growth of extremism, see Joan Kakwenzire and Dixon Kamjura, “The development and consolidation of extremist forces in Rwanda 1990–1994,” in Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke, eds, The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1999), pp 61–91. 9 Landmark works in the development of this theory include Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin Books, 1994). For a detailed description of structural functionalism, see A. D. Moses, “Structure and agency in the Holocaust: Daniel J. Goldhagen and his critics,” History & Theory, Vol 37, 1998, pp 194–219. 10 It has been argued that the “cultural memory” of the violence of 1963–64 combined with bitter memories of colonialism to provide the raw material upon which the extremists capitalized in 1990–94. Peter Uvin, “Prejudice, crisis and genocide in Rwanda,” African Studies Review, Vol 40, No 2, 1997, pp 91–115. 11 Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1996). Uvin claims to modify Goldhagen's argument by adding that racial hatred was not a sufficient explanation by itself and that it was the manipulation of the hatred by political elites that was a significant factor. Peter Uvin, “Prejudice, crisis and genocide in Rwanda,” pp 108–111. In the end, the premise that racist ideology in the main was the predetermining factor for the Holocaust fails especially because of the fact that non-Germans were able to be coopted into the killing process as easily as Germans. See A. D. Moses, “Structure and agency in the Holocaust,” pp 215–216. Furthermore, Goldhagen's use of a “cognitive model” of exterminationist anti-Semitism that is culturally ingrained is extremely problematic. It implies a notion of large numbers of the population being predisposed to kill, which takes away choice and agency from the perpetrators, the very things Goldhagen tried to put back into the debate. Paul A Roth, “Hearts of darkness: perpetrator history and why there is no why,” History of the Human Sciences, Vol 17, No 2–3, 2004, pp 228–229. 12 Nigel Eltringham, Accounting for Horror: Post-Genocide Debates in Rwanda (London: Pluto Press, 2004), p 79. Also see Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp 119–123. 13 For an analysis of the political parties during the Rwandan social revolution of 1959 and subsequent elections, see Nigel Eltringham, Accounting for Horror, pp 85–94 and Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, pp 119–123. 14 There was expulsion of Tutsis from schools, universities and other public and private enterprises in 1972–73 at the end of the Kayibanda regime. But Prunier and Mamdani argue that these crackdowns were halted when Habyarimana took over and life for many Tutsis actually improved under Habyarimana's rule. Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide 1959–1994 (London: Hurst, 1995), pp 60–61, 74–76. Jean-Pierre Chrétien, The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History, trans. Scott Straus (New York: Zone Books, 2003), p 306. Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, pp 138–139. 15 In this period Rwanda' population grew from around two million to eight million. It now has the highest rural population density in Africa (574 people per square kilometre of arable land). Daniel C. Clay, Fighting an Uphill Battle: Population Pressure and Declining Land Productivity in Rwanda, MSU International Development Paper Number 58 (Michigan: Michigan State University, 1996), p 4. 16 From two hectares per family in the 1960s to 0.7 hectares in the 1990s. Peter Uvin, “Tragedy in Rwanda: the political ecology of conflict,” Environment, Vol 38, No 3, 1996, p 10. Also see Peter Uvin, Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda (West Hartford: Ct Kumarian Press, 1998), pp 180–202. 17 Peter Uvin, “Tragedy in Rwanda,” pp 10–11.Villia Jefremovas, Brickyards to Graveyards: From Production to Genocide in Rwanda (New York: New York State University of New York Press, 2002), p 110. 18 Peter Uvin, “Tragedy in Rwanda,” p 14. A number of studies in French have also been published on this issue; see Timothy Longman, “Placing genocide in context: research priorities for the Rwandan genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 6, No 1, 2004, p 37. 19 All this material comes from the work of Villia Jefremovas, Brickyards to Graveyards, pp 76–95. 20 Another theory propounded by Peter Uvin, Aiding Violence, pp 136–139, on the basis of the land scarcity argument, but the work by Jefremovas on the changing systems of land ownership would seem to only strengthen the argument. 