on genocide.

The following is an excerpt from an interview in Jean Hatzfield's book Into the Quick Life. The interviewee is Berthe Mwanankabandi, a young Tutsi woman and one of the few survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Here are her words:

"When I hear news about all these African wars on the radio, I fear that the end is near for Africa. African leaders make decisions on affairs all too brutally. It is an insurmountable problem for us, the little people. But the case of Rwanda escapes African customs. An African massacres with anger or hunger gnawing his belly. Or he massacres as much as is necessary to confiscate diamonds or suchlike. He does not massacre on a full stomach and with his heart at peace on hills planted with beans like "interahamwe" [extremist Hutu militia]. I think they mislearned a lesson from somewhere else, from out of Africa. I do not know who sowed the idea of genocide. No, I do not say it was the settler. Really, I do not know who it was, but it is not an African.

"I do not understand why the Whites watched us for such a long time, while every day we suffered the blades. If you who witnessed the genocide on your television screen do not know why the Whites did not raise a hand in protest, how was I, buried in the marshes, supposed to know?

"I do not understand why certain suffering faces, like those of Hutus in Congo or the fugitives in Kosovo, touch foreigners and why Tutsi faces, even carved by machetes, provoke only thoughtlessness and neglect. I am not sure I understand or believe in a foreigner's pity. Perhaps the Tutsis were hidden too far from the road, or perhaps their faces did not adequately express this type of feeling.

"In any case, what the Hutus did is without question devilry. This is why, as long as there are "interahamwe" and their supporters incarcerated in Tilima, I will still tremble when I hear voices speaking from amongst the leaves in the banana groves."