This book by Philip Gorevitch seeks to examine the truth behind the genocide which took place in Rwanda in the early to mid nineties. Most people are now aware that the truth is that there was a genocide taking place in this small African state right under the noses of the rest of the world and no- one lifted a finger to intervene or aid those who were being targeted on ethnic grounds. Like most people at the time my knowledge of the events in Rwanda was limited to Hutus good Tutsis bad. This it turns out was due to the misinformation and lies which were propogated by both the Hutu "government" and also by the French government. It was this intervention on the side of the Hutu killers by the French and the setting up of the so called Turquoise zone in which many of the remaining Tutsis who were surviving in that area were rounded up by the French in order to "protect" them only to find on their return that the people they were supposed to protect had been murdered by wandering Hutu Interhamwe.
This book gripped and shocked me in a profound way. It does not dwell in a lewd or grisly way on the facts of the genocide but at the same time it leaves you with a very clear image of what happened during 1994 in Rwanda.
For anyone who is interested in learning about the truth behind one of the most notorious and unreported series of mass killings to happen in recent times them I recommend this even handed and well written not to mention exhaustively researched book very highly.
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