21 The argument draws strongly on the theory of scapegoating, or the blaming of a (usually minority racial) group for economic and social frustrations. See Ervin Staub for theory on scapegoating and genocide in The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp 35–50. For work on how economic and social pressures may have produced scapegoating of Jews in the Holocaust, see Peter Glick, “Sacrificial lambs dressed in wolves' clothing: envious prejudice, ideology, and the scapegoating of the Jews,” in Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber, eds, Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp 113–142. 22 It has been argued that the greatest disparity in land tenure (and therefore the greatest inequality) in the north produced the higher levels of extremism there. Villia Jefremovas, Brickyards to Graveyards, pp 114–118. However, these trends could be explained by other factors, such as the fact that the north had the fewest Tutsis and was a traditional centre of Hutu power. By contrast, the south had the largest proportion of Tutsis, much intermarriage and a tradition of coexistence. 23 René Lemarchenad, “Disconnecting the threads: Rwanda and the holocaust reconsidered,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 4, No 4, 2002, pp 499–518, argues that the anti-Tutsi violence of 1963–64, the first instance of ethnically based mass killing in the country, was a direct response to the attempts by recent expatriate Tutsis to invade the country and restore themselves to power. The pogroms of 1973 (which ended the Kayibanda regime) followed the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Hutus in neighbouring Burundi. This position assumes that that there are the only two occasions of mass violence by Hutus against Tutsi in the history of Rwanda before 1990, an assumption that may not be uncontested in the controversial world of Rwandan historical scholarship. 24 Theoretical sinew is added to the bones of this idea by political scientist Mahmood Mamdani. He argues that the Rwandan state failed to transcend the toxic political identities that were solidified during the period of colonial occupation and that Rwanda could not imagine itself as a country that would accept the return of the Tutsi refugees (Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, pp 215–216). Supporting this argument is Nigel Eltringham, who examined the way that the extremists used the signing of the Arusha Accords, the Ndadaye assassination to split the opposition movement down the middle into a moderate and a power faction. Nigel Eltringham, Accounting for Horror, pp 85–94. 25 Mamdani goes so far as to claim that this was the key reason that the Hutu extremists prevailed. Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p 191. 26 Filip Reyntjens, “Rwanda: genocide and beyond,” Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol 9, No 3, 1996, p 245 and Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide 1959–1994 (London: Hurst, 1995), p 77. 27 The gender emphasis is Gérard Prunier's, whose book The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide was one of the first academic analyses of the genocide. He was also the first to develop the authoritarianism/obedience thesis. Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p 245. Reytjens also takes up the culture of obedience argument: “This combination of strong administration and social conformism can be an asset, but it can also be a liability: it can be a powerful tool at the service of development, but it can also be used to conduct a highly efficient and ‘decentralised’ genocide.” Reyntjens, “Rwanda: genocide and beyond,” p 245. 28 Examples of this disobedience include: selling on the black market and underestimating assets to pay less tax, undermining the rules regarding compulsory coffee plantation and avoiding communal labour obligations. Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p 200, Peter Uvin, Aiding Violence, p 67. The last example of communal labour projects is particularly important as a direct link is often drawn between these projects introduced by Habyarimana and the genocide. See Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, p 234 and Philip Verwimp, “Development ideology, the peasantry, and genocide: Rwanda represented in Habyarimana's speeches,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 2, No 3, 2000, pp 351–353. 29 As Longman points out, the culture of obedience has not been demonstrated empirically. Timothy Longman, “Placing genocide in context: research priorities for the Rwandan genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 6, No 1, 2004, p 37. 30 Stanley Milgram, “Behavioural study of obedience,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol 67, No 4, 1963, pp 371–378. 