In 1990, war broke out between the Rwandan Patriotic Front, one of Rwanda's main ethnic groups, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, another major ethnic group, the Hutu ethnic group. Under mediation and pressure from neighboring countries, the two sides reached a fragile ceasefire agreement in August 1993. On 6 April 1994, rwandan presidents Juvenal Habyalimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaliamila were shot down near kigali, the capital of Rwanda, and both presidents were killed at the same time, an event that triggered the Rwandan genocide, in which hutu ethnic groups launched bloody reprisals against Tutsi throughout Rwanda and some moderate Hutu elements were killed. In July 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and forces from neighboring Uganda counterattacked into the Rwandan capital, Kigali, defeating the Hutu government. 2 million Hutu people, including some of the participants in the massacre, fled to neighboring Burundi for fear of reprisals from the Tutsi. Thousands of people have died in refugee camps due to cholera and dysentery. Nearly 1/8 of Rwanda's population disappeared with the massacre. On 23 December 2003, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 7 April as the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda, which was renamed in 2018 as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Rwandan Massacre against the Tutsi.
In the year of the massacre, the French war correspondent Jean Hartsfield traveled to Rwanda to investigate and report on the course and aftermath of this human tragedy, trying to answer the difficult question. He spent fourteen years on the front lines interviewing a large number of witnesses to the holocaust, recording their oral memories, and writing the "Rwanda Massacre Trilogy" ("Naked Life", "Butcher Knife Season", "Antelope Strategy"). Today, they have been collected and condensed and published under the Chinese translation of Neighbouring the Butcher's Knife.
Despite Rwanda's policy of national reconciliation immediately after the massacre and its attempts to break with the old hateful ethnic relations, the lives of those who witnessed the holocaust, both perpetrators and survivors, had been radically changed. Recording the memories of those who witnessed the massacre became a "cruel" journey full of thorns. In the book, Hartsfield observes that guilt-ridden Hutus are generally silent, weaving more acceptable stories through lies, denial, and forgetfulness. The Tutsi for the rest of their lives no longer believe in the moral beliefs they once had, and are trapped in an "eternal sense of loneliness" and a lack of trust in human nature. The Holocaust brought about not only the demise of life, but also the collapse of faith in human civilization. In the face of such an appalling tragedy, no one can face it with aplomb.
But this is perhaps the most valuable value of this oral record. Nowadays, we can find international relations and identity politics analysis of the Holocaust in the vast literature, and we can feel the atmosphere of that period of history as much as possible from film and television works such as "Hotel Rwanda". But only the memory of those who witnessed it can clearly tell us what slaughter means for individual life. The history of tragedy does not stop at the time and space in which it occurred, but is integrated into the language of those who witnessed it. The memory may be told mixed with cover-ups and lies, but it is what really brings us to the pain of the Holocaust. And to remember this pain is to make the tragedy not come again in a similar form in the present and the future. The following is an excerpt from "Neighboring with the Butcher's Knife" with the permission of the publishing house, with deletions and changes, and the subtitle is added by the editor.
"Neighboring with butcher knives: Survivors, Executioners, and Memories of the Rwandan Genocide," by Jean Hartsfield, translated by Long Yun and Sun Xuan, Beijing Daily Press, Republic, March 2022.
Neighbor to the butcher's knife: What exactly does the word "reconciliation" mean?
Houses were burned, roofs were torn down, corpses were strewn across the streets, cattle were scattered, doors were scattered, garbage was strewn... In the summer of 1994, after the unrest, a desolate atmosphere hung over every corner of Nyamatta, and when the commemoration was held ten years later, the reporters who passed by it at the time could no longer identify the former small town. Exiles and the devastation caused by the war are very similar, and give the impression that this sudden number of people going to the building is beyond everyone's imagination, and the return of the Patriotic Front troops will not help.
