Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices from the Rwandan Genocide

Robert Lyons &
Scott Straus

By now, pretty much every one is aware of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, almost invisible while it was going on but the subject of a great deal of media exposure since. As with all such things, though, there's always another angle from which to approach it. Robert Lyons and Scott Straus find one (two, actually) with Intimate Enemy; show the genocide from the point of view of those who participated (in Lyons' case), or from every point of view there is to be had in Rwanda (in Straus').

After two introductions in which the author and photographer explain their methodologies in collecting the material presented here, we get into the edited transcripts of a number of interviews Lyons did with genocidaires-- those convicted of genocidal behavior who freely confessed to their crimes. Simply put, they're fascinating. Reading them, one has to wonder how much of what's said needs to be taken with how much salt; there's a lot of language that sounds suspiciously like "I was only following orders," but with a dash of "if I hadn't, I'd have been just as dead" added to it. Straus' photographs, presented with no context whatsoever (notes on the photos are presented in a separate section afterwards), are even more intriguing, since he juxtaposes mass murderers with innocent bystanders, judges, victims' families. (Despite what you read in some of the interviews, you won't be able to tell them apart.)

Thought-provoking. Recommended.