Itsembatsemba
Rwanda, 1996.
On the 6th of april, 1994, the cleansing fever swept down on Rwanda. In the space of just 100 days, an organized massacre decimated this small african country of the Great Lakes region. Using the most rudimentary means – often the machete – the military, militiamen and civilians exterminated at least 750 000 people from the Tutsi minority as well as Hutu opposers. These events took place in the deafening silence of the powers of this world who were fully informed of what was brewing. Nobody intervened to stop the tragedy, nobody dared call it by its real name. The rwandese genocide took place in an atmosphere of general indifference.
These photographs, taken 2 years after the events, are accompanied with extracts of the programs from the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). RTLM began to broadcast from 1993 by means of the power. The radio played a crucial role in creating the atmosphere of charged racial hostility that allowed the genocide to occur, as well as in the coordination of the massacres.