Quickly tracing the history of Rwanda and the course of the 1994 genocide there, Temple-Raston (A Death in Texas
) focuses on the Hutu Radio Télévision Libre de Mille Collines (RTLM), and the resulting trial of the men who ran it. The station was hate radio personified, urging the majority Hutus to kill the minority Tutsis, even naming people individually, as Temple-Raston vividly describes. She tracks the strong (but not slam-dunk) cases that were eventually brought against RTLM founders Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza and Ferdinand Nahimana, and against Hassan Ngeze, publisher of the Kangura
newspaper, a hate-sheet. She captures some hauntinng scenes beyond the U.N.-run trials (which took place in Arusha, Tanzania), including chilling accounts of women who had been raped. Also, she tells the story of Damien Nzabakira, who was unjustly accused of killing orphans he tried to save and ultimately cleared of the charges without apologies or reparations for his lengthy prison stay. The book concludes gloomily despite the men's convictions; the new Rwandan constitution entrenched Tutsi power, the media contributed to a Kagame landslide and the Hutu majority, the author says, feels systematically disenfranchised. The title refers to gacaca
, informal tribal courts aimed at low-cost postgenocide reconciliation. Photos not seen by PW
. Agent, John Thornton at the Spieler Agency.
(Mar. 9)
