UN-funded Radio Okapi endorses genocide denial through its promotion of Michela’s Wrong book on 11/16/2005
By Bojana Coulibaly
While at the Geneva Press Club on April 22, 2025, Michela Wrong introduced herself as “a British journalist and the author of five books on Africa”. Yet, far from demonstrating knowledge, expertise, and research ethics, she has continuously exhibited ideological bias when discussing the situation in the Great Lakes, revealing her deep hatred against the Tutsi and her strong commitment for the promotion of anti-Tutsi genocide ideology, a “transnational racist current” as Jean-Pierre Chrétien describes it. Wrong indeed—fully embracing the Hamitic ideology and the myth of a “Hima-Tutsi empire”, the main theory used by the masterminds of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, in reference to her book In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo, (2002)—asks “why is it that Congo keeps being invaded by its neighboring country?”
The Cameroonian pamphleteer Charles Onana was convicted, in December 2024 in France, for contesting the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The ensuing court order states that Onana was convicted for denying the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, among other reasons, by creating confusion between the perpetrators and the victims of the genocide against the Tutsi, by promoting the theory of a double genocide, and by establishing a moral equivalence between the authors of the genocide and the politico‑military movement RPF that put an end to it by force of arms. In the following analysis, we will show that Michela Wrong belongs to Onana’s tradition of genocide denial and anti-Tutsi genocide ideology.
Michela Wrong’s publications and media interventions are firmly situated within a tradition of denial, minimization, and trivialization of the genocide against the Tutsi. Wrong employs a conspiratorial and denialist discourse grounded in the core tenets of Hutu Power genocide ideology. Her denialist strategies include: denying the nature of the crime of genocide by manipulating how the genocide against the Tutsi is labeled; attempting to establish a false moral equivalence between victims and perpetrators; portraying the genocide as an interethnic conflict through the promotion of the ‘double genocide’ denialist theory; engaging in historical revisionism aimed at reversing the roles of victim and perpetrator; distorting the facts about the attack on Habyarimana’s plane; omitting the crucial aspect of the genocide’s planning; and stigmatizing the Tutsi through racist stereotypes and conspiracy theories rooted in the Hamitic ideology.
Michela Wrong’s discourse employs a range of strategies designed to deny core aspects of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Although she refers to a “genocide in Rwanda” or a “Rwandan genocide” in her work—which may at first seem like an acknowledgement that genocide occurred—she consistently uses various rhetorical devices to deny, minimize, and trivialize the genocide against the Tutsi. In what follows, we critically examine some of these genocide denial strategies in her discourse.
Denial of the Essence of the Crime of Genocide through the Manipulation of the Labeling of the Genocide against the Tutsi
Michela Wrong systematically uses the terms “genocide in Rwanda” and “Rwandan genocide” in her interviews and publications. For example, in one of her recent articles in Foreign Affairs, titled “Kagame’s Revenge: Why Rwanda’s Leader Is Sowing Chaos in Congo” (May/June 2023), she refers to “Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.” In her book Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad (2021), the phrase “Rwandan genocide” appears on the back cover, while “the genocide” or “the 1994 genocide” appear about 40 times throughout the book—not counting instances where the phrase is used in reported speech.
In the French edition, published by Max Milo under the title Assassins sans frontières: Enquête sur le régime de Kagame (2023), the phrase “le génocide rwandais” appears 4 times, “le génocide au Rwanda” 3 times, and “le génocide” (used alone) about 64 times. Across all references to the genocide in both the English and French versions of her book, the word “genocide” is never accompanied by the specification “against the Tutsi” or “committed against the Tutsi.”
In her use of the term “genocide,” Wrong deliberately omits reference to the targeted group, thereby creating ambiguity about who the victims and perpetrators are. This intentional lack of specificity sows confusion and blurs the distinction between victim and perpetrator of the genocide. By casting doubt on who the true victims were, she opens the door to interpretive manipulation and revisionism.
Wrong deliberately avoids using the official designation “1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda,” which is established by both a United Nations General Assembly resolution and a French government decree. UN General Assembly Resolution A/72/L.31, adopted on January 26, 2018, designates April 7th as the “International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.” Similarly, French Decree No. 2019-435, issued on May 13, 2019, sets April 7th as the date for the “Annual Commemoration of the Genocide Against the Tutsi.”
