In 1996, in what can only be described as a masterclass in moral inversion, Reyntjens penned a postscript to the now rightfully dust-coated “Les réfugiés rwandais à Bukavu au Zaïre: De nouveaux Palestiniens?” â” a book by Catholic priest Philippe de Dorlodot, published by L’Harmattan.
Philippe de Dorlodot, the Catholic priest who compiled this book, selected as postscript writer none other than Reyntjens, Belgium’s envoy to the imaginary International Fellowship of Genocide Apologists.
With affiliations to three Belgian universitiesâ”Antwerp, U.L.B., and K.U. Leuvenâ”Reyntjens gives the illusion of academic gravitas while repackaging the narratives of genocidaires as scholarly wisdom.
The result is a text that doesn’t simply dance on the graves of victims but tries to resuscitate their murderers as political interlocutors.
One can almost hear the violins playing in the background as he mourns not the over one million Tutsi murdered in cold blood, but the reputational damage to the genocidal establishment. Never has euphemism been so criminal.
With affiliations to three Belgian universitiesâ”Antwerp, U.L.B., and K.U. Leuvenâ”Filip Reyntjens gives the illusion of academic gravitas while repackaging the narratives of genocidaires as scholarly wisdom.
It was a work of exquisite absurdity, masquerading as humanitarian concern while serving as a comforting lullaby for genocidaires.
The postscript, by the self-appointed Belgian arbiter of Rwandan moral geometry, is as revealing as it is revolting. These were not innocent civilians in search of asylum; many were architects, engineers, and executioners of genocide.
Among the supposed “New Palestinians” were none other than Théodore Sindikubwabo (President of the genocidal government) and Jean Kambanda (the Prime Minister of that very regime).
It is a text in which murderers become diplomats, genocide is referred to as a “tragedy,” and mass killers like Nkurunziza Ananie of RTLM are presented as unjustly exiled, teary-eyed political actors.
The book’s title alone, De nouveaux Palestiniens?, screams for mockery. The suggestion that the Hutu refugeesâ”many of whom were fleeing not persecution but justice for their role in the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsiâ”were somehow equivalent to Palestinians, reeks of moral distortion.
Which genocide did the Palestinians commit? To my knowledge, none.
The analogy collapses under its own illogicality. Unlike the Palestinians, the Hutu refugeesâ”especially politicians, the military and militiasâ” had just vacated a state machinery that had been weaponised to annihilate an ethnic group.
There are ordinary analysts, and then there are necromancers of moral equivalence like Reyntjens. In a world where genocide can be misdiagnosed as a mere “tragedy,” Reyntjens plays the pathologist, not to examine the corpse of truth, but to mislabel the cause of death and pin the crime on the rescue team.
It takes a special kind of intellectual dishonesty to turn a book largely written by genocidaires and their sympathisers into a philosophical treatise, to decorate it with moral relativism, and then to top it off with a postscript that reads like a eulogy for Hutu Power.
Reyntjens’ 1996 postscript to the book is not just unwise; it’s a stunning success in the genre of genocide apology disguised as academic neutrality. But Reyntjens’ postscript deserves its own museum wing in the Hall of Infamy for Ethical Bankruptcy.
One is tempted to wonder whether Reyntjens, had he been operating in 1946 Europe, would have urged the Allies to include Himmler in post-war negotiations, for the sake of “demographic balance.”
Would he have suggested that Jews negotiate with Himmler and Goebbels to broaden the base of the post-Nazi German government?
Reyntjens’ postscript does not analyse. It anaesthetises. He assures readers that since April 1994, Rwanda has endured not a genocideâ”the most heinous crime against humanityâ”but a “catastrophe,” a “tragedy.”
Tragedy, you see, is comfortably vague. Hurricanes are tragic. Earthquakes are tragic. But genocide? That requires accountability, clarity, and the inconvenient naming of names.
There exists enough evidence to prove this was the language adopted by genocidaires’ propaganda machinery since their defeat in 1994.
Reyntjens will have none of that. He prefers the soft lighting of euphemism and academic fog.
In his defence of genocidaires huddled in Bukavu, he endorses the claim that all who crossed the border of Rwanda to South Kivu as the “new Palestinians.”
This rhetorical deviceâ”comparing those who organised, directed, and executed mass murder to a driven out and stateless peopleâ”is either breathtaking in its cynicism or tragically sincere. Either way, it defies parody.
One of Reyntjens’ most repeated tricks is his liberal use of the term “civil society.” He writes that in Bukavu, this amorphous civil society “reaffirmed its vitality, analytical capacity, and objectivity” by first denouncing the killing of Tutsi (a brief moment of decency!) and then, much more enthusiastically, condemning the RPF.
This includes Archbishop Christopher Munzihirwa and François Nzabahimana of the Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy RDRâ” which in reality was a retirement club for genocidaires rebranded as human rights defenders. He praises (RDR), a political front for genocidaires in exile, as part of this vibrant civic chorus.
Reyntjens has the audacity to say that these upstanding figures initially denounced the genocide against Tutsi but later condemned the RPF for a “selective genocide.”
