Rwanda, 1994: One Hundred DaysRwanda · April–July 1994“Tonight the fire is lowered to a candle. Sit close. We do not perform this story; we keep it.”It was prepared in the open: identity cards that sorted neighbours into categories a colonial administration had hardened; radio that rehearsed the language of extermination for months; lists; machetes imported by the crate. When the president's plane was shot down on the sixth of April, the signal had an apparatus waiting for it.The lesson the elders kept: Genocide is never a sudden madness. It is organised, broadcast, and rehearsed — which means the warning signs are legible, and the duty to act on them is real.