Just as we would not refer to the Holocaust or “the genocide against the Jews” as “the genocide in Germany” or “German genocide”—since doing so would blatantly omit the group targeted for extermination and thereby constitute a denial of the Holocaust—we cannot omit the targeted group when discussing the extermination of the Tutsi. This kind of flawed labeling of the genocide against the Tutsi is particularly problematic because it has been a preferred discursive tactic among the architects of the genocide who have used it to evade justice ; it seeks to deny the very nature of the events that unfolded between April and July 1994.
Such incomplete framing presents a distorted version of history as simply “indiscriminate mass killings” targeting all Rwandan communities—as they were classified until July 1994: “Hutu,” “Tutsi,” and “Twa.” If there is no identified target group, there is no genocide; the events are reduced to an intercommunal conflict. By deliberately omitting the targeted group in phrases like “genocide” or “Rwandan genocide,” Michela Wrong denies the very essence of the crime, creating confusion around the events in Rwanda from 1959 up to the publication of her book (the period she covers in her work).
Wrong’s Refusal to Designate the Targeted Group
As previously noted, Wrong omits specifying the targeted group when labeling the genocide. Moreover, when asked directly to identify the group targeted by the extermination campaign, she systematically refers to two groups, “Tutsi” and “Hutu.” In doing so, she dilutes the very definition of “genocide,” and adopts rhetorical tactics typical of denialist discourse. For instance, in an interview titled “Rwanda/RDC Congo: quel est le rôle de Paul Kagame? / Michela Wrong,” published by Aloha News on July 25, 2024, as in all her media appearances, Wrong first cites the Tutsi minority as the principal target, but then adds “but also,” suggesting that Hutu—or some Hutu—were targeted as well. When asked what happened after the attack on Habyarimana’s plane, she responds: “Immediately after, there was the genocide, we had three months, 100 days of massacres, with the Tutsi minority being particularly targeted, but also there were Hutu who played a role in politics, were considered reformists, or were married to Tutsi, or were sheltering or protecting Tutsi. They too were massacred… So, there were killings everywhere…” (00:11:06–00:11:48). Here, we see how Wrong shifts the focus of her remarks from “who was targeted” to “who was massacred”—thus blurring the distinction regarding which group was the specific target of extermination, and ultimately calling into question the very nature of the crime of genocide.
She identifies the Interahamwe militias and the Rwandan army as those who carried out “the genocide,” or at least part of it, while subsequently suggesting that the RPF— which she equates, through various rhetorical strategies, with the entire Tutsi community—was equally responsible for the genocide, as will be discussed further below. In doing so, she claims the Hutu were “also” “targeted” by the Interahamwe and the Rwandan army, thereby deliberately conflating two distinct realities: (1) the Tutsi, who were targeted for who they were, as intended by the genocidal project; and (2) the Hutu, who were killed because of what they did or did not do. She describes the Hutu who were “targeted” by the Interahamwe and the Rwandan army as “reformists,” yet never clarifies what she means by this term. Wrong omits a crucial detail here: to truly understand who these “reformist” Hutu were, why they were killed, and by whom, it is necessary to consider the significant role of the death squads—a subject that Wrong fails to address in her book or interviews—along with the broader context of the planning and preparation of the genocide.
British journalist Andrew Wallis, who conducted extensive research on the Akazu (“Little House” in Kinyarwanda—an informal network that controlled Rwanda behind the scenes through Habyarimana’s in-laws, notably his wife Agathe and his brother-in-law Protaïs Zigiranyirazo—a group widely seen as the architects of the genocide), provides insight into the workings of the death squads in his book Stepp’d in Blood: Akazu and the Architects of the Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi (2019). Wallis draws on a 1990 report by the Rwandan League for Human Rights: “the death squad working under the name ‘Network Zero’, was in operation since the 1980s. The report named 22 members … [of] a ‘criminal’ network, beginning with Habyarimana himself … It further alleged funds amounting to millions of Rwandan francs had been made available for the death squad to do its work on opponents of the regime, and that it was there solely to serve interests of the ‘princes of the north’, that common people refer to by the term generally called the “Akazu”’ (p. 303). In this context, the “Hutu reformists” Wrong refers to were precisely those targeted by the Akazu’s death squad.