On 14 May, the FLF troops set out. Troops appeared around the marshlands to help some 2,500 Tutsi refugees escape their misery. Most of the survivors were escorted to the camp at the end of the main road, while others were quickly scattered among the rural fields, finding shelter and, in some, loot in abandoned houses. Inosan recalls:
"I slept in a small house without any assistance, and waited until late afternoon to go out to find something. The fate of each survivor is different. Some people find loved ones or jobs. Some had a little bit of energy left, and they began a fortuitous search to find bags of grain, buried motorcycles, lost cows, and even savings. The fugitives were careless at the time, and some people made a fortune. ”
The Hutu fleeing army of 50,000 marched all the way to the Congo, where men, women and children roamed the homes of 50,000 Tutsi who had previously looted the slaughtered 50,000 Tutsi. This summer, exiles returning from Burundi and Tanzania flocked to Nyamatta. They arrived in cars, in a huddle, incongruous with the desolate atmosphere of the area. They sang, honked their horns, waved banners, and looked like fans on the sidelines of the football field. They were born in this area and returned to their hometown after many years of leaving their homeland, which is really happy, but when they see the tragedy, they can't help but feel unbearable heartache. Most of them supported the Patriotic Front and took control of the vacant institutions of power: the municipal government, the courts, the military district, the police station, two high schools, the big bars across the market, the hospital, the church.
But it will take two years, after 50,000 Hutus have returned from congo, for the mountains to begin to break away from the ghostly desolation. The Hutus lined up to be escorted back by the soldiers, and more than 7,000 people were soon imprisoned in The Lilima prison, and another group of people was released next to the barren land, who found the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads and the Tutsi survivors, and they would live next to each other from then on.
What a shady fate the survivors are destined to live with the executioner and his family! How cruel history is! The "Reconciliation Plan" was born, a name that was used by the ruling Patriotic Front, European and American funders, humanitarian agencies, United Nations agencies in the country, and church organizations. What happened to the five-year settlement plan or project, is it commendable or a bit hypocritical? What exactly does the polysemantic word "reconciliation" mean: liturgical, political, or spiritual?
Imagine a foreigner who has just arrived in Nyamatta and a tour guide is waiting for him. Foreigners live in parish rooms, managed by a Hutu priest or in a new hotel opened by Emmanuel, a Tutsi. He wandered to the bazaars, to mass, and was fascinated by the songs. Inside the stadium, standing next to the handrails and surrounded by a crowd of joy, he saw the Bugueceira Sports team playing a soccer match, a team big enough to play against all the first division teams in the capital. The next day, he was invited to the elementary school. Everywhere he went, the guide showed him the ubiquitous and inseparable lives of the Tutsi and Hutu peoples, and told him exactly that there was no longer any fighting between them. Foreigners might be accompanied by the mayor of the town in public discussions, with high school teachers or with the president of the public trial assembly: everyone would describe to him this atmosphere of seriousness, whether in meetings, in hard-study classrooms, or in smoothly going on trials, in short, reconciliation was proceeding in an orderly manner.
Thus, for the first two or three days, the illusion of reconciliation continued until a clear rift was seen. For example, after Mass, believers split into two groups at the end of the square, each talking about vows and the news of the week. Then they went home separately, and the two groups didn't talk to each other. In the market, the peasant women looked at each other, did not have good eyes, and did not open their mouths to each other. In a bar where the vet or driver gathers, a customer is drinking by himself or trying to get in and talk to someone, but no one listens to him. Elsewhere, someone simply rejected someone else's hospitality and ignored the banana wine handed over by the other person.
Stills from the movie Hotel Rwanda (2004).
Leaving Nyamatta and heading further into the mountains, the more frequent signs of this antagonism come into view. Pedestrians suddenly cross the road to the other side, muttering something ugly or a few sneers at another passerby. Returning from the bazaar, many people stay outside the forest and want to cross the forest with more people. I remembered the "fear" she had told me when I first met Sylvie Umbiye.
Foreigners climb to the center of Basic Ge and see the peasants working all day to pass the time. Here a group of Tutsi people are chatting idly, and a hundred meters away is a group of Hutu people. The translator describes the exceptions that can be found everywhere: Inhas asks the Tutsi farmer for advice over calves, and Fifi is chatting with the Tutsi female companion. But as soon as he first talks to them, the foreigner immediately feels that something is wrong—something that will happen every day, that will turn into anxiety, or a feeling of nausea—that may grow over the course of his stay, even after he returns home.
