Judi Rever is a Montreal-based journalist and author of In Praise of Blood, which investigates mass violence under Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s regime, using survivor testimonies, former soldiers, and leaked UN documents. A Ryerson journalism graduate, Rever covered the Congo-Rwanda crisis for Radio France-Internationale in 1997 and later reported for Agence France-Presse. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Foreign Policy Journal. Her book, In Praise of Blood, won the Quebec Writers’ Federation Mavis Gallant Award and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize. 

Rever spoke to JURIST Senior Editor for Long Form Content, Pitasanna Shanmugathas, about the myths surrounding the Rwandan genocide, Kagame’s role in the atrocities, the complicity of Western governments in shielding his regime, and the ongoing devastation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

Editor’s note: The views expressed in this interview reflect those of the interviewee and not necessarily those of JURIST News. Given the sensitive nature and historical complexity surrounding the Rwandan genocide, we encourage readers to approach this content with appropriate context and to pursue additional research from diverse scholarly and journalistic sources when examining these issues.

Pitasanna Shanmugathas: Last year was the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. In your award-winning book, In Praise of Blood, you talk about the popular myths and misconceptions behind the Rwandan genocide, and you dispel the notion of Paul Kagame as a savior. In fact, you assert that the atrocities in 1994 were “bidirectional.” For our readers at JURIST, please deconstruct [your understanding of] the myths surrounding the atrocities in 1994.

Judi Rever: My research has focused on investigating crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Paul Kagame. With that in mind, there are four main assumptions or ‘myths’ that my work, based on very solid evidence, challenges.

1. The first myth is that Paul Kagame stopped the genocide by Hutus against Tutsis. My research reveals that Kagame’s RPF ignited and fueled the genocide of Tutsis. The evidence shows that the RPF assassinated Rwanda’s Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana – an act that triggered the violence against minority Tutsis. Kagame’s commandos also infiltrated Hutu militia and actively engaged in killing Tutsis.
2. The second myth is that RPF massacres of Hutu civilians during and after the genocide were essentially reprisal killings. My research shows that immediately after killing Habyarimana in April 1994, the RPF organized death squads that targeted Hutu community leaders and peasants, and managed to conceal these massacres. The RPF’s killing campaign was well-planned, organized and massive. And it continued for years afterward, albeit on a smaller scale.
3. The third myth is that civilian participation in the genocide was Hutu against Tutsi only, that machete-wielding Hutu peasants turned on their Tutsi neighbours in a spasm of anti-Tutsi violence on orders from the state. My research shows that Tutsi civilians were perpetrators as well; they participated in the violence against Hutus. A percentage of Tutsis indirectly and directly assisted the RPF in its killing schemes during and after the genocide.
4. The fourth myth is that the UN tribunal set up to prosecute the most serious crimes in Rwanda in 1994 ultimately fulfilled its mandate by convicting more than 60 individuals – all with ties to the former Hutu regime – and thereby contributed to the country’s difficult process of reconciliation. My research shows that this assumption could not be further from the truth. My book provides the clearest evidence yet that the United States influenced the tribunal in Kagame’s favour, shielded the RPF from prosecution and cemented his impunity and ethnic dictatorship for years to come.

Shanmugathas: American researchers Christian Davenport and Allan Stam studied Rwanda’s 1994 violence. Using census data showing 600,000 Tutsi in Rwanda before the violence, and records showing 300,000 survived, they concluded that among the estimated 1 million total deaths, more than half may have been Hutu. Their research found multiple types of violence occurred: genocide against Tutsi, civil war deaths, random killings, and revenge attacks by both sides. When they presented these findings in Rwanda, they were banned from the country. What are your thoughts on their research and why their findings might be controversial?

Rever: Stam and Davenport’s research was considered controversial because it challenged the prevailing dogma which stated that an estimated 1 million Tutsis were killed in Rwanda in 1994. But we have to remember that Paul Kagame’s ruling RPF controlled the crime scene after the genocide which made it virtually impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to carry out independent research on the ground. Most experts who have done a rigorous analysis based on the country’s census prior to April 1994 and on the number of Tutsis who survived the genocide know that the figure of 1 million Tutsi genocide victims is statistically impossible. In other words, the figure is propaganda and it obfuscates the numbers of Hutus who were slaughtered by RPF forces. Stam and Davenport’s research paved the way for other researchers to release studies on the number of casualty figures along ethnic lines. These scholars included André Guichaoua, Luc Reydams, Roland Tissot, Jens Meierhenrich, Omar Shahabudin McDoom, Damien de Walque, Marijke Verpoorten and finally David Armstrong working with Stam and Davenport. Some of these scholars estimated the number of Tutsis killed to be in the range of 500,000 to 600,000, and posited that hundreds of thousands of Hutus died in 1994 and in the years afterward, although the nature of the deaths of Hutus (whether it was due to direct violence or war-related malnutrition or disease) was not examined.