What, then, was the link between those “reformists” and the Tutsi who were targeted for who they were? Wallis explains that even in rural areas “local MRND [Habyarimana’s party] groups held meetings that insisted RPF were ‘the enemy’ and all collaborators… were ibyitso—traitors… Meetings were called from 1991 onwards, with exhortations to every Hutu to fight against the RPF. Those who chose not to fight were deemed to be collaborators” (p. 290–291). Thus, “[at] the national level, Hutu from opposition political parties,” called “reformists” by Wrong, “were branded as traitors” (p. 291). The Hutu who were thus targeted were so for refusing to fight the RPF or, in the context of the extermination project by the Akazu, for refusing to participate in the extermination of the Tutsi.
They were killed because they were viewed as “traitors”—in other words, as “allies” of the Tutsi. The term ibyitso also means “infiltrator.” As a result, Hutu “collaborators” were not only seen as “traitors” by the organizers of the genocide but were also perceived as part of a single, homogeneous group with the Tutsi, collectively labeled “the enemy.” The distinction was that some were targeted for their actions or inactions—such as refusing to fight the RPF or to kill Tutsi—while others were targeted simply for who they were. Over time, “Tutsi” became synonymous with “enemy” and “traitor,” so that non-Tutsi who refused to take part in the genocide became Tutsi, so to speak, in the minds of the perpetrators. Therefore, when Wrong says “but also there were Hutu [who were targeted],” she undermines the very essence of the crime of genocide against the Tutsi—a crime that specifically aimed at a designated group, the Tutsi, who were deemed collectively guilty. To speak of the 1994 genocide without identifying the targeted group, or by redefining it to include so-called “reformist” Hutu, amounts to denialist rhetoric.
Promotion of the Double-Genocide Theory and Moral Equivalence Between Victim and Perpetrator
Wrong’s denialism goes beyond deliberately omitting the targeted group in discussing the genocide against the Tutsi, or claiming that some Hutu were also targeted by the Interahamwe and the Rwandan army. One of her central arguments is to accuse the RPF—which she labels as “a Tutsi rebel movement,” thereby stigmatizing the entire group—of systematically targeting the Hutu (for who they were), before, during, and after the genocide. She contends that the violence in Rwanda was essentially an interethnic conflict—a generalized cycle of violence in which all parties bear culpability. As journalist Linda Melvern puts it, this constitutes “moral equivalence,” or the “idea of two genocides: one that nearly wiped out the Tutsi minority, and a second, secretly committed by the Tutsi-dominated RPF against the Hutu” (Melvern 2020). Wrong, in fact, subscribes to the denialist double-genocide theory, basing her claims largely on the controversial so-called “Gersony Report” and the equally flawed “Mapping Report.”
In the interview cited above, Wrong declares: “they too had a lot of blood on their hands. They committed massacres themselves, abuses, atrocities in the years that followed, in the forests of Congo, against Hutu displaced people who had fled the country, but also we now know there were lots of massacres and atrocities committed before the genocide” (00:02:50–00:03:19). By repeatedly using terms such as “too” and “themselves,” Wrong draws a direct equivalence between what she refers to as the “genocide” and the “RPF massacres.” This rhetorical strategy frames the events as interethnic violence, suggesting that both groups were equally complicit and intent on the destruction of the other.
Given that the Tutsi were systematically and deliberately targeted in the genocide by Hutu extremists, Wrong’s use of moral equivalence suggests that the Hutu were likewise systematically and deliberately targeted by the RPF. By accusing the RPF of targeting Hutu in the same way that the Hutu extremists and Habyarimana’s army targeted the Tutsi, Wrong invokes denialist theories of double-genocide and frames “genocide” as merely part of a recurring cycle of interethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi. Her claim that the RPA carried out “systematic and deliberate massacres” against the Hutu population in Rwanda is based on unsubstantiated rumors. Wrong supports this view primarily with the so-called “Gersony report,” which, in reality, was never an official report: the conclusions of American consultant Robert Gersony—who had been tasked with investigating these claims—were fully rejected by the UN representatives responsible for the file.
