A British journalist and leading author on the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, Linda Melvern, who is in Kigali to participate in activities to mark the 28th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, has shed light on what she sees as the most common and obvious forms of genocide denial.

On Wednesday, April 6, Melvern told The New Times that she thinks the first most obvious aspect of the denial of the genocide against the Tutsi is "to minimize the death toll.” 

In April 2021, she wrote an article in which she noted that the arguments made by genocide deniers are familiar to anyone who sat through a trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania where perpetrators made every effort to establish that a second genocide took place in 1994 of Hutu, and that this was the subject of an international cover-up. 

In their trials, she wrote at the time, the genocidaires tried to diminish the death toll, and claimed the killing was in self-defence. 

"You will see various figures of the number of those who were murdered in those three terrible months in 1994. To minimize the death toll is still quite common today. The foundation stone of the campaign of genocide denial can all be disproved by studying the established facts; through consulting archives, and particularly the Rwandan research that was conducted Commune by Commune to show the death toll in each; which is this research that deniers’ discount,” Melvern told The New Times.

In her latest book, Intent to Deceive: Denying the Genocide of the Tutsi, there is a chapter on the topic of denial. She wrote that at the centre of the denial of the genocide against the Tutsi was the idea that far from any planning, the killings of civilians in April to July 1994 resulted from a spontaneous uprising. This position, she wrote, was most eloquently outlined in the Security Council even as the crime took place, and was written into diplomatic telegrams, letters and cables.

Genocide not planned 

"The second foundation stone is that there was no planning; that it was a spontaneous uprising. The conspiracy is proved beyond doubt. It is proved at the ICTR. It is proved in documents that were found abandoned here [Kigali] after the genocide against the Tutsi was over,” she told The New Times.

"And it is to be found in the memories of those who moved through this terrible period. I think it is important to recognize that denial doesn’t happen afterwards. It happens before. There is denial that this was being planned. I think it is really important that people understand that Rwanda’s seat in the Security Council at that time was crucial for the genocidairesbecause it enabled the Rwandan ambassador sitting in the Council to spread his denial of the genocide within the Council. 

She added: "The denial of the genocide was, therefore, there for all to see. It was in the Security Council itself, as the Rwandan ambassador claimed that the slaughter of civilians was spontaneous. The Rwandan ambassador was part of this effort to deny that the genocide against the Tutsi was underway.”

During the genocide, Amb Jean-Damascene Bizimana, a representative of the genocidal government, actively built a narrative of genocide denial within the Security Council. He participated in all Security Council sessions during all the 100 days of the genocide against the Tutsi executed by his government. 

In July 1994 when the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) stopped the genocide, Bizimana sought and was granted asylum in the United States where he was eventually granted citizenship. Bizimana is yet to face justice for his role in genocide propaganda and denial in 1994. 

In her latest book, Melvern noted how the attempts to devise a collective defence strategy among the fugitive leaders of Hutu Power ideology, to agree a common discourse, a narrative upon which they could all agree, began in exile in the refugee camps – in Zaire, now DR Congo.

She reveals how the latter met with Luc de Temmerman, a Flemish lawyer who worked for the family of President Juvenal Habyarimana for a number of years and sought Power of Attorney from members of the former regime then on the run. 

As noted, in July 1996, just after the now defunct ICTR issued its first indictments, de Temmerman held a meeting in a hotel in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, with a group of wanted fugitives, offering to supervise their defence.

The meeting was financed by a political organization created in the Mugunga refugee camp in the then Zaire [now DR Congo], the Rassemblement pour le Retour des Réfugiés et la Démocratie au Rwanda (RDR) whose members included genocide suspects and Hutu Power ideologues. The Flemish commercial lawyer announced in that meeting that he would argue the innocence of their own individual cases …

In September 2010, Maj. Gen. Paul Rwarakabije, a former commander of the defeated genocidal regime’s army, commonly known as ex-FAR, which fled into Zaire and continued to battle the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) from there, told The New Times how the same administrators in charge in Rwanda during the genocide – the bourgmestres, the préfets, and others, ruled over the refugee camps.

At another meeting with fugitives in the Mugunga refugee camp, de Temmerman expressed regret that among the Hutu leadership were people who affirmed that there had been genocide conducted by the Hutu. "Unless we change such attitudes we will fall into a trap and it would be impossible for him to plead not guilty on our behalf,” a typed report recorded that was later found among abandoned documents stated.

The Flemish lawyer, as noted in Melvern’s book, asked how he could possibly defend anyone not prepared to defend himself. "All Hutu had to understand,” he told them, "if the genocide was confirmed, then it was the end of them as a people.”

Victim-blaming 

Another "appalling” and frequent form of genocide denial, Melvern told The New Times, is the genocide perpetrators and their backers blaming the victims.

She said: "There are claims that the victims brought the catastrophe upon themselves, which is extraordinary. We see this in the denial of the holocaust too. It, in fact, was the fault of the victims for being who they were and for wanting to change thesystem that existed here in Rwanda and, beforehand. The apartheid quota system that existed. That is denied too, or is ignored. 

"I think it is significant that those academics who worked in Rwanda in years before the genocide also refuse to recognize the apartheid regime. I mean, they came here and happily worked without any complaints or any concern about the quota system. I find that quite extraordinary as in South Africa, for the apartheid system, there were campaigns almost throughout the world to try to end it. Whereas in Rwanda it was this nasty little secret but people never seemed to talk about this quota system, which was obviously appalling.”

The genocidal regimes established a rigid system of quotas, supposedly to assure equitable distribution of resources and opportunities to all Rwandans. This system, which determined key matters such as school enrollments and civil service hiring, was actually used to deliberately victimize the Tutsi. 

"The perpetrators of this crime have encouraged genocide denial,” Melvern said.

"It is extraordinary to me to know that the perpetrators who have been found guilty and who are now in prison are allowed access to media, and to computers. I think they continue their campaign from prison. And that is of concern.” 

"The other problem, I think, that we have, is how some of the genocide perpetrators have been freed from prison early and one of those was Ferdinand Nahimana, one of the chief propagandists is out there in the world and he is probably continuing his campaign. The early release shocks me still.”

Nahimana, a former history professor, was co-founder of hate-speech broadcaster Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) that encouraged the public to kill the Tutsi.