I’ve been very critical about the lack of empirical studies examining the plight of Rwandan Hutus fleeing to neighbouring countries in 1994 and after. No quantitative or qualitative studies were conducted in Hutu refugee camps in neighbouring Congo, Zambia, Tanzania, and later Uganda, asking Hutus what they experienced in 1994, why they ran away, how their loved ones died and why they chose to languish in seething camps instead of returning home after July 1994.  There has been no empirical research based on rigorous interviews with Hutus—or Tutsis for that matter—in exile, free from the spectre of reward or punishment, that tell us what they endured in their most excruciatingly difficult moments. The lack of empirical studies has impeded our full understanding of the genocidal violence and is (I’ve argued) a colossal failure on the part of NGOs, researchers, the United Nations, and anyone else interested in human rights and the rule of law. Our knowledge of what happened during the genocide is based solely on accounts of Rwandans inside a country that is tightly and violently controlled by the state.

Shanmugathas:  In Canada, Romeo Dallaire is praised for his peacekeeping role during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. However, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, the former head of the UN mission in Rwanda, claims in his book Le Patron de Dallaire Parle (The Boss of Dallaire Speaks) that Dallaire ignored RPF arms shipments from Uganda and that UN forces under Dallaire’s command may have even transported weapons to the RPF, effectively taking sides in the conflict. Your thoughts on Dallaire, his record in Rwanda, and his present image? 

Rever: There is substantial evidence that Romeo Dallaire displayed dangerously poor judgment as the force commander of UNAMIR. Dallaire cultivated a close relationship with Kagame and admired the Rwandan rebel force for its military prowess. Dallaire was made aware of steady arms shipments via Uganda to the RPF and the infiltration of RPF recruits into Kigali and throughout Rwanda prior to the assassination of Habyarimana. But the UN force commander did not sound the alarm or, to my knowledge, inform the international community of this military escalation. Dallaire was also aware, from mid-May 1994 onwards, of systematic killings of Hutus by RPF forces in zones under Kagame’s control. The bodies of Rwandans floating in the Kagera River into Lake Victoria from May, June, July and even after the genocide were victims of Kagame’s forces who had seized the southeastern part of the country in late April 1994.  UN personnel documented these atrocities, yet Dallaire did not inform the public of the RPF’s role in the slaughter. Lives would have been saved if Dallaire had publicly condemned the RPF and used his authority within the United Nations to hold Kagame to account. In his book, Shake Hands with the Devil, Dallaire actually misinformed readers about the RPF’s military sweep; he described Kagame’s rebels capturing territory littered with bodies where victims had already been slaughtered by Hutu forces. Dallaire helped shape the official narrative, arguing that the killing campaign in Rwanda was one-sided, that only Hutus were responsible for mass atrocities. When RPF soldiers killed civilians, Dallaire framed the violence as reprisals or individual incidents of military indiscipline. So Dallaire in fact covered up Kagame’s crimes and was part of a powerful network of people who have ensured Kagame’s impunity over the years. … The Dallaire Institute, which purports to fight against the use of child soldiers in combat. The Institute has funneled millions of dollars from the Canadian government to establish a training centre in Rwanda, whose troops have butchered and raped Congolese people and forcibly recruited children to fight its wars in Congo.*

Editor’s note: JURIST reached out to the Dallaire Institute for a comment on these points. Their response in full will be found at the bottom of this interview.

Shanmugathas: The popular narrative is that under Kagame’s political leadership, Rwanda has become an economically prosperous country, with no internal violence. What are your thoughts on this characterization? 

Rever: The Rwandan regime resorts to extreme violence to stifle dissent and instill fear in the population. Kagame presides over a police state. It uses detention centres and military camps to torture perceived opponents, extract false confessions and kill prisoners. It manages its citizens through the use of force and propaganda campaigns. Last year, the wider public got a glimpse of Kagame’s brutality in an investigation undertaken by a consortium of 50 journalists working for 17 media outlets from 11 different countries. The Forbidden Stories’ investigation, entitled “Rwanda Classified,” revealed how Rwanda uses assassination, intimidation and surveillance technology to silence critics at home and abroad. The exposé also showed how Kagame uses a network of Western lobbyists to cast Kagame as an agent of modernity and downplay the country’s human rights record.

