ABSTRACT
The newly constructed school at Murambi, Gikongoro, Rwanda, made an ideal site to congregate Tutsis in April 1994. Laurent Bucyibaruta, the préfet (governor) of Gikongoro, announced that Tutsis should go there for their own safety. In the days following the 21 April, over 25,000 of them would be murdered as a part of the Genocide Against the Tutsi. This chapter follows five Hutu killers involved in one of the largest genocidal massacres on a single site since the Second World War. Oral history of genocidal events has largely focused efforts on collecting the testimony of surviving victims. Through first-person interviews given by the five self-confessed killers, this chapter uses oral history to explore the decisions these individuals took to participate, the specific actions they were involved in at the site, as well as their personal reflections ten years after their participation. The five men had confessed to killing, but did they feel responsible? Was their confession an act of exculpation? Are they looking for lighter sentencing? Did they ask for forgiveness, or expect it?
The genocide against the Tutsi is notable because of the wide participation of rank and file killers, but still today, little has been published to reconstruct the killing process from their perspective. This chapter uses the perspectives of five witnesses who participated as perpetrators in the same events, on the same site, in an attempt to reconstruct the events of April 1994 from the inside out.
