Write a 5-6 page paper that identifies, for each of the excerpts, the psychological and situational processes that might have contributed to the killing. Support with additional research.
Excerpt 1 After the plane crash [in which the Rwandan president was killed] we no longer worried about who had followed the teachings of the presidential party or the teachings of a rival party … Suddenly Hutus of every kind were patriotic brothers without any partisan discord … We gathered in teams on the soccer field and went out hunting as kindred spirits. (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 13)
Excerpt 2 We no longer saw a human being when we turned up a Tutsi in the swamps. I mean a person like us, sharing similar thoughts and feelings. The hunt was savage, the hunters were savage, the prey was savage … (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 42)
Excerpt 3 We became more and more cruel, more and more calm, more and more bloody. But we did not see that we were becoming more and more killers. The more we cut, the more cutting became child’s play to us … We stopped thinking about obligations and advantages – we thought only about continuing what we had started. (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 45)
Excerpt 4 In the evening, we told about Tutsis who have been obstinate, those who had got themselves caught, those who had got away. Some of us had contests … We had sessions with girls who were raped in the bush. Nobody dared protest that. Even those who were edgy about it, because they had received blessings in church for example, told themselves it would change nothing since the girl was marked for death. (Hatzfeld, 2005, p. 89)
