It seemed that the RPF could now commit crimes out in the open and still receive billions of dollars in aid. And Kagame could continue to receive human rights awards despite these murders, the Spanish indictment and Amnesty's reports – buoyed by propaganda and protected by powerful friends in the West. What were these Western allies supporting? From the point of view of the RPF's victims, it all seemed to be in praise of blood, an endorsement of mass murder.
The brief and accepted version of the Rwandan genocide that occurred over 100 days from April 7 to mid-July of 1994: In a country made up of a Hutu majority and Tutsi minority populations, after enduring a Tutsi monarchy under Belgian colonisation, a Hutu-led rebellion saw Rwandan independence in 1962 and the fleeing of Tutsi refugees into Uganda. After years of the ensuing Hutu rule and Tutsi oppression, rebel forces from the Uganda refugee bases – the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) under the leadership of Paul Kagame – engaged the Rwandan government in a Civil War starting in 1990, and during a peace accord in 1993, President Juvénal Habyarimana's plane was shot down by (what was concluded to be) Hutu extremists who were opposed to the ceasefire. The killings began the next day, with Hutu murdering Tutsi wherever they found them; neighbour against neighbour, egged on by military forces and radical radio stations. Up to a million Tutsi would be killed, seventy per cent of their population, in an event rightly called genocide. Hamstringed UN forces, under the leadership of Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, were helpless to stop the violence, and Paul Kagame and the RPF were eventually credited with bringing stability to the country; he has been president since 2000, with a mandate to continue his rule through 2034. But this isn't the whole story as journalist Judi Rever would eventually discover and reveal in her explosive and essential work of reporting, In Praise of Blood.
In October, 1996, Kagame's army and Ugandan allies invaded what was then known as Zaire and attacked Hutu refugee camps; a move the West deemed totally justified as the new Rwandan leader committed to tracking down “génocidaires” and bringing them to justice. What Rever discovered at these camps were mostly starving and exhausted women and children who told of fleeing through the jungle just steps ahead of massacring death squads. This experience would set the journalist on a years-long path of inquiry that would put her in touch with wary Rwandan expats throughout Africa and Europe (many of whom would end up murdered); that would see her receiving confidential reports and documents that were forwarded to her at great risk; and that would see her health and personal life suffer. Meanwhile, Kagame and his allies would oust Zaire's longstanding dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and deliver the country into the hands of someone who would ensure its resources (and especially the coltan necessary for high tech equipment) were “open for business”. To what degree was the West behind Seko's ouster? It turns out that Bechtel – a mining giant based out of Hope, Arkansas – was assembling a “master development plan” for the new Democratic Republic of the Congo before its old government was even toppled; satellite images that Bechtel was using to identify the country's mineral potential were given to the invading rebels for military purposes, and in return, Bechtel was first in line to win mining contracts with the Congo's new government. Although the Congo's new leader Laurent Kabila, Kagame, and some of their top officials have become immensely wealthy from their share of these mining profits, this couldn't have been accomplished without international complicity. “Bechtel's links to U.S. intelligence officials, former politicians and military personnel have made it one of the most powerful and secretive corporate entities in the world. The company has been accused of being a US shadow government.” Rever mentions only in passing that Bechtel's base of Hope, Arkansas is the hometown of Bill Clinton.
It's clear that the evidence of RPF crimes was everywhere in the days and months after the genocide. So why did the image of Kagame and his forces as the heroes who put an end to the killing of innocents persist? I believe it is because so many institutions and governments needed the story of the genocide to be one of good and evil, with the evildoers simply defined. But the UN in particular cannot claim ignorance when it comes to these crimes.In Praise of Blood can be a little meandering, with Rever going back to events over and over again as she collects more evidence and testimony over the years, but it's probably a necessary format as she eventually convinced me that:
• Kagame and the RPF instigated the genocide against their own Tutsi people by having a fifth column inside Rwanda, ready to start and promote the bloodletting
• Kagame and the RPF fired the missile that brought down President Habyarimana's plane (killing also Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and ten others in the process)
• The RPF committed a simultaneous genocide against the Hutu people – killing people inside their homes within the areas they controlled, tracking down escapees and luring them to public places with offers of food and supplies and then killing them en masse, trucking refugees back from Uganda to be murdered, cremated, and dispersed – and that, where the West has recognised these deeds, they have been excused in the name of revenge. (It would seem that the RPF's goal, beyond pure vengeance, was to ethnically cleanse the lands of Hutu so the returning Tutsi refugees could take over their homes and farms.)
• From the UN's and national governments' lack of action at the time (attributed to US pressure), to their refusal to investigate evidence or follow through with what investigations there have been, the world is complicit in the genocide of both peoples
This book is packed full of evidence (and footnotes and appendices) that support these findings, and still, Paul Kagame and the RPF are referred to on Wikipedia as the liberators of Rwanda; the country has been the recipient of billions of dollars in foreign aid; the Clinton Foundation gave Kagame their Global Citizen Award in 2009, saying, “From crisis, President Kagame has forged a strong, unified and growing nation with the potential to become a model for the rest of Africa and the world.” I can't imagine what the Rwandan people – those on both sides who experienced genocide and who now live under a strongman-surveillance government – think of the rest of us. However, despite In Praise of Blood being such a necessary light in the darkness, I fear it's one that hasn't caught enough attention as yet; what will it take for the world to demand the truth?