31 Subjects were shown a line and were asked to estimate its measurement. The experimenters found, to their surprise, that between 50% and 80% of naïve participants would go along with an incorrect measurement if all the other (knowing) participants had already done so. Paul A. Roth, “Hearts of darkness; perpetrator history and why there is no why,” History of the Human Sciences, Vol 17, No 2–3, 2004, p 240. Milgram's experiments only directly touch on the conformity issue in a variation of the original set up, which showed that people were less likely to go on with the experiment if there was another dissenter for them to follow. Roth, “Hearts of darkness,” pp 217–218. 32 See Philip Zimbardo, “A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: understanding how good people are transformed into murderers,” in Arthur G. Miller, The Social Psychology of Good and Evil (New York: Guilford Press, 2004), pp 21–50. See also Christopher C. Taylor, “The cultural face of terror in the Rwandan genocide of 1994,” in Alexander Laban Hinton, ed., Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), pp 137–178. 33 It has been argued that these experiments from social psychology show that ideology is essentially unnecessary in explaining the actions of perpetrators. (This argument is made by philosopher Philip Roth, “Hearts of darkness,” p 215.) However, the very fact that people believed they were in an experiment, especially in the Milgram experiments, implies a set of implicit beliefs and therefore an ideology. Therefore this interpretation is overreaching. Conformity/obedience cannot stand alone as an explanation but should be considered together with the effect of ideology. 34 Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Perennial, 1992). 35 Major Trapp was a weak personality and Browning speculates whether it was the inherent authority of the system or a personal like for their commanding officer that motivated the men to go along with his orders. Browning, Ordinary Men, pp 174–175. 36 Browning points out that even Milgram was doubtful as to whether obedience or conformity best described the behaviour of his subjects, noting that Milgram saw how appealing to obedience absolved them of responsibility whereas appealing to conformity did not. Browning, Ordinary Men, p 174. 37 Many examples of potential killers releasing their victims after extorting money may be found in Rwanda: Death, Despair, Defiance, Revised Edition August 1995 (London: African Rights, 1995), pp 283, 363, 413, 419, 586. The best evidence of looting will be found in the Nyamata perpetrator testimonies below. 38 This argument is made by Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, p 198. 39 Longman in his review of the literature on Rwanda does take a multicausal view. Longman, “Placing genocide in context,” pp 29–45. 40 Jean Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes (Paris: Seuil, 2003). Researchers are starting to collect their own perpetrator interviews. A number of papers were presented on the topic at the Sixth Conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA, June 4–7, 2005, for example, Omar S. McDoom, “The Rwandan genocide: the nature and scale of participation of rural Hutu farmers” and Reva Adler, “Interviewing Rwandan genocide perpetrators in order to evolve risk factors for genocidal behavior in individuals and groups.” A published study making use of perpetrator testimonies is Charles Mironko, “Igitero: means and motive in the Rwandan genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 6, No 1, 2004, pp 47–60. 41 The commune of Nyamata is in the Bugesera region of Kigali préfecture—a region with poor, swampy land and little fresh water. Few people lived there until 1959, when Tutsis fleeing the pogroms began to settle there, gradually making it fit for habitation. They were followed by Hutus looking for a better life. Soon Hutus took over the local government administration; Hutu families secured the best land and removed the Tutsis onto less fertile properties. Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, pp 22–26. 42 One Tutsi neighbour thought that they did not seem menacing, except when they were drinking in the bar where they might laugh and scoff at the Tutsis. Clémentine Murebwayre in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, pp 38–39. 43 Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 35. Translations from the French in Hatzfeld's book were done by the author with assistance from Lydia Mutekano. 44 One Tutsi neighbour observed that members of the group became angry and menacing towards the Tutsis during the killings in the Bugesera in 1992 and when there was any news of the war with the RPF. Innocent Rwililiza in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, pp 39–40. 45 Ibid, pp 35–40. 