51 pages • 1 hour read
Jean HatzfeldMachete Season
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Early Morning”
April 11, 1994 was the first day of organized killings in Nyamata. Since the downing of Hutu dictator Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane on April 6, 1994, Hutu paramilitary, the interahamwe—translated from Rwandans’ native language of Kinyarwanda “as those who kill together”—and Hutu soldiers had been killing their political opponents. The genocide leaders arrived in Nyamata to organize the killings. The leaders instructed Hutu gang members, like Rose Kubwimana’s 23-year-old son Aldabert Munzigura and his friends, to kill the friends and family members—including men, women, and children—of Tutsi leaders on the government’s extermination list.
The gang of killers made their way to the soccer field. The gang included Adalbert, 25-year-old Pancrace Hakizamungili, 39-year-old Fulgence Bunani, 37-year-old Pio Mutungirehe, and 39-year-old Alphonse Hitiyaremye. At the field, they were joined by 38-year-old Jean-Baptiste Murangira, 31-year-old Joseph-Désiré Bitero, 22-year-old Léopord Twagirayezu, 50-year-old Élie Mizinge, and 62-year-old Ignace Rukiramacumu.
After listening to speeches and drinking a locally brewed banana beer called urwagwa, the men stepped into the muck to hunt Tutsis. Most Tutsis were hiding, their houses abandoned. Aldabert led the small gang of killers from the three hills bordering the marshes to help kill over 5,000 Tutsi in their region, the neighbors they lived with for generations.
Chapter 2 Summary: “How It Was Organized”
The killers recount how the genocide was organized. On April 10, the authorities gathered the farmers and instructed them to kill all Tutsis, whom they labeled cockroaches. The killers also received permission to loot Tutsi property. Daily life during the genocide was divided between recreation—eating, drinking beer, spending time with their families—and killing in the marshes. Each morning, the killers met at the soccer field with their sharpened machetes and then left to kill and loot. As a junior official for the interahamwe, Léopord was in charge of the unit.
The killers enjoyed the camaraderie of belonging to a gang. They watched over one another and sang songs as they marched to the marshes. They were often accompanied by the interahamwe, who had larger vehicles and provided reinforcements. Élie suggests that the Hutus were “patriotic brothers” whose differences disappeared when they hunted “as kindred spirits” (19).
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Three Hills”
This chapter examines the history of Tutsi and Hutu immigration into the Bugesera region which contains the town of Nyamata. Neither ethnic group can make a prior claim to the region since they arrived at the same time.
Rwandans began to immigrate to Bugesera in 1959 when the country was still a Belgian colony. Under Tutsi kings, the Hutu were forced into unpaid labor, among other humiliations. When the last Tutsi king died in 1959, the Hutus rebelled and killed Tutsis, who fled on the backs of Belgian trucks and were dropped at the Akanyara River bordering the region. The region’s indigenous residents, the Twa—a group of pygmy who lived in the forest and bush— were the only other inhabitants. Innocent Rwililiza—a teacher, a Tutsi survivor, and the author’s translator—can still remember regularly seeing wild animals into the 1980s.
As the Hutu and Tutsi established roots, ethnic background mattered little. Both groups immigrated to escape poverty or massacres. In the 1970s, as the Tutsi established Nyamata, the Hutu farmers faced famine. Rather than follow the Tutsis, the Hutus settled in the virgin forest that bordered the hills. After Rwanda won its independence in 1961, Hutu officials formally recognized the forest as Hutu land. Using their aptitude for farming, the Hutus successfully grew banana plants.
On the eve of the genocide, the population of the Nyamata district was 119,000. After the genocide, 50,500 remained. Five out of six Tutsi were murdered in six weeks.
Chapter 4 Summary: “The First Time”
The killers share their reactions to their first kills and how they all got used to killing.
On the first day, only Adalbert did not kill. Days later, however, he killed two children as target practice. Although Pancrace cannot recall his first kill, he remembers the first person who looked right at him during the killing. The victim’s black eyes affected him more than the blood or the sound of death.
Fulgence’s first blow was to the head of an elderly woman; he felt nothing. Later, however, when he saw the blood streaming from a woman he attacked, he felt too sick to finish her off. Alphonse’s first victim was an old man he killed with an inkota, a sharp blade used for farm work. Alphonse was surprised at how soft a blow can kill so quickly.
Jean-Baptist was forced to kill a Hutu man in exchange for the life of his own Tutsi wife, Spécoise Mukandahunga. Shocked by the blood of the first cut, he backed away. When the other killers pushed him forward, Jean-Baptist closed his eyes and struck again. Despite no killing experience, Pio murdered his neighbor quickly. Without even thinking about it, Léopord slit a man’s throat as he ran by. He cannot tell what small thing changed in him to make him a killer.
When the killers heard that Tutsi were hiding in the mines, they lobbed grenades and set fire to the mine. Ignace remembers the deaths because of the burning bodies; it was his first big kill.