Shanmugathas: Rwanda’s intervention in the Congo began in 1996. Talk about why the intervention began in the first place, the devastation it has caused, and why Kagame-backed forces are still wreaking havoc on the nation today?

Rever: Rwanda’s invasion in October 1996 was cast as a military operation to dismantle Hutu refugee camps inside Zaire and prevent the armed elements in the camps from staging attacks in western Rwanda. Western intelligentsia, in particular writers such as Alex de Waal and Philip Gourevitch, viewed the attacks on refugee camps, where more than a million Rwandan Hutus had fled to after the genocide, as wholly justified. Kagame’s military sweep across Zaire got the support of Washington and the financial backing of multinationals such as America Mineral Fields and Tenke Mining, among others. The real aim of the invasion, of course, was to effect regime change, in this case to unseat [Zaire’s dictator] Mobutu Sese Seko and carry out a geostrategic restructuring of Central Africa. Remember the US has supported Kagame’s RPF since the late 1980s, funding Uganda whose army allowed Kagame to invade Rwanda in 1990 and carry out a scorched-earth campaign against northern Rwandans prior to the genocide. At the same time, in the early 1990s, we saw a decline in production in Zaire of two strategic minerals, copper and cobalt under Mobutu. It was increasingly clear to Mobutu’s longtime sponsors in Washington that Zaire was no longer a place to do international business. And the US wanted Zaire, renamed Congo, open for business, because its mineral resources are estimated to be 24 trillion dollars. 

After toppling Mobutu, Rwanda’s aims became clear: expanding its territorial and political influence and getting access to valuable artisanal minerals, gold, tantalum, tungsten and tin. Over nearly decades now, Rwanda has sponsored a succession of brutal militia, the AFDL, the RCD, the CNDP and then the M23. These militia and other armed groups have ripped apart the Congolese nation. It’s also worth remembering that the second war in Congo, which began in 1998, embroiled several African nations. The conflict has led to the deaths of several million people, either through direct violence or war related disease.

Shanmugathas: Talk specifically about the economic incentives that are driving the ongoing plunder and abuses in the Congo–as well Canadian companies and other multinational corporations that are engaging in this plunder. 

Rever: Nearly a quarter century ago, UN investigators released a report on the economy of war in Congo. The 2002 UN report named eighty-five companies and elite networks that ransacked the country or violated international regulations. Five Canadian companies were cited: First Quantum Minerals, Tenke mining, International Panorama Resources, Harambee Mining and Melkior Resources.

But the nature of Congo’s plunder has changed. The most serious human rights abuses are not related to industrial mining. It is the extraction and trafficking of minerals from artisanal mines that is linked to the current bloodshed. Rwanda and its mafia are the principal predators in this trafficking, and the global supply chain is complicit. Kigali is a major transit hub for laundered gold, tantalum, tungsten and tin. Tantalum, derived from the ore coltan, is heat resistant, stores energy and is essential for defense applications, space and aviation technology, computers and cell phones. Western and Asian tech companies buy components from global suppliers that purchase minerals directly from Rwanda, a country whose own mineral production is verifiably poor. Some of the world’s biggest companies, from Apple to Boeing, have been accused of commercializing illegally exploited minerals, since their suppliers buy Congolese minerals laundered by Rwanda.

Shanmugathas: In Canada, there is no real legal mechanism to hold Canadian mining companies accountable for the atrocities they are committing in places like the Congo.  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed an ombudsperson to investigate mining abuses, but this ombudsperson lacked real investigative power. Talk about the lack of legal accountability for atrocities by Canadian mining companies.  

Rever: You’re right. It is a grave concern. It is my understanding that Liberal MP John McKay worked in good faith for years to get a bill passed to legally force Canadian companies to become accountable for human rights abuses committed in developing nations. The bill was voted down because it drew the ire of the extractive sector. 

I understand that Ivanhoe, a Canadian company involved in copper mining in Congo, has been accused recently of violating the rights of Congolese who were evicted from their home in order to expand mining operations in Katanga. But my research is focused on how downstream companies in the global supply chain of 3TG are fueling the violence in Congo by buying minerals from Rwanda. This is an international problem, not a Canadian one per se.

