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Critical reception

NPOV summary of critical responses

(Material discussing claims that the book is inaccurate will be in a different section of the article.)

The book was publicized in a media campaign and quickly received international attention.[6] Caplan credits Helen Epstein's favorable two-part piece in The New York Review of Books for popularizing Rever's work. Epstein said ....

Current content of relevant part of the "Reception" section

The book was publicized in a media campaign and quickly received international attention.[6] Caplan credits Helen Epstein's favorable two-part piece in The New York Review of Books for popularizing Rever's work, noting that Epstein had no great credentials as a Rwanda expert.[16] Caplan acknowledges that Rever’s book "... presses all of us to give the uglier aspects of the RPF’s record the prominence they deserve," but he concludes: "... there are too many unnamed informants; too many confidential, unavailable leaked documents; too much unexamined credulity about some of the accusations; too little corroboration from foreigners who were eyewitnesses to history."[17] According to French sociologist Claudine Vidal, the book's publication revived efforts by "propagandists, researchers and activists" to prove that the RPF regime committed genocide, which is perceived as "the only way of gaining recognition of a mass crime and eliciting public outcry".[6]

Political scientist René Lemarchand calls the book a "path-breaking inquest", "destined to become required reading for any one claiming competence on the Rwanda genocide". He praises Rever for thorough investigation and taking risks in order to gather as much information as possible.[7] The book convinced scholar Filip Reyntjens of the accuracy of the double genocide theory, which he had previously rejected.[18][19] Researchers Bert Ingelaere and Marijke Verpoorten refer to Rever's revival of the double genocide theory as based on "flimsy and mostly unverifiable sources".[20] Political scientist Scott Straus, a critic of the double genocide theory, calls the book "irresponsible" and states that Rever's "title is unnecessarily provocative, her tone breathless and conspiratorial, and her account of 'there is a conspiracy of silence that I broke, even if it destroyed my family,' is misleading and narcissistic".[21] Vidal writes that "Rever’s work blurs the line between investigation and indictment" and "reads like a prosecutor's closing argument". In particular, Rever describes massacres "in such a way as to classify them as genocide".[6] Vidal states that there are no new revelations in the book, but that Rever accumulates more evidence for charges that have already been made in earlier publications.[6]

In The New York Review of Books, Epstein writes that Rever's "sources are too numerous and their observations too consistent for her findings to be a fabrication."[2] Le Soir journalist Colette Braeckman praises Rever for her on-the-ground investigation but criticizes her for examining only one side of the coin, concluding that she appears in the end to be an ally of the revisionists that preceded her.[3] According to journalist Laurie Garrett: "As journalism and creative writing In Praise of Blood is excellent".[5] The Lancet later published a letter critical of Garrett's review, which disputes the book's conclusions and accuses Rever of victim blaming.[22]

Regarding the new allegations raised in Rever's book, genocide scholar Samuel Totten wrote to Caplan that Rever's book fails to answer many important questions, starting with: whether other researchers heard the same rumors and tried to investigate them, and if the ICTR heard any testimony related to them.[23] Researchers Helen Hintjens and Jos van Oijen focus on Rever's claim that the RPF operated Nazi-style extermination camps without leaving any trace. Specialists they consulted, including the Netherlands Forensic Institute, concluded that the methods described by Rever "would certainly have left significant traces of mass murder", and a Belgian journalist who visited the site when it was supposed to be in operation did not notice anything unusual. On Rever's "infiltrations"-theory, that the RPF was pulling the strings of every relevant organization, they recall a comparable suggestion by the Rwandan ministry of defence published in 1991. Overall, they state that "Rever's book does little more than recycle... earlier denial narratives and sources".[4]

During a promotional tour in Belgium which included speeches 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 conspiracy theories and denial.[24] 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.[25] Rever says she is not a genocide denier because she accepts that the killing of Tutsi was indeed a genocide,[9][26] but she is a "revisionist" because she questions existing historical narratives.[9] Investigative journalist Linda Melvern notes that in her acknowledgements, Rever thanks several defence lawyers and known genocide deniers for their help.[27]

Content

Short but neutral summary of the book

The book's fifteen chapters, which trace the chronology of Rever's research, start in 1997, when Rever accompanied aid workers in Zaire and met Hutu refugees being pursued by troops from Rwanda during the First Congo War. Rever wondered why other countries did not step in to stop the violence by RPF troops, then or later during the Second Congo War.

After publishing several articles that criticized Rwanda's president Paul Kagame, Rever began to be approached by Rwandans who wanted to tell her about their own experience. In 2015, she received by anonymous email a top-secret ICTR report from 2003, about alleged RPF war crimes that never came to trial. (The document has since been published online.)