What do people think of coexistence and the main theme of "reconciliation"? Do they talk about this too, on what occasion? Because reconciliation is the cornerstone of authoritarian policies and the key word for foreign investors, I thought of some meaningless and polite answers beforehand. To my surprise, both Hutu and Tutsi – at least those who have participated in the first two interviews – responded frankly, speaking relaxedly and interestingly.
"The state has played a role, but it has not completely eliminated the idea of revenge from the minds of survivors"
Alphonse:
"I can adapt to my new life as required. After the bar closed its doors, I reclaimed the land. I'll never get to the level of affluence I used to, but that's okay. The killers adapted to their new lives faster than the survivors because they did not lose their enthusiasm for life. They drove all the way to wet depressions, and when the drought was raging, they irrigated new crops, they stored good harvests that could be sold for a good price, they roasted a lot of banana wine, and the markets were booming.
It can be seen that the Tutsis are not working as they used to be. They've been sad. They still have pain of one kind or another, they are vulnerable. Without timely rain, they quickly lost their momentum.
As for the Hutu people, they were very energetic, and they used to think that this was the end of the game, and the wife might have children with others, but then they were released. Therefore, they feel that reconciliation is advantageous.
I joined two agricultural cooperatives, one is the sugar cane growing cooperative along the Nyabalongo River, with the participation of 83 Hutus and Tutsi farmers, and the other is the food growers cooperative, with a total of 130 members. We also organised physical draws to encourage purchases, we drank together and chatted decently. But to speak of friendship, that's another matter.
The State has played a role in not allowing revenge to undermine reconciliation policies, but this does not completely eliminate the idea of revenge from the minds of survivors. I know they didn't forgive me, but the state forgave me. Even if the survivors agree to reconcile, they are insecure with the killers and fear of being hit again. Rwanda has run out of trust and will have to wait many generations to regain it.
As for me, I didn't think about why everyone would agree to stage this farce at that time. The authorities were persuasive and pushed us forward. We received instructions to go to the swamp, and then there was no instruction, so we went on our way. Now, it's a very tricky thing to talk about the crimes that everyone has committed. Go specifically to someone to ask for an apology, this is not the best, you know in advance that it is in vain.
I think the expressions of the Tutsis hide their accusatory mentality because they have been harshly reprimanded. I feel at ease living together in peace now. ”
Jean Vier:
"Anyone can change, and so can we. If we don't forget our loved ones, if we don't forget the way they were killed, there's no shame in that change. If life is still good, the bad things done by hutu people are not so serious. Some people have raised cows again, some people have a good harvest, some people are married and have children, for them, the suffering is over, and the memories will not be more stimulating. But for the 60-year-old mother, childless, lonely, and has to fetch water by herself, what is the use of mentioning 'reconciliation' in front of her. ”
Sylvie:
"Why can't it be reconciled? I think so. Reconciliation is the same as before, it is absolutely impossible. But why can't it be reconciled to 80%? The remaining 20 percent is trust. As for the other emotions, it is still passable, just go forward.
Previously, I was particularly sensitive to fear. When I saw the murderer, I thought of my dead parents and of all that I had lost. I have said before: If you think about the fear of slaughter, you will definitely lose all hope. What we managed to save will also be lost. I hope to be happy in the future. I don't want to always hold a grudge and let myself end up depressed. An orphan who had survived the genocide, who had no father, no relatives, no shelter, no job, who could not consider any reconciliation; too, an old mother. I'm fine, the kids are cute and I can walk around and talk. My life had been stifled, but I was absolutely going to continue with my life. Although I no longer have a sense of trust in others, I am still full of confidence in myself. ”
Inosan:
"I believe in reconciliation, but first and foremost with myself. On the first morning, I saw a neighbor running out of the window with a gun. I knew he was looking for me. I hid, and my wife went to church. We never saw each other again, and I lived as if I had made a mistake. After all these years, I believe that the reason why I didn't go to church at that time was entirely due to luck and not something else. The better you reconcile with yourself, the more you want to reconcile with others. I remarried. No matter how hard it was, my second wife supported me. Now, I have four more children, and people are very enthusiastic about me when I walk down the street, I am the school principal, and my colleagues respect me, which is a sign of reconciliation.