Shanmugathas: What do you believe needs to be done to bring an end to the devastation that is happening in the Congo?

Rever: I  recommend governments declare an embargo on Rwandan mineral exports and prevent refiners, smelters and component manufacturers in the global supply chain from buying laundered goods. The incentive for Kagame to stoke war in Congo must immediately end. In the short term, I think a UN force should be mandated to protect Congo’s most lucrative mines from the endless cycle of exploitation, trafficking and violence associated with the illicit trade. I urge the UN Security Council to level sanctions against Kagame and his senior commanders, and indictments should be issued against them at the International Criminal Court.

Shanmugathas: Talk about the type of support that Western leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, provide to Paul Kagame and why they support him, especially given the list of atrocities for which he is responsible. 

Rever: Trudeau’s foreign policy toward Rwanda is shameless. The Trudeau government decided to open up an embassy in Kigali in mid 2022, only months after Kagame’s militia re-emerged and invaded eastern Congo. I cannot fathom anything more contemptuous of the Congolese, on our government’s part, than this. At the time, our foreign minister Mélanie Joly explained that it was important to strengthen ties with nations such as Rwanda in order to fight against Russian and Chinese influence on the African continent. This diplomatic move, coupled with funding millions of Canadian dollars to Kigali through Dallaire’s institute, shows that Canada has little or no regard for human rights.

Kagame’s predation has set the Great Lakes region on fire. The de facto immunity he and his commanders were granted for crimes in 1994 has allowed his forces to invade and kill in Congo for 30 years now. Instead of prosecuting him and his senior entourage for mass atrocities, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) transferred the UN jurisdiction for trying RPF crimes to Rwanda, allowing the killers to prosecute themselves.

After the release of the UN Mapping Report in 2010 that revealed Kagame’s troops may have committed genocide in Congo, there were hopes of creating a UN-supported tribunal. But the international community ultimately “had no appetite for that,” a Canadian lawyer who has worked in Arusha told me.

Since the formation of the ICC in 2002, Rwanda has created, funded and armed a series of brutal militias in Congo. Kagame has command responsibility and is criminally liable for atrocities his militias commit; he should have been indicted years ago but he remains untouchable for geopolitical reasons. UN investigators have provided robust evidence of thousands of Rwandan troops in Congo, and asserted that Rwanda de facto controls and steers operations of the M23, which is bent on regime change. The latest Rwandan-led assault on Goma has left 3,000 Congolese dead and as many injured. The UN Security Council and international governments have yet to take punitive action against Rwanda.

Shanmugathas: With Donald Trump once again having assumed the Presidency, how do you believe this will influence events in the Congo and Kagame’s actions? Will Trump likely give Kagame even more freedom to carry out atrocities as he desires? 

Rever: At this stage I really don’t know. Any answer would be speculation on my part.

Shanmugathas: In your view, how can legal accountability be achieved for the war crimes committed by Paul Kagame?

Rever: I would recommend an immediate arms embargo against Rwanda. I also urge the international community to level sanctions against Kagame and his senior officials, suspend aid to Kigali and end his country’s involvement in UN peacekeeping missions. I would recommend the ICC issue an arrest warrant against Kagame for crimes against humanity and war crimes since 2002.

*The Dallaire Institute provided the following response to Ms. Rever’s comments in this interview:

“In May 2022, Global Affairs Canada awarded the Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security $19.4 million Canadian dollars in funding for a project to advance the Vancouver Principles on Peacekeeping and Prevention of the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in seven sub-Saharan African countries over a five-year period from 2024 – 2029. The Dallaire Institute has received support in the past from the German Foreign Federal Office and philanthropic donors for our work in Africa.

The Vancouver Principles (VPs) —which were co-developed by the Dallaire Institute and the Government of Canada —are a set of seventeen distinct political commitments that aim to empower Member States to undertake early, effective, and coordinated action to prevent the recruitment and use of children as soldiers. Currently there are 107 nations globally that have endorsed the Vancouver Principles and many who require assistance to understand the full implementation of these principles. The Dallaire Institute is uniquely positioned to provide countries with the technical and strategic knowledge required to effectively implement the principles.

Over the past three decades, the proportion of the world’s children at risk of recruitment has tripled, and as of 2020, 54% of all children lived in a country where recruitment and use of children as soldiers took place. In 2021, the state of children in armed conflict became increasingly severe, as the UN verified 23,982 grave violations against children in sub-Saharan African countries including Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan.

