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In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
AuthorJudi Rever
PublisherRandom House of Canada
Publication date
March 2018
ISBN978-0-345-81210-0

In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the RwandanPatriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House Canada. In Praise of Blood describes an alternative version of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and a secret genocide against Hutu committed by units of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The book was lauded in the popular press as a groundbreaking feat of investigative journalism but the overall reception by experts and survivor organizations was critical. Genocide scholars questioned the author’s methodology and denounced the double genocide theory as having no basis in science.

Career

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The first chapters of In Praise of Blood recount Rever’s early career as a reporter for Radio France Internationale in 1997 when she covered the aftermath of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).[1] A three year stint as correspondent for Agence France Press (AFP) in Ivory Coast followed.[2] Rever moved back to Canada in 2001 to raise a family.[3] When in 2010 she had the opportunity to interview Luc Coté about a United Nations report on war crimes in the DRC she resumed writing about Africa.[4][5] Two years later she was contacted by Théogène Murwanashyaka, a former RPA officer who would become the main informant of her book.[6] From 2012 onwards Rever devoted her career to a full time investigation of RPF war crimes.[7] The first critical article on Rwanda based on her own research appeared in 2013 in Le Monde Diplomatique.[8] She also wrote for The Globe and Mail, and contributed the foreword to Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza's 2017 book Between 4 Walls of the 1930 Prison: Memoirs of Rwandan Prisoner of Conscience.[9]

Content

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In Praise of Blood describes war crimes in Rwanda and the DRC which according to Rever’s sources were committed by the RPF under the leadership of Major General Paul Kagame, the current president of Rwanda, during the 1990s.[10][11] Based largely on interviews with Rwandan dissidents and army deserters living in exile in Europe and North America and confidential documents from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) leaked to Rever by anonymous sources, the book discusses three periods during which these crimes took place: The Rwandan civil war of the early 1990s, the genocide and its aftermath in Rwanda, and the subsequent wars in the DRC.[10][11][12][13] Rever qualifies the RPF crimes against Hutu civilians as a genocide comparable in scale and cruelty to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.[14][15] The book accuses the RPF of infiltrating the political parties and the extremist Hutu militia during the the early 1990s to sow mistrust, of creating fear with its incursions in northern Rwanda which caused hundreds of thousands of displaced people to gather in camps around Kigali, and finally to have shot down President Habyarimana’s plane on 6 April 1994 to use the ensuing chaos and mass killings to generate sympathy for its military campaign to seize power.[16][17][18] The book suggests that during the genocide members of the RPF disguised as Interahamwe militia fueled and perpetuated the genocidal violence by participating in the killing of Tutsi civilians at roadblocks.[19][16][20][10][17][21][22] RPF massacres of Hutu civilians described in the book include Byumba, Kibeho, Karambi, Gabiro, Gikongoro.[23] Rever writes that the RPF employed Nazi methods to secretly transport hundreds of thousands of Hutus to death camps in remote areas such as the Akagera National Park where they were killed and incinerated, leaving barely a trace.[19][24][25][20][9][26] Her discussion of RPF crimes against Hutu refugees in the DRC draws in part from her personal experience. Rever argues that while suspects of the genocide against the Tutsi have been put on trial at the ICTR, these crimes committed by the RPF have been left unpunished.[27]

Reception

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The release of In Praise of Blood was accompanied by a significant publicity campaign. The mainstream press called the book "explosive" and praised the author for her bravery and persistence.[25][10] The book won two literary awards in Canada.[28][29] Laurie Garrett, who reviewed the book for The Lancet applauded its journalistic qualitiy and creative writing.[11] In The New York Review of Books, Helen C. Epstein deemed Rever’s account to be convincing and difficult to challenge, although she expressed doubts about labeling the RPF crimes genocide. Investigative journalists with a long-standing reputation in this area took a critical perspective. Linda Melvern viewed Rever’s book as part of a trend to inflate the number of Hutu victims. Melvern denounced Rever’s claim that RPF-commandos had assisted directly in killing Tutsis at roadblocks and she suggested that Rever’s investigation was influenced by ICTR defence attorneys and authors who are best known for denying the genocide against the Tutsi. Colette Braeckman praised Rever for her on-the-ground investigation but criticized the book for one-sidedness and for omitting the historical background of the violence.[16] Jean-François Dupaquier questioned the factual basis of the book, pointing out that “the forest” of Akagera National Park,[30] where according to the book large scale killings took place, doesn’t exist.[24] In Africa the book received mixed responses as well. Zahra Moloo took most of Rever’s information for granted but noted that “a proper judicial investigation would be required to determine whether or not a genocide against Hutus did take place.”[17] Yash Tandon criticized In Praise of Blood for overlooking the historical roots of the genocide. He noted that the book is accusatory rather than an inquisitive analysis and questioned Rever’s finger pointing as the way forward in the reconciliation efforts.[31] Boubacar Boris Diop and Jean-Pierre Karegeye focus on what they call “a paradoxical negationism": ”It doesn’t say that genocde didn’t take place: on the contrary, it maintains that everyone has “genocidated” everyone, which makes tragedy a zero-sum game.” .[32]

