Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak

The way the author comes at the Rwandan genocide, through one to one interviews is fascinating. It's very depicting, taking you through that harrowing chapter in history, without showing any disturbing pictures. This book will get you thinking about what you think you know so far. Not only does he get them talking on the exact moments on the genocide but they open themselves to offer details on the previous years where they used to live, hang out and get along with the victims.Not a light reading.

The honesty of the speakers is heartbreaking and gripping all at once. The respect for all shown by the author is admirable. If you need to be reminded just how fortunate you are to live where and with whom you live please read this account of a harrowing part of very recent History.

This book should be compulsory reading for everyone in the humanities and psychology fields

The educated people were certainly the ones who drove the farmers on, out in the marshes. Today they're the ones who juggle with the words or turn close-mouthed. Many sit quietly in their same places as before. Some have become ministers or bishops; they aren't much in the public eye, but they still wear their fancy clothes and fold framed glasses. While suffering keeps us in prison. Adalbert, a Hutu farmer turned killer in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.What a book. Its a book which is unlike any other, written from the point of view of a journalist with very few of his own deductions. I loved the whole outlay of the book as it just presented the facts from the killers point of views. There was little covering or philosophy behind the pure butchery of the whole exercise which sort of makes sense when you consider butchers dealing with meat, taking life every day and living without any remorse in their daily lives. The interviewed Hutu killers were like the butchers for three months of absolute carnage, egged on by the society and the leadership, they killed with systematic efficiency, over and over again. There seems to be no rational explanation of this absolute carnage. All you get is quiet contemplation and a warning to quell any hate filled rhetoric as quickly as possible, because any idea once popular is impossible to kill.

This book remains the most difficult read I have ever endured. It is harrowing in the scope of it's horror and deceiving in the simplicity of how it depicts how such an atrocity could be enacted. The voices speak for themselves, and one must be careful after awhile to recognize they are speaking of going off to work each day to slaughter other human beings not to plow the fields. I actually had to put this one down for stretches of time on a couple of occasions.Judgements on the format aside, this is indeed one that should be required reading. Yes, the culprits are reluctant to admit their guilt, but one must bring something to this tome. It is in their denial that you can recognize how such a tragedy could transpire. Faced with difficult choices, most human beings will do what they must to survive. That instinct can conceal a plethora of evil deeds. These are flawed people that commited monsterous deeds when confronted with these choices. They succumbed and learned to minimize their role in this tragedy rather than face being ostracized or much worse by their friends and neighbors. A powerful, powerful book.