Machete Season

Adalbert is the de facto leader of the killers. He was also an interahamwe leader for Kibungo. As the head of a death squad, he accepted more responsibility than the others for the killings, although only in court. He maintained that he was only responsible for killing, not the planning of the genocide. Before and after the genocide, he is characterized as intelligent yet cruel. At the same time, he is religious; he was at choir practice the Saturday before the genocide starts.

Joseph-Désiré is one of the killers and a member of the gang in Nyamata. He was the only member of the gang to be charged with planning the genocide, for which he received a death sentence, later commuted to a life sentence. Prior to the genocide, he helped in its planning; during the genocide, he led the other killers in committing massacres. Rather than express remorse for his actions, Joseph-Désiré spends much of the book fixated on avoiding his death sentence.

One of the ten killers Hatzfeld interviews, Fulgence was a member of the clergy. As a Catholic, he was among the killers for whom religion was his excuse for the killing, blaming it on Satan. Innocent recalls Fulgence as handsome and pious in his youth. At the end of the book, he is unsure if his attempts to repent will be accepted by God.

Pancrace is one of the core members of the gang of killers. He grew up with the leader Adalbert. Before the genocide, he was not known for cruelty or unkindness. Growing up, he was Adalbert’s “shadow,” following him around everywhere he went. He is one of the few killers profiled who has no regrets about the genocide.

Unlike the other killers in the gang, Alphonse was relatively wealthy because he owned his own business. Due to his wealth, he hired people to kill his farm animals. Yet he chose not to hire anyone to kill for him in the genocide. Alphonse was also a member of the interahamwe. Although he continues to have nightmares about being hunted, his psychological torment is largely limited to the traumas he experiences in prison.

An older member of the gang of killers, Élie has a longer history in the region and was not raised with Tutsis as friends. As a former policeman, he was the only member who killed Tutsis before the genocide. Élie concludes that most of the Hutu killers are sorry only that they failed to finish off the Tutsis completely.

Jean-Baptiste was a civil servant and the only member of the group to have a Tutsi wife. He worries constantly that the other killers, after a night of drinking, might harm her. He was also not known to hate the Tutsis and was the only killer who seemed to grasp the devastation of the genocide and how it would be judged in history. Upon his first kill, he is extraordinarily reluctant and must be pushed forward by his friends to finish the job. 

Pio was a core member of the gang of killers, having grown up in the area with the others. He was also the youngest killer. Unlike the others, Pio was eager to return to his old life and to take up sports and other activities. That said, he cannot forget what he did. Haunted by these memories, he rejects remorse because it will not change what happened. 

Ignace is the oldest gang member and the only one to have physically suffered from the genocide and subsequent exile. His role in the group was to remind the others of how bad life was for the Hutu under Tutsi rule. He is one of the few gang members with a virulent hatred of the Tutsis prior to the genocide.

Innocent is a teacher and a Tutsi survivor. His wife and child were killed in a church. He blames Joseph-Désiré for their deaths and was at his trial to accuse him face to face. He knew the gang when they were kids. He was also Hatzfeld’s translator for the prison interviews.