Excerpt from We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As I traveled around the country, collecting accounts of the killing, it almost seemed as if, with the machete, the masu--a club studded with nails--a few well-placed grenades, and a few bursts of automatic-rifle fire, the quiet orders of Hutu Power had made the neutron bomb obsolete.

"Everyone was called to hunt the enemy," said Theodore Nyilinkwaya, a survivor of the massacres in his home village of Kimbogo, in the southwestern province of Cyangugu. "But let's say someone is reluctant. Say that guy comes with a stick. They tell him, `No, get a masu.' So, OK, he does, and he runs along with the rest, but he doesn't kill. They say, `Hey, he might denounce us later. He must kill. Everyone must help to kill at least one person.' So this person who is not a killer is made to do it. And the next day it's become a game for him. You don't need to keep pushing him."

At Nyarubuye, even the little terracotta votive statues in the sacristy had been methodically decapitated. "They were associated with Tutsis," Sergeant Francis explained.

(c) 1998 Philip Gourevitch All rights reserved.