Selective genocide? What’s next? Retroactive war crimes by the victims? The idea that the RPF, which stopped the genocide, somehow committed an alternative genocideâ”while the real genocidaires were sipping Primus in Zaire and forming political partiesâ”is nothing short of hallucinatory.
But Reyntjens is no stranger to conjuring new categories of crime when old ones don’t serve his narrative.
Reyntjens applauds these voices for opposing what they call a “selective genocide,” a term that performs the rhetorical equivalent of setting the fire and blaming the fire brigade.
The RPF, in his telling, are not the liberators who stopped the bloodletting, but “terrorisers” who displaced innocents and stole property.
The idea that survivors could not accept a power-sharing deal with machete-wielding maniacs seems to escape his analysis. For Reyntjens, the solution to Rwanda’s woes was simple: negotiate with the people who tried to exterminate the Tutsi.
To elevate leaders of genocide to the status of political interlocutors is akin to nominating the American Charles Milles Manson for a Nobel Peace Prize. But Reyntjens, unfazed by morality, is more interested in peddling a thesis than reckoning with atrocity.
In a crescendo of poor judgment, Reyntjens writes: “The texts emphasise the necessity and urgency of political negotiations aimed at broadening the political and social base of the Rwandan government so that it can inspire confidence.”
Really? Who exactly should RPF have shared power with? People, fresh from instructing Interahamwe militias on how best to slice a baby out of its mother? The prescription from Reyntjens is clear: Rwanda should have invited the arsonists to keep burning the house.
Worse still, he calls for the Rwandan Patriotic Army to be “confined to barracks” and for UNAMIR to create security zones.
Yes, the very same UNAMIR that spectacularly failed to stop the genocide when it mattered is now being asked to police the victors while war criminals roam free. This is not just tone-deaf; it’s a requiem for reason.
Reyntjens’ primary objection to the RPF was that it refused to negotiate with genocidaires.
He laments that the RPF didn’t allow for a greater role for UNAMIR (yes, the very force that watched the genocide unfold and left Tutsis to be butchered), or agree to confine the Rwandan Patriotic Army to barracks.
His logic is unshakeable: the people who stopped the genocide must be sidelined so that the people who perpetrated it can return to reclaim their “dignity.”
To anyone familiar with history, this proposal is laughable. One does not ask Jews in 1945 to share power with the SS. One does not invite Pol Pot to co-chair a truth and reconciliation commission.
But Reyntjens’ Rwanda is not a real place. It is a theoretical sandbox, where abstractions float free from blood, and where lives lost are footnotes to be skimmed over.
He claims the RPF rejects negotiations because it would be disadvantaged in a competitive political process. An argument or idea from Rwandan genocide ideologues.
Apparently, it is the crime-fighting hero that should step aside for the arsonist, lest the latter feel excluded. Reyntjens argues this with the tone of a man unaware of how deeply unserious he sounds. Then again, perhaps he knows.
Reyntjens concludes his eulogy-for-genocidaires with a dire prophecy: unless the RPF negotiates with the murderers, the exiles will return by force, destabilise the region, and unleash a wider war.
He even predicts that the route will go through northern Burundi and into Kivu, risking twenty million lives. The subtext is clear: give genocidaires a seat at the table, or else.
It is a peculiar sort of moral blackmail. The people who created the refugee crisis, orchestrated mass murder, and continued to plan insurgency from Zaire are not the problem.
The problem, Reyntjens insists, is the RPF’s stubborn refusal to legitimise them.
One could almost admire the audacity, if not for the stench of rotting ethics that wafts from every sentence.
He reduces Rwanda to a playground for demographic arithmetic. He warns that Kagame might be assassinated by a Tutsi if he dares to return land to returning Hutu refugees, as if to insinuate that Tutsis are inherently vengeful.
Reyntjens then ventures into economic analysis, claiming that RPF leaders reject political settlement because of “the politics of the belly.” According to him, they are afraid of losing their spoils to returning refugees.
Apparently, fighting through jungle and blood, liberating a nation on the brink of extinction, and rebuilding from scratch was just an elaborate real estate scam.
The depth of cynicism here is stomach-churning. He speaks of “politics of the belly,” a phrase to suggest that the RPF governs not with ideals, but with appetite.
That people who saved a country from annihilation are reduced to schemers in Reyntjens’ warped economic fantasy shows us just how far moral depravity can be dressed up in academic robes.
This is not analysis. It is a caricature. Here you have the academic who befitted a handmaiden to hate.
What is most vexing is not Reyntjens’ insistence that the international community pressure Rwanda to negotiate with genocidaires. It’s that he cloaks these ideas in the garb of objectivity.
He claims to be a scholar, not a partisan. But when you consistently dismiss the voices of genocide survivors, amplify the propaganda of mass murderers, and treat genocidal ideology as a legitimate political platform, you are not neutral. You are complicit.
Reyntjens may scoff at this. He might say that he has criticised both sides. But only a moral contortionist could look at 1994 Rwanda and conclude that the main threat to peace came from those who stopped the slaughter.