Chapter 5 Summary: “A Gang”
Hatzfeld shares his first impressions of the killers, whom he interviews in a prison in Rilima, outside Nyamata. The only interview subject on death row, Joseph-Désiré is confined to a specific area; the others can meet with Hatzfeld in the courtyard.
Hatzfeld notes that only Léopord is mentally broken from the killing and his subsequent exile to a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he confessed to the killings and denounced his interahamwe membership. On May 12, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a group of Tutsi militias organized by exiles in neighboring countries, liberated the country and the Hutu killers fled into exile.
Like the others, Jean-Baptiste surrendered after returning from exile in 1996 and went to prison. As their trials grew closer, they spoke openly to authorities about their involvement in the killings to keep their gang together and to lessen their expected punishment. The confessions sealed their bonds as friends, uniting them no matter what (35).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Apprenticeship”
During the genocide, each killer killed according to his personality and preference. Many were not natural killers, but Adalbert says repetition helped them learn to kill. Each male was expected to arrive with a machete. If a person was not confident in killing, Léopord notes, they received instructions and were forced to kill in front of other killers to ensure their compliance.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Group Spirit”
Hatzfeld details how he came to interview this group of ten killers. Hatzfeld meets with the survivors and the killers separately, but members of both groups distrust him and fear speaking to him, albeit for different reasons. The survivors distrust all outsiders because none of them helped end the genocide. They worry no one will believe their stories and fear that in the retelling they would relive the pain. The killers, on the other hand, are reluctant to further incriminate themselves and believe it is safer to say nothing.
Initially, Hatzfeld is more interested in survivors than killers. But after hearing from readers who want to learn more about the killers, his own interest grows. Hatzfeld knows that most killers will initially stay silent or lie. So he looks for a group of killers who were close friends before the genocide and whose bonds grew through the killing and imprisonment.
Having taught many of the gang in school, Innocent knows them well. He says that, as youths, Adalbert was smart and mean; Pancrace was Adalbert’s “shadow” since they were kids; Pio was kind; Alphonse the most “wily;” Fulgence was good-looking and pious; Léopord was tall; and Ignace could be surprisingly mean to the Tutsis, whom he always hated (46).
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
Before the genocide, the Hutu killers were not united. Although the ruling Hutu government was a dictatorship, political divisions kept them from uniting under the president’s party. When the genocide began, the Hutu farmers and the political leaders—variously referred to by the killers as the interahamwe or the intimidators—all forgot about their political and cultural differences. Even their personal quarrels are put aside in order to kill. Most Hutu leaders who opposed the killings had already been killed.
Instead, they united in their primary identity as Hutu, putting aside their other ethnic identities. For example, some were Catholic, others were Pentecostal, yet all became Hutu in order to kill. However, in uniting into their single identity to kill, they also had to make Tutsis into a single identity with characteristics that transcended any differences among them, such as class. They had to forget that they had grown up with Tutsis, lived next door to them, and had no personal quarrels with them. The gang’s ability to kill approximately 83 percent of all Tutsis living in the district reflects their belief that all Tutsis were alike with similar characteristics. Like the Holocaust and the Bosnian genocide, the Rwandan genocide was made possible by uniting one group under a cultural or national identity against a common foe. This reflects the danger of “us vs. them” narratives which in the 21st century have propelled a series of populist leaders to power around the world.
A key element in the killers’ ability to engage in mass murder was that their Hutu identity was stronger than their lived experience with Tutsis. Thus, when they first met up in the soccer field with their machetes, their sole order was to kill Tutsis. That simple, explicit order foreclosed any possibility of thinking of the Tutsis as neighbors or even human beings. Dehumanization, best reflected by the Hutu’s labeling of Tutsis as “cockroaches,” is another key ingredient in genocides during the 20th century.
These chapters also explore the group dynamics of the ten killers which helped them learn to kill. If a Hutu identity was required to identify an enemy that was to be killed without mercy, then the gang member’s identity helped them to keep killing after their very first time. The gang comprised individuals with complementary strengths, which added to the group’s cohesion. It included members of the interahamwe, who could give them the encouragement, the detachment, and the skills they needed to kill. The gang also included a core group of members who grew up together. Thus, they knew from experience that they could rely on each other.
When the gang went out to kill, the group dynamics reinforced the killing. When some members failed to complete a kill, others were there to finish off the victims. At the onset of the genocide, they encouraged one another to keep going. Each individual knew their comrades in the marshes would support them. Finally, at the end of each day, the killers hung out with each other and celebrated their killings as a group. Although the genocide depended on a nationwide casting of Hutu identity that spanned regions and communities, the killing also depended on fostering existing dynamics within small groups of friends.
Finally, once in exile and in prison, these dynamics continued to play an important role for the killers, this time as a form of protection. They banded together and coordinated their behaviors to ensure reduced sentences and relative safety under the harsh conditions of prisons and detention camps.
