Executor 14

In the devastated Beirut, there has been left the only man. A soldier warrior, who was and is a victim and an executioner at the same time or, the victim becomes an executioner. The last male alive like Astyanax in Troy. The last chance to show himself and leave testimony to have been there. What he does, he does it both furiously and with tenderness, in the language “tattoed” by English and Italian, often reminding of an oriental garden in the blossom. The secret is revealed, brought into light together with the exciting play of Jean-Quentin Chatelain for whom the text has been written. With his look of the child, with his excitement, cruelty and savagery, he evokes the saint Idiot by Dostoevsky.

Emmanuelle Klausne, l'Éuenement du Jeudi, June 1991

“When I was writing The Executioner 14 and also later, when I was preparing this project, I hoped that by the time it was finished, the whole story would be nothing else but a vague recollection of a distant nightmare. But it is not so. After many subsequent performances, we perceive the play in a different way compared with the first performances, because the audience reveals us many coherences. And under their influence, also our perception of the play is being changed. When l was writing it, I thought I was writing a text that would enable the people to understand the war in Lebanon. And how was it accepted by the audience? As a narration about a war generally. And what is more, somewhere behind that the narration about fear and movements in our inwards.

Such a tragedy like the one going on in Lebanon affects us deeply, because it addresses us, it reveals each of us. Because it suggests us of the fact, a similar story can happen to any of us.”

Adel Hakim, June 1992

“I was trained to kill with a knife. Our commander trained us on pigs. One day, he brought three prisoners, Bosnian soldiers, and asked me to try it on the people. I threw them down one by one, got down on my knees, wrenched their heads, caught their hair from behind and cut their throats. It was difficult.

To keep the soldiers' morale, the commander used to send us to Vogosč, to “Sonja's”. It had been a motel, now changed to a women's prison. There were always about 80-90 Muslem girls. We asked one of them from the commander Miro Vukovič and raped her in the room. I used to go there twice or three times a week. One day, Miro told us there would come new girls, and there would not be room and food enough for these ones. So we raped them and took them to the mountains by car. We killed them there. I killed six of them: Anissa, Fatima, Mana, Sabina, Senada and Subula."

Borislav H, Serbian volunteer, 21-year-old, 29 murders, Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 1993

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