Double genocide

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Most academics who publicly commented on In Praise of Blood acknowledged the reality of RPF war crimes, as well as the need to speak out about them, but noted there were no revelations in the book.[27] René Lemarchand and Filip Reyntjens welcomed Rever’s detailed information as supporting evidence for the double genocide theory.[23][33] Other scholars such as Gerald Caplan, Samuel Totten, Claudine Vidal, Scott Straus, Bert Ingelaere and Marijke Verpoorten criticized Rever's methodology, Straus arguing that the double genocide theory is not supported by careful empirical inquiries.[19][27][34][35] Vidal noted that propagandists, researchers, and activists who use In Praise of Blood to renew their efforts to prove a second genocide “… set themselves up as both judge and prosecutor.” Helen Hintjens and Jos van Oijen examined the evidence for the Nazi-like extermination center where according to Rever’s sources hundreds of thousands of Hutu were burned in an outdoor crematorium.[36] Forensic scientists they consulted, including the Netherlands Forensic Institute, concluded that the methods and intensity described in the book make the story highly unlikely. A Belgian journalist they cite visited the location when it was supposed to be in operation but didn’t notice anything unusual. Following Stanley Cohen’s model of denial progressing from literal denial to more sophisticated narratives over time, they qualify Rever's double genocide theory as an example of implicatory genocide denial.[9] During a promotional tour in Belgium which included speeches by Rever at three universities, a group of sixty scientists, researchers, journalists, historians and eye-witnesses such as Romeo Dallaire, published an open letter in Le Soir criticizing the universities for giving the impression that by promoting Judi Rever's book they supported her theories.[37] An open letter which accused the book of genocide denial was published in Libération in 2020, signed by organizations such as Ibuka, an association of Tutsi genocide survivors, and SOS Racisme.[38] Rever says she is not a genocide denier because she accepts that the killing of Tutsi was indeed a genocide,[21] but she is a "revisionist" because she questions existing historical narratives.

Publishing history

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The book was published by Random House of Canada in March 2018,[27] [39] and in Dutch by Amsterdam University Press in 2018.[40] A French translation of the book was originally to be published by Fayard in 2019, but this company withdrew after controversy. Subsequently Max Milo published it in 2020 as Rwanda: L’éloge du sang (Rwanda: In Praise of Blood).[39][41][42]