As for reconciliation with the Hutus, if you want to intermarry with them, give each other cows, and admire each other in chat, this is something you dare not think about. They kill without blinking an eye and never thinking about anything. This is the most extraordinary. For example, these questions: If I kill someone, will it solve my problem? One day, will I think of my neighbor who was killed in the mud? If I kill people like this, will it be my turn? No, absolutely not, they haven't thought about these questions, we can't get used to that.
But getting close to the Hutus is a must. In the end, the Tutsi did not want to dominate the whole country, and without the Hutu, it would be difficult for them to sustain themselves. When the Hutus slashed at the Tutsi, they also slashed at nature. I am the son of a peasant, and I know that the Hutus are indispensable to the prosperity of the Tutsi. The Hutu are stronger, they work harder, they are more at peace with the land, they are bolder in dealing with bad weather, and they have the blood of peasants in their bones. When drought strikes, every morning, they can walk five kilometers or more to the wet marshlands to grow crops.
The land of the Tutsis will become pastures, the land will be barren, the market will be depressed, and fights will follow, because the Tutsis people will also become cunning among themselves. Land abandonment, nomadic life, famine, medieval.
The Hutus needed the Tutsi to provide them with meat and milk, and they were not as smart as the Tutsi and were good at making plans, except of course the Holocaust plan. However, the Tutsis were more dependent on an unparalleled Hutu labor force.
The Tutsi survivors don't have any future, and as one of them, I can say so. In another thirty or forty years, no one will talk about them, that is, they will not die of illness, and they will die of old age. Of course, they still have children, but children, how do they see the baggage of their parents? Will they bear the burden? The survivors' own grievances about the past are now very different from those of a decade ago. They endured it all, they were docile, they repeated those kind words, and they slowly healed their disappointment.
The Tutsis who were not survivors, the Tutsis who were in exile, they demanded never revenge. They know they're the smartest, they show patience, and they don't bother hutus. This is especially true in Kigali, where there are more moderate Hutus who can be honest with them. The exiled Tutsis have forgotten nothing, the madness of the escape, the hardships of the wanderings, the slaughter of their families, and so on, they are neither traitors nor ungrateful. But it is also fitting that they viewed the massacre as a man-made disaster. A terrorist incident in history requires so much effort to eliminate the traces of the disaster. They invented the policy of reconciliation, because in Rwanda, 70% of them are Hutu.
It was terrifying that they took up butcher knives and caused massacres, and then they accounted for an absolute majority.
Reconciliation is the sharing of shared trust. The conciliatory policy is to share doubts fairly. ”
Stills from the movie "Sometime in April" (2005).
"If there is a little gain, it is about people's perceptions and doubts"
"When I got out of prison, I was afraid to see survivors. I slowly gained courage and dared to approach them, and in the process of repenting of my actions, I felt something more human. I'm no longer the Alphonse I used to be, and of course there's been a bit of a negative change. These dark days changed my mind. In these painful years, I have gradually grown older. Prison damaged my ability to concentrate on problems.
As I once told you, someone mocks you, someone accuses you, and it's worse than getting you to pick up a butcher knife. It's hard to understand this situation for those who aren't with us, and now that feeling torments me.
I've killed people, I've been in jail, and I'm scared. Fear of evil, this sense of fear is inseparable from me. However, I have changed more economically. I've lost my wealth, I can't bargain as much as I used to, I'm always intimidated before making decisions, I can't spend money lavishly, I can't hire people to work anymore. In business, I'm not as bold as I used to be. I felt very uncomfortable. I miss the glory of the past that is gone forever. ”
Pancras:
"I feel like I'm a better Pancras than I was before the massacre, because I know what I used to be, and I know how greedy and bloody I was. But I have converted myself to righteousness. Because of these bad experiences, I have now become a better person, and I know that I have broken with evil.
