Machete Season

One of the most important items in rural Rwandan farm life was corrugated metal. When Hatzfeld visits Bukaru, Congo, where many Hutu fled after the genocide, he sees corrugated metal for miles as Hutus in the refugee columns carry it. In Rwanda, after the introduction of corrugated metal in the colonial period, the metal came to operate like currency in a barter economy, like goats.

In 1973, when the Tutsi fled Rwanda to neighboring Burundi, they took their metal with them; and then when the Burundi Hutu fled to Rwanda, the sheet metal returned. Thus, when the RPF retuned to Rwanda, the killers took their roofs when they fled to the Congo.

Every evening after the killing, the gang met to discuss their loot over drinks. Thus, Élie says the killing made them “gossipy and greedy” (82).

Looting became so important to the killers that they only cared about what they could get for their own comfort, like sheet metal, cows, radios, or cash stolen off dead bodies or from Tutsis who offered it while begging for their lives.

According to a nurse at the Sainte-Marthe Maternity hospital, a different member of the interahamwe came each day to demand a bribe.