References

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  1. ^ Rever, Judi (2018). In Praise of Blood. Toronto: Random House Canada. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-345-81209-4.
  2. ^ Rever 2018, p. 48. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  3. ^ Rever 2018, p. 49. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  4. ^ Rever 2018, p. 51. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  5. ^ Rever, Judi (28 August 2010). "UN lawyer says Congo butchery resembled Rwandan genocide". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  6. ^ Rever 2018, p. 55. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  7. ^ Rever 2018, p. 5. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  8. ^ Rever 2018, p. 199. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  9. ^ a b c Hintjens, Helen M.; van Oijen, Jos (2020). "Elementary Forms of Collective Denial: The 1994 Rwanda Genocide". Genocide Studies International. 13 (2): 146–167. doi:10.3138/gsi.13.2.02.
  10. ^ a b c d Epstein, Helen (2018). "The Mass Murder We Don't Talk About". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  11. ^ a b c Garrett, Laurie (2018). "Rwanda: not the official narrative". The Lancet. 392 (10151): 909–912. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32124-X.
  12. ^ Rever, Judi. "Bio". Judirever.com. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  13. ^ Rever 2018, p. 220. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  14. ^ Boisbouvier, Christophe (25 June 2018). "Judi Rever :«Je ne nie pas le génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda en 1994»". Radio France Internationale. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  15. ^ Rever 2018, p. 3, 71, 106, 114, 228-230. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  16. ^ a b c Braeckman, Colette (29 September 2020). ""L' Eloge du sang", une enquête fouillée mais controversée sur les crimes commis au Rwanda". Le Soir. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  17. ^ a b c Moloo, Zahra (10 April 2019). "The crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front – review". Africa is a country. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
  18. ^ Rever 2018, p. 3, 58, 60, 62, 71, 76, 143, 178, 182, 193, 230. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  19. ^ a b c Caplan, Gerald (2018). "Rethinking the Rwandan Narrative for the 25th Anniversary". Genocide Studies International. 12 (2): 152–190. doi:10.3138/gsi.12.2.03.
  20. ^ a b Melvern, Linda (2018). "Moral Equivalence: The Story of Genocide Denial in Rwanda". Journal of International Peacekeeping. 22 (1): 190–198. doi:10.1163/18754112-0220104012.
  21. ^ a b Off, Carol (2 April 2018). "Feature interview with "In Praise of Blood: the crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front" author Judi Rever". CBC. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  22. ^ Rever 2018, p. 2, 8, 68, 69, 70, 142, 230. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  23. ^ a b Lemarchand, René (25 June 2018). "Rwanda: the state of Research". Violence de masse et Résistance – Réseau de recherche. Sciences Po. ISSN 1961-9898. Archived from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  24. ^ a b Boisbouvier, Christophe (26 June 2018). "Rwanda: «Après le génocide des Tutsis, Rever présente les victimes en coupables»". Radio France Internationale. Retrieved 23 December 2019.
  25. ^ a b Cronin-Furman, Kate (16 March 2018). "The Insistence of Memory". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  26. ^ Rever 2018, p. 4, 76, 87, 229. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  27. ^ a b c d Vidal, Claudine (10 July 2018). "Debate: Judi Rever will not let anything stand in the way of her quest to document a second Rwandan genocide". The Conversation. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  28. ^ "The Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction – Quebec Writers' Federation". Quebec Writers' Federation. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  29. ^ "OHS Huguenot Award Recognizes Judi Rever for In Praise of Blood" (PDF). Ontario Historical Society. 19 June 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  30. ^ Rever 2018, p. 229. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  31. ^ Tandon, Yash (21 October 2019). "A pan-African perspective on Rwanda through a critical review of Judy Rever, In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Canada, Random House, 2018". Pambazuka. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  32. ^ Diop, Boubacar Boris (2 December 2020). "Á bâtons rompus sur le génocide des Tutsi du rwanda". Seneplus. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  33. ^ Reyntjens, Filip. "Un " second génocide " au Rwanda : retour sur un débat complexe". The Conversation. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  34. ^ Straus, Scott (2019). "The Limits of a Genocide Lens: Violence Against Rwandans in the 1990s". Journal of Genocide Research. 21 (4): 504–524. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1623527.
  35. ^ Ingelaere, Bert; Verpoorten, Marijke. "How trust returned to Rwanda, for most but not for all". African Arguments. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  36. ^ Rever 2018, p. 151, 200. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRever2018 (help)
  37. ^ Un collectif de signataires (9 October 2019). "Rwanda: pétition contre des conférences révisionnistes sur le Rwanda". Le Soir. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  38. ^ "Rwanda: "L'éloge du sang", ouvrage polémique sur le rôle du FPR pendant le génocide". RFI (in French). 27 September 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  39. ^ a b "Génocide des Tutsi au Rwanda : le livre controversé de Judi Rever paraîtra en France". Jeune Afrique (in French). 9 July 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  40. ^ Rever, Judi (2018). De waarheid over Rwanda: het regime van Paul Kagame (in Dutch). Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-94-6372-360-2.
  41. ^ "Judi Rever's disputed book on Tutsi genocide to be published in France". The Africa Report.com. 10 July 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  42. ^ Rever, Judi (2020). Rwanda : L’éloge du sang: L’inconnu (in French). Max Milo. ISBN 978-2-315-00987-9.
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