I have been brutal and brutal with my companions, I have obeyed the authorities of terror, I have wielded a large knife to participate in the slaughter of the army. I returned home with nothing, and I understood the annoying consequences of doing bad things.
Anyway, my personality is similar. I used to be very religious, a good boy; now I am more religious, a better boy, and that's it. If anything, evil has transformed me. ”
"I've changed. Two months after the massacre, I stepped on a landmine. Now, I can't run fast, and sometimes I'm scared at home. During the slaughter, I ran around all day, no different from an antelope; now, I can no longer deal with such a threat. Of course, it would be inconceivable if Rwanda were to repeat the massacre. 'Sure' and 'incredible', what do these words mean in Africa? This naturally worries me.
It doesn't hurt to recall being hunted down. Discuss with foreigners who are eager to learn about the Holocaust, and for convenient reasons, it is not a good idea to describe the scenes of humiliation. To be honest, at that time, I did not suffer any insults. Many of my compatriots died of humiliation, especially the old mothers who did not want to run wildly with the loincloth on their stomachs, and the old fathers who refused to climb into the field to find cassava to eat.
I was not humiliated, not at all. Life gave me the fate of prey, that is, to fight or to give up. It's the same fate for everyone, and the obstacles they get in are so similar. At Kayunba Mountain, we turned east and west, expending all our energy and exhausting our lives, and had no spare energy to think about the problems that could not be opened. We knew we were all going to die, but we kept running away.
Only later did I feel humiliated and came out of the forest and returned to society. The quirks left behind by that life: not washing clothes, sleeping haphazardly. I found the children looking at me, they all knew me as a teacher, and they watched me climb up the tree to pick bananas and eat sweet potatoes in their hands. Or, suddenly, lean down and drink the water from the pit in front of pedestrians. Although I feel ashamed, I can't hide these quirks. I came to Kigali and stepped on a landmine on the side of the road. Yes, I was injured, and it was difficult not to die. I felt betrayed in every way, and I felt worthless.
Now, there is a more betrayal insult. See the wealthy Hutus families, see the murderers begin to work hard, see them open up the land, the harvest is good. Seeing that the Hutu people were about to go to school or enjoy good conditions, seeing that they were dressed decently on Sundays, and seeing that the wedding procession was very grand, I thought to myself: At that time, we ran so hard, why are we now outdated and reduced to such a field? We have not developed, the harvest is poor, and we are short of food and clothing. Every morning, we are proving our loyalty to life, and by the evening we are exhausted, why do we have so little to return? Why is it that the rich are so slow to come to our doorstep? These questions are insulting to me.
I somewhat regained my confidence. I was in charge of a school, my new wife had given birth to me, someone had me a beer and discussed a project together, someone had invited me to a wedding, and someone had given me three cows. But I had nothing to gain spiritually, and mentally this massacre did not bring me anything, no useful lesson. What I gained was probably a little hatred, if I could say so. Before, I trusted Hutu people as much as any other Tutsis. Not anymore... To be honest, it's hard for me to say aloud the truth about what I feel.
If there is a small gain, it is about people's opinions and doubts. On the one hand, we think we're friends with someone, we give each other cows, we talk like brothers, and in the end he picks up a knife and kills you. On the other hand, we thought we had been abandoned, that life was a mess, and that a woman had agreed to marry you, even though she knew you had nothing and had lost even her courage. You are unfortunate, have nothing, are aggressive, and that's when she comes to pacify you and get you back together. Here's a lesson: the importance of people is invisible, and the disappointment or satisfaction that people bring you is even more invisible.
After the massacre, my theory changed, I was no longer as convinced of philosophical thought as before, I became wary of traditional views, I no longer followed logic. I learned to accept the inconceivable, to accept all kinds of surprises, to think extra vigilantly. Behind all my thoughts, I was prepared for betrayal. There is no explanation that satisfies me. Vigilance stimulates curiosity. I always want to know what's behind the surface. ”
Penta:
"In the swamp, we lived like pigs, and we kept the imprint of that life. Of course, we won't start over, but we know that we've been through it. We no longer see this animal-like life as we once did. We brought back some small quirks, such as: drinking water is not so particular, cooking is not so careful, eating when eating, or eating in full view.