History has not been kind to Reyntjens’ predictions. Paul Kagame is the President. Rwanda has not imploded. It has rebuilt its cities, transformed its economy, and fostered reconciliation on its own terms.
It has done all this while being lectured by European academics who once argued it should invite its killers back home with tea and biscuits.
Reyntjens’ intellectual descendants still whisper in policy circles and publish their “balanced” takes. They are the sort who believe that being fair means giving equal weight to truth and lies, to genocide survivors and to perpetrators.
But their influence wanes with every Rwandan child who goes to school, every woman who leads a company, and every community that chooses peace.
The pathology of genocide denial may persist, but Rwanda’s prognosis is strong.
Reyntjens once fancied himself a diagnostician of Rwanda’s problems. In truth, he is less a doctor and more a funeral director of truth. His postscript in a 1996 book is not a serious political analysis.
It is a love letter to moral relativism, a eulogy to accountability, and a dark ode to the old colonial logic that believes Africans must always be managed, never trusted.
But history is not written by postscript. It is written by those who survive, rebuild, and remember. And long after Reyntjens’ dusty books are forgotten, Rwanda will remainâ”not as a tragedy, but as a triumph.
A Postscript to the Postscript
Let’s revisit this gem of prophecy from our esteemed Belgian saviour: 'The military route [for refugees’ return] would likely pass through northern Burundi.' A curious insight. Not speculationâ”certainty. Not 'might' or 'could,' but 'would.'
How exactly did the Professor come to this cartographic clairvoyance? Divine inspiration? Hutu-Power Google Maps? Or did the RDR or Brigadier General Gratien Kabiligi or Colonel Aloys Ntiwiragabo fax him the game plan ahead of time with a smiley face?
What kind of academic writes about planned military invasions in the future tenseâ”as if he’s read the battle planâ”and then blames the defenders when it happens?
He knew. He knew. And instead of sounding the alarm on genocidaires plotting their comeback, he blamed the very people preparing to defend against it. There’s a word for that. Complicity. Intellectual complicity dressed in tweed and tenure.
Reyntjens was wrong. About nearly everything. Rwanda did not collapse into further genocide. The RPF did not become a dictatorship of fear.
The country welcomed millions of refugees, restored order, pursued justice, and became a model for reconciliation and development. Kigali is not ruled by fear but by functional urban and rural planning, peace, and prosperity.
Meanwhile, Reyntjens remains entombed in his echo chamber, scribbling screeds that try to mask his bitterness over the fact that the murderers he saw as political actors are now behind bars or buried by history.
The tragedy is not that he wrote such things, but that they were published, cited, and believed by many who saw a Belgian surname and assumed wisdom.
But history is unforgiving to the dishonest, and it now casts Reyntjens not as a scholar of the Great Lakes but as a cautionary tale of what happens when ideology strangles reason.
He diagnosed cancer but blamed the surgeon. He witnessed a genocide but indicted its responders. He saw perpetrators in exile and wept for them while their victims were still being buried. For that, history will not absolve him.
As we write, President Paul Kagame, the man Reyntjens once described as 'Kigali’s strongman,' who would be killed, is still alive, much to the despair of doomsayers and pseudo-academics like him.
Not only alive, but leading a Rwanda that defied every apocalyptic wish Reyntjens penned in the '90s. A country that rose from ashes not through bargaining with exterminators, but through visionary governance, education, justice, and yes, decisive military protection.
Meanwhile, where is Reyntjens? Buried beneath a mountain of footnotes that aged as poorly as dairy on a sunlit Belgian windowsill.
The man who once claimed 'the worst is yet to come' now watches, impotent and irrelevant, as the worst failed to arrive.
Filip Reyntjens should have been Rwanda’s Nostradamus. Instead, he became its Nostradumbass.
His entire body of commentary on Rwanda reads like a rejected Monty Python script:
Genocidaires are displaced victims.
The liberators are the real danger.
The future belongs to those fleeing justice, not those rebuilding their country.
Even Nostradamus didn’t get that many prophecies wrong in one chapter.
Let’s say it plainly. Reyntjens’ academic legacy is not analysisâ”it’s advocacy. Not scholarshipâ”but sabotage masquerading as thought. His work is not objective, not honest, and certainly not harmless.
It is a thin veneer of legality painted over a grotesque admiration for genocidal 'order' and a pathological fear of African agency, particularly when that agency does not dance to Belgian tunes.
He called Rwanda’s rebirth a nightmare scenario. The real nightmare would have been listening to him.
So let him write. Let him revise his footnotes and retreat to his armchair of irrelevance. Rwanda marches on, not because of Reyntjensâ”but in spite of everything he ever believed.
The author is a Rwandan Genocide Scholar.
With affiliations to three Belgian universitiesâ”Antwerp, U.L.B., and K.U. Leuvenâ”Filip Reyntjens gives the illusion of academic gravitas while repackaging the narratives of genocidaires as scholarly wisdom.