46 Jean Hatzfeld, Into the Quick of Life, the Rwandan Genocide: The Survivors Speak, trans. Gerry Feehily (London: Serpent's Tale, 2005). The original came out in French in 2000. 47 Pio Mutungirehe in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, pp 264–265. 48 Pancrace Hakizamungili in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 266. 49 Alphonse Hitiyaremye in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 268. 50 Adalbert Muzingura in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 262; “malice” translated as “hatred.” 51 One of the Tutsis quoted above believed that these ideas were brought by the previous generation from Gitarama. Innocent Rwililiza in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, pp 39–40. 52 Jean-Baptiste Munyankore in Hatfeld, Into the Quick of Life, pp 46–47. 53 Alphonse Hitiyaremye in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 265. 54 Fulgence Bunani in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 264. 55 Élie Mizinge in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, pp 266–267. 56 Evidence from survivor testimonies suggests that this is common. There are myriad examples where perpetrators refrained from killing because the victim was an acquaintance of people they knew, or the victim came from the same hometown, or the victim was able to give them some money, or that they simply could not seem to be bothered. Such behaviour only makes sense if we think of the anger of the killers as time and situation contingent and the killers themselves as under the influence of multiple motivations. These survivor testimonies are all drawn from the African Rights publication Rwanda: Death, Despair, Defiance, op cit. This source will be discussed at length in the next section. 57 Alphonse Hitiyaremye in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 86. 58 The fine either consisted of payment in cash or sometimes in liquor. 59 Pio Mutungirehe in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 91. 60 Leopord was the first to confess and the only one to show genuine remorse. 61 Leopord Twagirayezu in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 220. 62 Survivors report that soldiers and police helped the attackers break into the church, but took a back seat to allow the interahamwe to do the actual killing. In a similar way, the soldiers played a supporting role to the interahamwe in the big attack on the main street, Hatzfeld, Into the Quick of Life, pp 32, 66–68. 63 Ignace Rukiramakumu in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 85, Pancrace Hakizamungili in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 85. 64 A strong witness statement to this effect is made by Edith Uwanyiligira in Hatzfeld, Into the Quick of Life, p 119. Edith Uwanyiligira, teacher and school bursar, describes her impressions of the first few days of the genocide: “When finally the president's plane crashed, three days later, the radio stations forbade us to go out. Right then, we did not know what to think of our fate, but the Hutus in our region—they too—were hesitating as to our fate; like us, they were waiting. Then we heard the burgomasters, the police, the local civil servants, going up and down the bush, encouraging the villagers with this variety of order: ‘What stops you from killing these Tutsis like they did in Kigali? They are cockroaches!,’ ‘There is no more room for Tutsis, you must kill them any way you can,’ ‘They are vipers, and now it’s time to get rid of them. No one will be punished!' At the same moment the interahamwe and soldiers from the barracks at Gako exerted themselves with the first lots of killing of those whose houses were doused with paint. So after five days, our Hutu friends turned against their former Tutsi friends.” 65 Joseph-Désiré Bitero in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 60. 66 Pio Mutungirehe in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 57. 67 Lauren Renzaho in Fergal Keane, Panorama: The Killers, BBC-1, April 4, 1994. 68 Gitera Rwamuhizi, “Taken over by Satan,” BBC Panorama website, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/3582011.stm. 69 Pio Mutungirehe in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 57. Compare this language to the very common use of the term igitero (literally, group attack) that Charles Miroko found in use among the perpetrators he interviewed. Mironko describes that in Rwandan culture this term is used as a hunting metaphor and that organized igitero were used in the episodes of ethnic cleansing in 1959. Mironko, “Igitero: means and motive in the Rwandan genocide,” pp 51–53. 70 Leopord Twagirayezu in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 104. 71 Alphonse Hitiyaremye in Hatzfeld, Une Saison de Machettes, p 100. 