Over time, the glitches gradually changed, and I could hardly feel their effects. However, memories also depend on life now. If we live painfully, if loneliness and drought make people lose all confidence, we don't feel like survivors, we don't feel lucky. If the grain is abundant, if we don't have to worry about food and clothing, we will feel much more comfortable, more like living people.
In the swamp, the murderer insulted us to the fullest. Because there are so many people hiding in the papyrus, we don't feel like we're directly targeting ourselves. What we feel is mainly danger. Danger has swept the feeling of insult away from the heart. To tell you the truth, I don't feel insulted by the unseemly life of the time, except to hear the ridicule of the murderers and the lies of the negative argumentants.
Fortunately, I was not raped. I won't be ashamed of that. But there are other embarrassments, and they have always existed, and this is loneliness. I don't recognize what I looked like when I was a girl before the massacre. After the Holocaust, I felt very lonely, and only despair surrounded me mercilessly. I feel like I'm the only one who feels lonely. I think only I can understand the situation I am experiencing. Even among the survivors, even my good female companions who have a bad fate, they can't become my close friends. My only friend is my desolate body.
Once upon a time, like all Rwandan children, I thought of good and evil. I believe in the effort to sing and cry, I believe in proper and proper behavior, and I believe in the right way on earth. In the swamp, on a butcher-knife-flying morning, I understand that these beliefs can all be lost: morality, rewards, and the benefits and pleasures that complement or complement each other. From now on, I have an eye for morality, preaching, and noble rhetoric.
I know that this massacre is unique, I don't understand history, I don't know how to look at its seriousness. I was shocked. I don't know what else to say to you since you last came. I don't know how else to answer your new question about the Holocaust? I can recall the massacre more calmly. I can't live in panic all day. I don't want to run away from the people on weekdays. However, I find memories very dangerous. My old life is over. New life has been restarted and a new direction has begun. All the expectations of the previous life can no longer be found in the second life.
Tell You That Our Family Will Be Killed Tomorrow: A Chronicle of the Rwandan Genocide, by Philip Gurevich, translated by Lei Li, Nanjing University Press, Sanhui Books, July 2020.
My parents raised 10 cows and kept a lush banana garden, and every time they came back from the market, they ordered money at the table. The family has 11 children, and they are learning to do hard farm work, which is a big family. We listened to plays and music on the radio and spent the night at the homes of wealthy neighbors. My parents hurt me. I was first in the class, my parents wanted to pay me enough to get me into secondary school, I was supposed to finish secondary school and go to Kitarama or Kigali to study, and I would live decently like many women.
Now, every day when I get up, I cook on the fire and feed the children; my thoughts are blurred. There is often hatred and fear in my heart. Sometimes, I really want to provoke, and I feel like I have nothing to do with happiness. Accept a husband and start a happy life, I don't see that yet.
I don't want to get married, which is the real reason there are no suitors. As an orphan who is very difficult to die, it is very painful to choose a good husband. If he has no problems with himself, but does not understand you, this will not work; If he understands you, but he has a lot of problems, it's not much better. If he worries that you have a problem and can't be a model wife, he will also retreat. Criticism can come from all sides. In Rwanda, if two families quarrel, it is always the families of both sides who come forward to solve it. It is very dangerous to marry a man without relatives, without relatives, there is no warm harbor, no mother's arm, and there is no resting embrace. I was too impulsive, I endured too much to accept the comfort of men, I felt hopeless. I'd rather a woman grieve alone and certainly have children in private, because that's something no woman can give up.
In the swamp, we say that if the great difficulty does not die, we will not sell chicken in the future, lest it become the food of the people's mouth. We didn't keep our promise, and when we saw the tender chicken, who cares so much. I, for my part, like ripe bananas, but I will never eat them again; now, while listening to the radio, there is no more joy in music and drama. At that time, we also made a promise that if we got away with it, then we would not abandon anything, and I mean, we would not refuse anything. It was the first forgotten promise. ”
Original author | Jean Hartsfield
Excerpts | Liu Yaguang
Edit | Shen Chan
Introduction Proofreading | Zhao Lin