Intimate Enemies: Representations of Perpetrators in Literary Responses to the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda

Abstract

as many as one million Rwandan people were brutally killed. 1 One of the distinguishing features of the Genocide against the Tutsi was the mass participation of ordinary citizens in the killings. 2 Victims were often attacked by neighbours, friends and even members of their own families. It is difficult, if not to say impossible to know exactly how many people actually took part in acts of genocide in 1994. Estimated numbers range from tens of thousands to as many as 3 million people slaughtering between 800,000 and 1 million victims. 3 Indeed, the extraordinarily high number of civilians involved, directly or indirectly, in acts of torture, mutilation, killing and rape, often accompanied by looting and damage to property was, as an African Rights report reminds us, 'unprecedented in the world '. 4 Describing her visit to an overcrowded Rwandan prison in 1998, Ivorian author Véronique Tadjo writes that '[t]he whole of society is represented here: former politicians, businessmen, civil servants, managers, teachers, artists, schoolchildren, students, peasant farmers, doctors, women, priests, pastors, nuns'. 5 1 What follows is closely based on a chapter in my book, Rwanda Genocide Stories:

Introductory Reflections on Perpetrators of Crimes Against Humanity and their Representation in Documentary Film

“…Both books, like the pioneering The Nazi and the Barber (1971 in English), 16 are stories that take the Holocaust as their starting point. More recently, other contexts have been the object of literary representation, such as Rwanda, which has been studied by Nicki Hitchcott (2018).…”