Rever devotes much of the book to accounts she heard or read of RPF forces killing large numbers of Hutu civilians before, during, and after the Rwanda Genocide (during which Hutus brutally killed hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis.) The book also describes in detail the claim that Paul Kagame's forces, not extremist Hutus, had shot down the plane of President Habyarimana.

Another major book topic is the ICTR, which ultimately indicted 96 Hutus for their role in genocide against Tutsis but never prosecuted anyone from the RPF. Instead, evidence against major RPF figures was turned over to the Rwanda government for prosecution; no prosecution of high-level RPF resulted.

In the book's conclusion, Rever stresses that bad actions by the RPF did not in any way justify or diminish the horror of the Rwanda genocide against Tutsis, saying:

There is no part of this book that denies the genocide...There is no question that after Habyarimana's death, the [Hutu] hardliners chose genocide. Their actions were deliberate and organized, and they used the power of the state to murder massively.

Rever writes that the reason RPF crimes remain less well-known than the Rwandan genocide is that "most people simply wished to believe a more palatable construction of history. The story of a morally disciplined RPF rescuing Rwanda from the brink, to save Tutsis from a genocide…This story was easier to comprehend than what actually happened."

References

What the article says now

Rever's book draws in part on unpublished reports of the Bureau of Special Investigations, part of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, sent to her unofficially.[6 Vidal] She conducted hundreds of interviews with RPF defectors, humanitarian workers, witnesses, and others.[2 Epstein1] The appendices contain information on "Structure of RPF violence from 1994 through the counterinsurgency" and dozens of biographical sketches of "The criminals of the Rwanda Patriotic Front".[7 LeMarchand][8 Caplan] Rever supports the double genocide theory, classifying the RPF crimes as genocide against Hutu.[9 CBC] Historian Gerald Caplan writes that "almost every one of her 250 pages of text contains extremely damning accusations"[10] and that Rever has "only one story to tell: The deplorable, bloody record of the RPF from the day it was founded, as it invaded Rwanda from Uganda, through the genocide, and on to the ferocious wars in the Great Lakes area of Africa thereafter".[1 Caplan]

According to Rever, the RPF's Directorate of Military Intelligence began to infiltrate both Hutu and Tutsi groups and assassinate Hutu moderates in the early 1990s.[5 Garrett] She writes that in 1994, RPF leader Paul Kagame escalated the civil war by ordering the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana; his plane was shot down using surface-to-air missiles obtained from Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni. After the plane was shot down, Hutu extremists killed Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and the Belgian peacekeepers defending her, starting the genocide.[5 Garrett]

Rever estimates that there were about 500,000 victims of RPF killings,[11 Jeune Afrique] and that the organization can be considered a joint criminal enterprise.[6 Vidal] According to Rever, the difference between Hutu killings and RPF killings is that the latter were executed with more stealth and careful planning for disposing of the bodies, whereas during the genocide Tutsi victims were left outside to be eaten by wild animals.[5 Garrett] RPF defectors told Rever that the RPF organized mass killings of Hutu in the parts of Rwanda that it controlled as early as April in order to provoke the anti-Tutsi killings to a level such that no political compromise could be reached. This would eliminate the relevance of the Arusha Accords and pave the way for an RPF takeover.[2 Epstein] Another of Rever's theories is that RPF elements had infiltrated the extremist militias that carried out the genocide of Tutsi and were complicit in those killings[11][5] She states that the RPF systematically killed Hutu in northwest Rwanda in order to make their land available for Tutsi refugees.[6 Vidal] Defectors also told her that killings of Congolese Tutsi refugees in Rwanda in 1997, blamed on Hutu insurgents, were actually a false flag attack by the RPF.[2 Epstein] An anonymous ICTR investigator allegedly told her that "In my life I’ve never seen a situation where so much evidence was collected and no indictment was issued", regarding the April 1994 Byumba stadium massacre of Hutu by the RPF.[5 Garrett]

Rever describes RPF units as "death squads" which operated "open-air crematoriums" in Akagera National Park and compares them to the Einsatzgruppen, gas vans, and extermination camps of Nazi Germany.[4 Hintjens][12 LARB] She criticizes the United States and other countries for overlooking the RPF's crimes.[2] Rever writes that the reason RPF crimes remain less well-known than the Rwandan genocide is that "most people simply wished to believe a more palatable construction of history. The story of a morally disciplined RPF rescuing Rwanda from the brink, to save Tutsis from a genocide…This story was easier to comprehend than what actually happened."[5 Garett]