de l’AFP, Judi Rever a publié de nombreux articles dans le quotidien anglophone Globe and Mail, Le Monde diplomatique ou Foreign Policy Journal. Fruit de vingt
ans d’enquêtes sur la tragédie rwandaise, son ouvrage In Praise of blood, the crimes of the Rwanda
patriotic front a été publié par Penguin Random House, le plus
grand éditeur nord-américain, et a obtenu de nombreux prix dans divers pays.
Elle a été nommée expert du Rwanda par l’ONG « Rights in exile programme »
attachée à la protection juridique des réfugiés.
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
ABOUT IN PRAISE OF BLOOD
A FINALIST FOR THE HILARY
WESTON WRITERS – TRUST PRIZE
A stunning work of investigative reporting by a Canadian journalist who has risked her own life to bring us a deeply disturbing history of the Rwandan Genocide that takes the true measure of Rwandan head of state Paul Kagame.Through unparalleled interviews with RPF defectors former soldiers and atrocity survivors supported by documents leaked from UN court, Judi Rever brings us the complete history of the Rwandan genocide. Considered by the international community to be the saviours who ended the Hutu slaughter of the innocent Tutsi, Kagame and his rebel forces were also killing, in quiet and in the dark, as ruthlessly as the Hutu genocidaires were killing in daylight. The reason why the larger world community hasn’t recognized this truth? Kagame and his top commanders effectively covered their tracks and, post genocide, rallied world guilt and played the heroes in order to attract funds to rebuild Rwanda to maintain and maintain the Tutsi sphere of influence in the region.
Judi Rever, who has followed
the story since 1997, has marshaled irrefutable evidence to show that Kagame’s
own troops shot down the presidential plane on April 6th, 1994, the
act that put the match to the genocidal flame. And she proves, without shadow
of doubt, that as Kagame and his forcers
slowly advanced on the capital of Kigali, they were ethnically cleansing the
country of Hutu men, women and children in order that returning Tutsi settlers
, displaced since the early 60’s, would have homes and land. This book is heartbreaking,
chilling and necessary.
This is an extraordinary work of investigative journalism by
a skilled and intrepid journalist, who, at great personal risk to herself, has
meticulously pieced together how the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Paul
Kagame, the now much-lauded president of Rwanda, perpetrated a genocide of its
own. The RPF’s massacres of Hutu civilians started even before the Hutu
nationalist elements within and outside the Rwandan government began the mass
slaughter of Tutsi in 1994, ultimately killing as many as 1 million of them.
The conventional story is that the Rwandan genocide was a one-way affair: the
Hutu nationalists killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Tuts (as well as
many moderate Hutu). That did happen, and Rever makes it clear that it did; in
any event, that is by now well known, and undisputed. But what is not widely
known is just how blood-soaked the hands of the RPF and Kagame are and how they
have ruthlessly silenced (by, in numerous instances, killing) those who have
first-hand knowledge of the RPF’s crimes and shared it with international
investigators, or were prepared to do so.
The standard version of what occurred in Rwanda is that
Kagame and the RPF
heroically stopped a genocide that the rest of the world watched without
lifting a finger. Yes, the outside world did fail to act, but Rever demolishes
the conventional narrative that lionizes Kagame and the RPF as saviors. They
killed as pitilessly as did the Hutu genocidaires–and in comparable numbers.
Rever also demonstrates that western governments have steadfastly protected
Kagame, even though they had, almost from the outset, incontrovertible evidence
of his ghastly crimes. Do read this riveting account by an exceptionally brave
and smart journalist.
Extrait
The UN documents leaked to me amount to historical vindication forKagame’s victims. They also stand as a testament to the courage of young Tutsis
who had been part of a brutal regime yet broke free, risking censure and death
to tell the truth. Kagame has grossly miscalculated the mix of fury and shame
that many of his men felt after committing acts of depravity. A soldier who was
part of a mobile killing unit in Ngondore told me that before they were shot,
dozens of Hutu men, women and children were tied up and forced to sit on the
edge of a steep hill near a tea plantation, their backs facing the soldiers. He
admitted that, day after day, it was the same operation: he and the other
soldiers methodically unloaded their guns into the bodies of a total of two
thousand civilians on that hill in April 1994. The memory of these executions
has never left him.
In 1997 I went to Congo and met refugees in the forests south
of Kisangani and in transit camps. I traveled to the equatorial town of
Mbandaka then down to the capital, Kinshasa. Then I went back to Goma and
crossed the border on foot to Gisenyi, Rwanda, before going through Ruhengeri
to Kigali and its surrounding rural areas. That trip, in particular my foray
into the Congolese jungle, was a crucible where I discovered a level of
suffering that overwhelmed me. For a very long time, I doubted if I could ever
truly tell the story of what I heard and saw.