72 Jean-Baptiste Murangira, Une Saison de Machettes, p 106. 73 Linda Melvern, Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide (London: Verso, 2004), pp 136–174 and Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (Toronto: Random House, 2003), pp 221–328. 74 For which there are various translations, the most common of which are “those who stand together” or “those who attack together.” Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, p 4. 75 There is also evidence of professional training being conducted by army officers from 1992 onwards. The interahamwe were first used in a state-planned slaughter in Bugesera in March 1992, in one of a number of trial runs for the genocide in the years leading up to 1994. Melvern, Conspiracy to Murder, pp 25–27. 76 Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil, p 142. 77 Ibid, p 194. Linda Melvern has unearthed some information about a secret organization dedicated to the genocide called the “zero network” (Melvern, Conspiracy to Murder, pp 28–32). On the topic of who was in control of the interahamwe: four weeks into the genocide, Roméo Dallaire met with three people whom he believed to be three of the leaders of the interahamwe (Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil, pp 345–347); a slip by the Prime Minister Kambanda instead suggests that Chairman of the MRND Mathieu Ngirumpatse had control of the interahamwe (Melvern, Conspiracy to Murder, p 195). 78 Authors have not tended to put much stock in this publication as a scholarly work on the genocide probably because the interviews come with so little analysis. Longman claims that the details are “flawed”: Longman, “Placing the genocide in context,” p 33. However, one imagines that he is talking about the analysis rather than the interviews, which are of primary interest here. Many authors, such as Des Forges, often refer to this text as a means of providing supporting evidence in their work, but has not done so either rigorously or methodically, preferring to use evidence here and there to help make a point. 79 We do not know how credible or discriminating the researcher(s) were in collecting the interviews nor how the decision was made to choose material to put in and how to edit it. But the intention of the author seems to have been to put down on paper as extensive an archive as possible of the genocide: this has led to a good deal of repetitiveness which benefits the historian because it allows verification and corroboration of patterns of behaviour, events and people. 80 Interviewed in Mamembe, Cyangugu, February 12, 1995, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 518. 81 Interviewed in Rwamatumu, Kibuye, March 12, 1995, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, pp 431–432. 82 Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, p 316. 83 Ibid, pp 311–313. 84 Ibid, pp 336–342. 85 Ibid, p 328. 86 Ibid, pp 328–329. 87 Adam Jones discusses the possibility that the formulation and implementation of the genocide policy was so strongly directed at young men that it might even be understood as an attempt to solve the crisis of masculinity and unemployment caused by the dwindling of resources for the young. Adam Jones, “Gender and gendercide in Rwanda,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 4, No 1, 2002, p 67. 88 African Rights, “Father Hormisidas Nsengimana: accused of genocide, sheltered by the church,” Witness to Genocide, Issue 14, 2001, esp. pp 16–25. 89 Innocent Habyarimana, in African Rights, “Father Hormisidas Nsengimana,” p 18, Donatilla Mukamunana, in African Rights, “Father Hormisidas Nsengimana,” p 18. 90 Janvier Habimana in African Rights, “Father Hormisidas Nsengimana,” p 19. 91 Jean Baptiste Bemera, interviewed in Ndora, Butare, July 20, 1995, African Rights, Rwanda Not So Innocent: When Women Become Killers (London: African Rights, 1995), p 28. 92 Interviewed in Ndora, Butare, July 19, 1995, in African Rights, Rwanda Not So Innocent, pp 29–30. 93 Celestin Nzabonankira in African Rights, Rwanda Not So Innocent, p 30. 94 Jean Baptiste Bemera in African Rights, Rwanda Not So Innocent, p 32. 95 Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, pp 355–366. 96 Ibid, pp 378–379. 97 Almost all of these large massacres during the genocide occurred in mid to late April, from April 11 to March 1. Ibid, p 211. 98 Encouraging the Tutsis to gather at the one place in order to make them easier to kill has been noted previously. Ibid, pp 210–211. Des Forges quotes a Rwandan saying: “it was like sweeping dry banana leaves into a pile to burn them more easily.” 99 The behaviour of soldiers at the massacre sites would be worthy of more study. 100 Parish of Nyamata, Kigali, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 279. 