'Ordinary' people behind brutal acts of genocide, Saskatoon author says in new book

A Saskatoon man who has spent decades chronicling genocide in places like Rwanda and Cambodia says the perpetrators are "frighteningly ordinary."

The whole time I was interviewing him he was bouncing a baby on his lap.- KjellAnderson

Kjell Anderson is in back in his home city to talk about his new book, Perpetrating Genocide.

"I've always been interested in why people do really bad things," Anderson said in an interview with CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning.

Anderson spoke to almost 200 perpetrators of atrocities, and some of their victims, in places like Rwanda, Burundi, Bangladesh and Cambodia.

• Emotional convocation for McGill law grad who escaped Rwandan genocide
• Khmer Rouge victims reunited 40 years after daring rescue
• The future of genocide

Who are the killers?

What Anderson learned may be surprising to some.

"It was the contradiction between these two things that the perpetrators were ordinarybut that the brutality, the acts they committed, were extraordinary," he said.

As an example, Anderson recalled a visit with a man who was an executioner for the Khmer Rouge in the killing fields of Cambodia, a man who is said to be personally responsible for the murder of 2,000 people. Anderson interviewed the man in his home in the countryside.

"The whole time I was interviewing him, he was bouncing a baby on his lap."

The explanations that perpetrators gave for committing atrocities vary, according to Anderson. They range from feeling they had no real choice to being drunk at the time.

"They try to do what they feel is expected of them in that moment, in that historical period, in that political situation."

Perpetrators in Canada

Anderson said that there is also a very real possibility that some of the people responsible for genocide in other parts of the world may have somehow slipped through the system and are now living in Canada.

"They actually probably integrate pretty well. I don't want them to be here," he said. "The concern is more one of justice for the victims."

Anderson, a criminologist and jurist, will be speaking Wednesday night at the Saskatoon Club, where he will talk more specifically on the topic of child soldiers.