"I was caught up in a youth riot and the police showed up. The street was cleared and I just wanted to get back to the hotel - I could see it across the road. For some reason the police were not letting people through, they waved us back. Then we saw some people pass, so we tried again. The sergeant turned on us shouting: What did I tell you? what did I tell you? He had a long length of thick wood, the kind you use for house construction, maybe 4 inches by 4 inches thick, he was whacking it against one palm, threatening us. In fact we'd already seen him throw an innocent bystander on the ground and beat him with that wood.

Of course, we turned back. As long as we did what we were told I don't think we were in any real physical danger. But what was more scary was the look in his eyes. Full of indiscriminate violence, mysogyny... In that moment I could see that face multiplied by a thousand faces... suddenly it was easy to see how genocide happens, Rwanda, Darfur, Sierra Leone... a weak, uneducated young man... give him a uniform, give him a weapon and a little bit of power and that weak masculine ego mutates into the dark side... and so easy to manipulate by equally weak but cleverer men..."