101 The use of banana leaves seems to have been as a kind of “genocide uniform,” as well as making it difficult for witnesses to identify the interahamwe. Parish of Musha, Kigali, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 292. 102 Parish of Kaduha, Gikongoro, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 316. 103 Parish of Muganza, Gikongoro, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 329. 104 Parish of Cyahinda, Butare, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 341. 105 Parish of Zaza, Kibungo, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 373. 106 The Commune Office, Rwamatamu, Kibuye, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 335. 107 Parish of Nyamsheke, Cyangugu, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 459. 108 Of Kaduha, she says: “The great mass of assailants was made up of ordinary people from the surrounding communes, particularly Musebeya and Muko, as well as from Kaduha itself.” Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, p 343. In the Cyahinda massacres in Butare, in which it took two days for the attackers to slaughter as many as 10–15,000 people, she estimates that there were probably around 6–8,000 assailants. Des Forges, ibid, pp 394–395. 109 Ibrahim Muganantwali, interviewed in Gahunga, Greater Kigali, January 9, 1995, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 276. 110 Francoise Niwemugore, Gahunga, Greater Kigali, January 9, 1995, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 281. 111 Innocent Nzirabatinya and Francois Ndamage, interviewed in Butare, April 2, 1995, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 335. 112 Ezekias Nzaramba, interviewed in Gitetsi, March 10, 1995, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 426. In addition to these, there is Caritas' line already quoted in Chapter 2: “Bonaventure, you, too, have become an interahamwe.” Caritas Kabagwiza, interviewed in Kigali, March 18, 1995, African Rights, Death, Despair, Defiance, p 429. 113 Darryl Li, writing about hate radio in Rwanda, said: “The genocide extended beyond bureaucracies to other everyday routines and contexts. From the point of view of most Rwandans, it was not simply the priest, the schoolteacher, and the radio animateur all spoke of the same necessity to work, but that they sometimes did so as part of the weekly sermon, the daily lesson, the hourly bulletin.” Darryl Li, “Echoes of violence: considerations on radio and genocide in Rwanda,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 6, No 1, 2004, p 20. There was not room in this article to discuss the issue of the Rwandan hate media, but much work has been done on this topic; see also Frank Chalk, “Hate radio in Rwanda,” in Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke, eds, The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1999), pp 93–107. Also see the authoritative work on the subject by Jean-Pierre Chrétien et al., Rwanda: Les Médias du Genocide (Paris: Karthala, 1999). 114 As reported by Vestin Nyafurere in Death, Despair, Defiance, p 294. 115 The research finds that separating people's behaviour from their attitudes is an artificial division. Cognitive dissonance literature shows that when there is an inconsistency between a person's attitudes and their behaviour, they may find it easier to adapt their attitudes to reflect their behaviour rather than the other way around. Leonard S. Newman, “What is a ‘social-psychological’ account of perpetrator behaviour?: the person versus the situation on Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners,” in Leonard S Newman and Ralph Erber, eds, Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp 52–55. Psychological studies have developed the theory of the “just world phenomenon” to show that in order to cope psychologically with their actions (or inaction), perpetrators prefer to think that people who are objects of mistreatment deserve that treatment. Referred to in both Staub, The Roots of Evil, pp 79–81 and Newman, “What is a ‘social-psychological’ account of perpetrator behaviour?,” pp 53–54. Newman also helps explain this phenomenon in reference to a psychological theory called “cognitive dissonance.” Mechanisms of separation, isolation and the denial of food to a victim group would have added to the dehumanization of the Tutsis in the eyes of the population. James Waller calls it the “social death of the victim”; see James Waller, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp 236–257. Staub developed the notion of “steps along a continuum of destruction” to describe the ways in which people can be slowly drawn into implicit acceptance of situations through smaller, discrete jumps. Staub, The Roots of Evil, pp 79–82.