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Evil has ruined my life

By Linda Coverdale (Trans.)

From recent interviews with survivors and perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, by Jean Hatzfeld, in the Fall issue of The Paris Review. In 1994, Hutu attacks on Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed 800,000. Since 2003, the Rwandan government has released more than 50,000 prisoners accused of involvement in the killings. Hatzfeld’s new book about Rwanda, The Antelope’s Strategy, will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale. Hatzfeld’s “Machete Season” appeared in the April 2005 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

I did not believe we’d have a stroke of luck like that—getting out of prison. We heard rumors from visitors, but I couldn’t understand how they could be true. When the radio broadcast the presidential communiqué, joy poured so fast from our lips we could exchange only simple encouraging words. And we spent our last night in song. Many prisoners didn’t even want to eat anything. Two moods contended in the prison: those who had confessed sang alleluia, and those who hadn’t owned up yelled insults and words of frustration. —Pancrace Hakizamungili

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SEE ALSO: Crimes against; Ethnic relations; Forgiveness; Genocide; Hutu (African people); Pardon; Rwanda; Tutsi (African people)

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