Filip Reyntjens: A “researcher-actor” in the Great Lakes region—what scientific expertise?

Continued from Part 2. 3.1. Falsification of facts and the equating of crimes Since 1994, Reyntjens has been obsessed with proving, at all costs, that Rwanda experienced more than one genocide and that the RPF was responsible for a second genocide against the Hutu. Several examples illustrate this. On February 9, 1995, the École nationale d’administration in Paris organised a roundtable on Rwanda, with Filip Reyntjens as a speaker. His contributions were extremely biased and aggressive, comparing the Rwandan government to the perpetrators of genocide while ignoring the fact that it was working to rebuild a country devastated by crimes for which it bore no responsibility: “If there had not been a genocide, the international community would not tolerate the current situation. In Rwanda, the worst is yet to come.” Two months later, on April 24, 1995, in an interview with the Flemish newspaper De Morgen, he expressed a denialist opinion, attributing killings in areas outside RPF control to the RPF and thereby minimising the gravity of the Genocide against the Tutsi: “I would not be surprised if some of the bodies of the victims recovered last year from Lake Victoria are in part RPF victims. When Byumba surrendered in April 1994, there were thousands of deaths. “In Bugesera and the Southeast, also thousands of deaths occurred. According to some sources, the RPF killed more there than the Interahamwe. There is a creeping genocide occurring in Rwanda. (...) What is happening today is far more serious than what happened under the former regime.” It cannot be repeated enough: the RPF was fighting Hutu soldiers and militias who were killing defenceless Tutsi civilians. The RPF fought to stop the genocide, not to murder civilians. The factual truth is that Hutu génocidaires belonging to the interim government, its armed forces and its militias killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsi in the locations cited by Reyntjens. These included Byumba, Rutare, Mutete, Nyinawimana, Muvumba, Ngarama and Mutara, as well as locations in Bugesera, such as Nyamata, Ntarama, Ruhuha, Kayumba, Rebero, Nyiramatuntu, CND and Gashora. 3.2. Commercial exploitation of the Genocide against the Tutsi Immediately after the genocide, Reyntjens rushed to Rwanda, where he spent five days in October 1994. As the nature of his immediate and subsequent publications demonstrates, he was not interested in establishing the facts, but rather in collecting material that could incriminate the RPF. Once back in Belgium, he swiftly levelled harsh accusations against Rwanda without regard for the realities on the ground. This set the tone for the approach that would characterise his statements and publications. This distorted interpretation of the facts would become a recurring theme in Reyntjens’ public appearances: “The second cause is the ‘genocide credit,’ which the regime exploits to the fullest. The genocide has become a source of legitimacy that allows it to escape condemnation for its own actions. For the RPF, it is an ideological weapon enabling it to acquire and maintain the status of victim, and thus to benefit from impunity.” In 1995, Reyntjens co-authored a denialist document with the Belgian missionary Serge Desouter for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), seeking to influence the tribunal. The authors’ intent is evident in their prejudgements about the Rwandan government: “For the current regime in Kigali, the genocide against the Tutsi has become a political asset used to have the international community accept its own violations of humanitarian law and to legitimize dictatorial governance.” Like Reyntjens, Serge Desouter, a member of the White Fathers, speaks on a subject he does not know. He left Rwanda in 1986 and never returned. Yet, like Reyntjens, he is one of the “experts” consulted by several Western agencies on developments in the Great Lakes region. 3.3. Denial of the planning of the Genocide against the Tutsi On May 3, 2007, Filip Reyntjens testified before the Brussels Assize Court in the trial of Major Bernard Ntuyahaga, who was prosecuted for the murder of 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers in Rwanda in April 1994. Reyntjens denied that the Genocide against the Tutsi had been planned, stating: “By definition, we will not have proof of planning because there are no minutes of meetings or, to date, convincing testimonies from people who would have been part of a parallel command structure.” Yet Reyntjens had been among the first to reveal, two years before the genocide, the existence of death squads operating at the highest levels of the Rwandan state and preparing and committing massacres. In a document dated October 9, 1992, he provided details of this genocidal network’s methods: “Following a Belgian mission carried out in Rwanda (in September 1992), composed, besides the author of this testimony, of Willy Kuypers (Senator), Johan Scheers (Lawyer from Brussels), Rik de Gendt (Journalist), and Wilfried Van den Storme (Honorary Consul of Rwanda in Antwerp). (...) The information we have on the existence, composition, and activities of a ‘réseau zéro’ is based on the testimonies of two people who were associated with this group, the testimonies of three other individuals, including two senior officers who are well-informed about this group, and testimonies from the Bugesera region in particular (...) “The objectives of the group responsible for the disturbances were announced to new recruits as follows: ‘Multipartyism is the cause of anarchy and disorder; the Nsanzimana and Nsengiyaremye governments are worthless; therefore the ongoing change must be discredited.’ “At the national level, the core of this group consisted notably of the following individuals: Nzirorera Joseph (former minister, deputy of Ruhengeri), Zigiranyirazo Protais (former prefect of Ruhengeri, brother-in-law of the President), Rwabukumba Séraphin (CEO of the Centrale, brother-in-law of the President), Col. Serubuga Laurent (former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army), Col. Sagatwa Elie (Private Secretary to the President, brother-in-law of the President), Mr. Ntirivamunda Alphonse (Director General of Bridges and Roads, son-in-law of the President), Capt. Simbikangwa Pascal (official at the Presidency, brother-in-law of Col. Sagatwa), Col. Bagosora (Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Defense, cousin of the President), Maj. Nkundiye (Commander of the Presidential Guard), and Col. Nsengiyumva Anatole (Head of Military Intelligence). “Beyond the central core, the group had local or regional operatives responsible for execution on the ground; in Bugesera, this role was notably carried out by Fidèle Rwambuka, the burgomaster of Kanzenze. The activities of this group had a triple effect: sabotage of the democratization process, which cannot proceed properly in a context of destabilization; intimidation of the Tutsi component of the population and of opposition parties; and obstruction of the Arusha process, since the message was clearly that neither refugees nor RPF members would be safe if they decided to return to Rwanda. These actions were therefore profoundly anti-democratic and violative of human rights; at worst, they could result in a fully orchestrated civil war... To shed the fullest possible light on these events and prevent their recurrence, a thorough international investigation is imperative.” The issue of the death squads that prepared the Genocide against the Tutsi was raised with Reyntjens at the ICTR on September 16, 2004, when he was testifying in favour of Théoneste Bagosora. Embarrassed, he offered a terse response in defence of this criminal circle: “Being a member of the Akazu is not an offense or a crime before this tribunal.” How could membership in the Akazu not constitute a crime when this very circle had been created by the regime for criminal purposes—something Reyntjens himself had been among the first to reveal in September 1992? This is curious. It should also be recalled that, on September 21, 1992, the Rwandan army published a document identifying the enemy and automatically designating every Tutsi as an enemy of Rwanda. To be continued in Part 4. The writer is the Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement. This article was first published in Dialogue Review, Special Edition No. 211, “The Prolonged Genocide”.

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Filip Reyntjens: A “researcher-actor” in the Great Lakes region—what scientific expertise?