Response to
article published in The Mail & Guardian
The articles by Judi Rever and Benedict Moran
in The Continent of 28 November and the Mail & Guardian of 30 November 2020
are old allegations that are fundamentally
false. They are based largely on the anonymous contributions of a single
source, and “corroborated” with testimonials of defeated former Rwandan army
soldiers involved in the Genocide against the Tutsis, which were thrown out by
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
These fabricated stories mirror those used
in the past by combatants who simultaneously sought to claim that the genocide
did not happen, and that it was committed by Tutsis and the RPF. Internationally respected legal experts,
academics and observers have consistently rejected these allegations as
unfounded.
Judi Rever has for the past several
years promoted a denialist narrative that exonerates the responsibility of the
1994 Genocide against the Tutsi from the perpetrators, and shifts the blame to
the victims and the force that stopped the genocide, the Rwanda Patriotic Army
(RPA). Rever has been described as a “known denier of
the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda“ and her work dismissed as
“conspiracy theories” in an open letter signed by 60 academics, researchers, lawyers and
public officials from around the world.
The articles by Rever
and Moran follow a similar pattern to previous Rever
work, where she consistently uses anonymous sources with the same profile:
every new “revelation” is brought up by a supposedly direct witness, a
deserter, Tutsi, “consumed with remorse” who fled the RPF and Rwanda.
They also refer to many documents
supposedly leaked from the ICTR collected by a Special Investigation Unit.
Hassan Bubacar Jallow, the
ICTR Prosecutor from 2003, has continuously shown his scepticism towards the
information collected through these "special investigations" and
declared to the Security Council on 4 June 2009 that his office did not have an
indictment in relation to any allegations against the RPF. The selective
approach to witnesses and sources, as well as the lack of verification,
completely discredits Judi Rever’s work.
The accusations against the RPF of shooting down
the plane of former President Habyarimana is a tactic used by deniers to deflect
from the fact that the genocide had been meticulously planned and executed, and
the downing of the plane only served as a trigger. This claim has been fully investigated and
consistently rejected by numerous experts and researchers.
The
findings of the Mutsinzi Independent Commission, and
those of the ballistics specialists from the UK’s Cranfield Defence College,
confirmed that President Habyarimana’s plane was downed by missiles fired from Kanombe Military Barracks, controlled by his own government
forces. There is also substantial evidence that those responsible for the
downing of the plane were extremist elements in President Habyarimana’s own
network.
Judi Rever's
thesis amounts to a dangerous denial and trivialisation of genocide. These articles published by the Mail and
Guardian reopen old wounds on the basis of rejected evidence. They give
credence to the views of those who seek to distort the historical
record of the Genocide against the Tutsi, and undermine national reconciliation
as well as the remarkable progress that Rwandans have made to rebuild a
nation for the benefit of all.
END