To accelerate implementation of the Vancouver Principles in the region and increase understanding of how they contribute to the prevention of recruitment and use of children as combatants, the Dallaire Institute will implement the Promoting the Vancouver Principles in Africa project in collaboration with governments, security sector actors, and international and regional agencies, alongside community organizations, women, and youth groups in South Sudan, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda.

Project elements will combine advocacy, education, and capacity building programming. The project will be administered from the Dallaire Institute’s Africa Centre of Excellence in Kigali, Rwanda in collaboration with national offices in Juba, South Sudan; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Maputo, Mozambique. Strategic oversight and support will be provided from the Dallaire Institute’s headquarters in Halifax, Nova Scotia that is based at Dalhousie University. All funds and accounts are managed through an auditable process at Dalhousie University.

Key Points:

• Prior to the start of the project, the Dallaire Institute signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with Ministries of Defence, community groups and universities prior to the start of the AVPA project, in South Sudan, the DRC, Mozambique, Rwanda, the African Peace Support Training Association and Martin Luther Agwai International Peacekeeping Centre in Nigeria, and the AU Commission to further advance the implementation of the Vancouver Principles and prevent the recruitment and use of children in armed violence and conflict.

• The Dallaire Institute has historically also signed MoUs in Sierra Leone and Somalia that led to integration of training materials, doctrine notes, and trained trainers who have continued to sustain the work in those nations and to other nations in Africa.

• The creation of these MoUs ensure that all parties to the proposed collaboration understand the clear expectations of each in the arrangement, demonstrate a commitment to these conditions, provide a timebound approach to the activities, outline intellectual property rights, and most importantly to the principles of improving the protection of children, the safety of the security sector, and the advancement of peace.

• The Dallaire Institute believes in the power of dialogue and the need to build trust between itself and its partners to respect the realities of challenges on the ground while also ensuring difficult conversations on changing attitudes, behaviours and policies to improve the protection of children from armed violence and conflict that can lead to meaningful engagement and leads to sustained change among individuals and within systems change.

• As a result, the Dallaire Institute collaborates with advocacy organizations that are focused on accountability, and often provide a key bridge to dialogue between community groups and the security sector. It is our belief that children can be a rallying point for collaboration that leads to improved prospects for peace and security.

• The Dallaire Institute’s African Centre of Excellence has a base in Kigali, but it collaborates and supports our country offices in Juba, Kinshasa, and Maputo to work collectively to help forge a regional approach to improving the implementation of the Vancouver Principles. This South-South collaboration is key to the success of the Dallaire Institute. It provides important lessons learned that are incorporated into the Dallaire Institute training methodology and research. It has led to regional agreements with ECCAS and the AU, and potentially with ECOWAS, SADC and COMESA.

• The Dallaire Institute’s African Centre of Excellence is independent of the Government of Rwanda. A Host Country Agreement outlines our legal status. This agreement provides a strong and supportive collaboration that allows the easy entry for regional and global participants to Rwanda, which provides a stable environment for the conduct of workshops and regional training.

• Rwanda was chosen as the base for the Dallaire Institute’s African Centre of Excellence based on a willingness to collaborate, the positionality to countries listed on the SRSG CAAC’s list of nations with violations against children, and due to Rwanda’s significant troop contributions to UN peacekeeping missions.

• The Dallaire Institute began engaging with the FARDC in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010, and with the SSPDF in South Sudan since 2015. Despite changes in governments, leadership, and ongoing conflicts, we have maintained our ability to forge relationships, conduct capacity building trainings for the security sector, and work with community groups. It has also resulted in the signing of MoUs with the Ministries of Defence, Militaries and Police.

• The Dallaire Institute has a long history of collaboration with UNICEF, with Partnership Contribution Agreements that have spanned throughout Somalia, DRC, South Sudan, and Mozambique, and are currently expanding to Nigeria.

• The Dallaire Institute’s work in Rwanda with the integration of training into the RDF and RNP structures has been a critical element to demonstrate success and to convince other nations such as: South Sudan, Ghana, and Mozambique of the importance of collaboration with the Dallaire Institute to implement the Vancouver Principles and prioritize the protection of children.

• Efforts to demonstrate training collaboration, community engagement and high level policy change has already begun in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana – all of which are critical countries to this project.

• The Dallaire Institute must be able to maintain programmes and work in difficult times of conflict and situations of human rights abuses as it can provide important moments for dialogue and reflection on the impacts on children. Without these opportunities we would lose ground gained and children would continue to be invisible to those making decisions on peace and security, globally.”