It took me two decades to reorient myself, to shake down the
emotions and observations from that trip. But I continued to speak to victims
and observers of the violence that has gripped the region. Over the last five
years I have devoted myself full-time to understanding the dynamics of Kagame’s
violence prior to, during and after the genocide. What has inspired me
throughout my reporting is the power of memory and the way it works to conquer
fear. This book is a testament to the courage of some two hundred direct and
contextual witnesses of RPF crimes, including officials who worked at the UN
tribunal set up in the aftermath of the genocide. I am grateful to all those
who shared their stories and let me into their profound inner world. As their
testimony reveals, Kagame did not commit these crimes alone. He operated—still
operates—with significant political cover. I continue to be astonished by all
the ways he has got away with it.
Violence is never abstract for the victim or the perpetrator. In Praise of Blood puts a human face on the violence in Rwanda and Congo. It
names those alleged to have orchestrated the most heinous of crimes. For
reasons of safety, however, I cannot identify by their real names most of the
witnesses who talked to me or provided me with documents for this book. Kagame
remains a powerful, protected and dangerous figure.
Revue de presse
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 HILARY WESTON WRITERS’ TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
of the Rwandan genocide. A dogged reporter and skillful writer, Rever eschews
what she calls the ‘Hollywood version of good guys and bad guys’ to
meticulously document a chapter in recent history that is as complicated as it
is dismaying. In making her case, she risks everything—her life included—to
expose the crimes of Rwanda’s current brutal government. Rever’s harrowing
narrative isn’t just a portrait of a tragic time; it also stands as an uncompromising
prosecution of that period and its ongoing consequences. In Praise of Blood is an undeniably important story told by a remarkably brave
writer.” —2018 Hilary Weston Writers’
Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury
“Groundbreaking work that significantly changes what we know
about the Rwandan genocide.” —The Globe and Mail
“In Praise of Blood explores how
Washington helped obscure the full story of the genocide that devastated Rwanda
during the 1990s and cover up the crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF),
which has ruled the country ever since. Over the years, less valiant portraits
of Kagame and the RPF have appeared . . . In Praise of Blood is
the most accessible and up-to-date of these studies. . . . Kagame’s regime and
its defenders have dismissed them all as propaganda . . . Rever’s account will
prove difficult to challenge. She has been
writing about Central Africa for more than twenty years, and her book draws on
the reports of UN experts and human rights investigators, leaked documents from
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and hundreds of interviews with
eyewitnesses, including victims, RPF defectors, priests, aid workers,
and officials from the UN and Western governments. Her sources are too numerous
and their observations too consistent for her findings to be a fabrication.”
—Helen Epstein, The New York Review of Books
“If [this book] doesn’t provoke indignation at Western
support for such a despicable, criminal regime, nothing will. Indeed, apart
from the outstanding documentation the book provides, its other great value is
to provide insight into the process of researching it. Rever writes about the
regime’s threats against her and the toll her investigations over many years
took on her family and personal life. Reading it, I was reminded . . .
truth-telling come with risks to physical and mental health.” —Hong Kong Free Press
“In Praise of Blood is compulsory
reading for a world that has acknowledged only half the story of the Rwandan
genocide. We owe a debt of gratitude to Judi Rever for risking her life to
bring us the whole truth of that genocide in this great work of investigative
journalism.” —Terry Gould, winner of the CJFE Tara Singh Hayer Press Freedom Award and
author of Worth Dying For and Murder Without Borders
“This is an unflinching account of one of the most ruthlessly
executed and cynically exploited human catastrophes of the twentieth century.
If you thought you understood the genesis of the Rwandan genocide, think again.
If you are confused by the origins of the ongoing carnage in the Congo and
Zaire, mysterious murders in Uganda and South Africa, start reading now.” —Linden MacIntyre, award-winning broadcast journalist and Scotiabank Giller
award-winning author of The Bishop’s Man
“In Praise of Blood will remain a work
of reference on Rwanda for decades to come. Judi Rever exposes and meticulously
documents a litany of crimes against Rwandans that forces loyal to the Rwandan
President, Paul Kagame, have killed many people to conceal. We are indebted to
Rever’s courageous reporting in the face of great personal risk.” —Anjan Sundaram, journalist and author of Bad News and Stringer
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a “time”, yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
