Ancienne de RFI et 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.

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 6^th, 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 for Kagame’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