Via the Conspiracy Watch website, I came across this interesting interview about the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. The conversation focuses on what preceded the genocide and what exactly happened in Rwanda at that time, but more importantly on the campaign soon launched by the perpetrators of genocide to distort the true nature of events. That campaign is still creeping in and has also gained a foothold among media outlets criticising the current regime in Kigali.
Of course, there is much to criticise about the current Paul Kagame-led regime and it is good that serious investigative journalists are writing about it. But it is shocking to see that old conspiracy theories originating from the rings of genocide perpetrators sometimes slip in, almost unnoticed it seems. An example of journalism with probably the best intentions in which this can be seen is the recent flood of articles published by the collaborative Forbidden Stories (Rwanda Classified). Reichstadt and Dumas talk about this also near the end of this interview.
In my view, this talk deserves a wider audience than just the part that can speak French and a better translation than you get with YouTube’s automatic translation. So I sat down to add English subtitles.
The interview was originally published on the Conspiracy Watch website: Les Déconspirateurs – the show: special edition with Hélène Dumas and was recorded on 4 June. I made the Translation with some help of AI, and of course with the permission of Conspiracy Watch.
Further reading:
- ZAM: Review | ‘In Praise of Blood’: Sensational, But Does It Fit With Reality? by Jos van Oijen
- Conspiracy Watch: Judi Rever : une révisionniste du génocide des Tutsi chez Marianne (in French)
- Kloptdatwel: Rwanda: Wie stak dertig jaar geleden de lont in het kruitvat? by Jos van Oijen (in Dutch)
- ROAPE: Michela Wrong’s remake of Rwanda’s untold story
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Good interview with an important historian.
The Rwanda Classified project demonstrates how good intentions can go awry quickly when journalists forget to consult subject matter experts or do some basic research themselves. For instance, when someone says this about the genocide against the Tutsi: “C’est l’un des plus grands mensonges et l’une des plus grandes manipulations de l’Afrique du XXème siècle” (Charles Onana), that person is not a critic as the journalists of Forbidden Stories suggest, nor are those who call him a genocide denier Kagame trolls.
When activism replaces old-fashioned journalism and common sense, it never ends well.