ABSTRACT
During the latter part of 1994 and early 1995, in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, in the refugee camps surrounding Goma I encountered hundreds of the so-called perpetrators, Hutus, who had allegedly killed Tutsis. There is no doubt that there were amongst these refugees many who had taken part in the frenzied killings. The Rwandan genocide is clearly a major failure of the international community in the twentieth century, for it was a genocide that could easily have been prevented (Ahluwalia 1997). The most vivid memory I have of the refugee camps is that no one wanted to talk about what happened, to acknowledge what they had done, or to address the question of responsibility. I was struck by the silence as much as I was amazed at the resilience of the human spirit that finds within itself the basic instinct of survival. These people most probably were involved in violence against their fellow citizens, or at the least they had witnessed perhaps the most horrific acts of violence imaginable. They were now beholden to a leadership that had ensured their compliance through modes of surveillance and coercive methods of policing much the same as they had been in Rwanda itself.