Indeed, Jean-Paul Kimonyo, in Rwanda demain, une longue marche vers la transformation (2017), discusses the context of the controversy surrounding the “Gersony Report”—a report to which Wrong refers 32 times in her book, particularly in chapters 7, 12, 13, and 14, to support her allegations of a “genocide against the Hutu committed by the RPA”. While she does not use the word “genocide” directly, she employs the semantically equivalent phrase “targeted massacres”—which, by definition, implies systematic and premeditated killings, akin to “genocide.” Kimonyo writes that:
“On August 20, 1994, the newspaper Le Soir reported on an initial report drafted by the Dutch NGO Novib in collaboration with two Zairian and one Rwandan civil society organizations. It relayed the accounts of four wounded refugees claiming they had survived the massacre of around one hundred Hutu perpetrated by soldiers of the RPF. Under pressure from NGOs, the UNHCR decided to conduct an investigation entrusted to a team of three consultants led by the American expert Robert Gersony (…) The team then traveled throughout the country for five weeks between August and early September 1994 (…)
At the end of his mission, Robert Gersony’s team concluded that the RPF had committed sustained and systematic massacres of Hutu civilians. According to these conclusions, the RPF is said to have killed between 5,000 and 10,000 Hutu per month from late April to late July 1994 (…). Gersony submitted his findings to the United Nations High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata, who then passed them on to Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali (…). In Rwanda, Gersony began by briefing United Nations representatives in the presence of the delegation from New York. In a memoir, Shaharyar Khan [Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General] wrote: ‘We listened to Gersony with horror and a certain incredulity, for his description contrasted not only with the policies professed by the government, but also with the reports that our Milobs [military observers], United Nations representatives in the field, NGOs, and human rights observers had sent us.’ (…) After this meeting, the delegation from New York held a meeting with the United Nations officials based in Rwanda. All of them rejected Gersony’s accusations.” (pp. 151–153)
As journalist Linda Melvern notes, the complete rejection of Gersony’s accusations “did not matter to the media–Gersony’s figures appeared in the New York Times, which reported ‘an unmistakable pattern of killings and persecutions by RPF soldiers aimed at the Hutu population.’” Melvern further explains that “[in] 1999, the Gersony figures were published in a Human Rights Watch report authored by Alison Des Forges (…) [who] described the figures as the ‘first convincing evidence’ of widespread, systematic killings by the RPF and claimed that the UN had censored the ‘Gersony report’ by asserting it did not exist.” Thus, even though Gersony’s conclusions were entirely rejected, Wrong continues to rely on this controversial “report” to support her argument of “equivalent” culpability between the RPF and the Hutu extremists, as well as the successive governments of Habyarimana and the interim authorities.
Wrong goes even further by suggesting that the RPF not only contributed to, but may have directly caused, the genocide against the Tutsi. She employs a strategy known as the “accusation in a mirror,” explicitly omitting any mention of the genocide’s planning and preparation—an omission consistently found throughout her book and interviews. Additionally, she alleges that the RPF committed “crimes of genocide” in Congo, citing the highly unreliable “Mapping Report.” In the same interview, when asked whether the RPF ended the genocide, Wrong answers:
“[Before] the time of the genocide, the RPF had already committed many atrocities, and we know this now because there have been testimonies. So, we know that the movement already had blood on its hands. After that, there is the question of who downed the plane, because that’s what triggered the genocide. And after, while the genocide was occurring, there were also massacres committed by the RPF themselves, atrocities. And after they took power, Kagame’s forces entered Congo and they committed 617 massacres, atrocities in the forests of Congo against Hutu refugees who were hiding there. To present this as ‘the RPF ended the genocide’ is very simplistic, it’s much too simple. This is a story where, yes, there was undoubtedly a genocide, but there is also a rebel movement that has blood on its hands, and we need to acknowledge that.” (00:25:00–00:26:15)
Several semantic and stylistic features stand out in this excerpt, revealing how Michela Wrong establishes a moral equivalence between the perpetrators and the victims, while omitting any reference to the genocide’s preparation and at the same time promoting the idea of a double-genocide. This narrative framework allows her to recast Rwanda’s history as merely an interethnic conflict, thereby denying the reality of the genocide against the Tutsi. In addition to establishing this false equivalence, she goes further by making a direct attempt to shift responsibility, explicitly accusing the RPF/RPA of being responsible for the events that occurred between April and July 1994.
In this passage, Wrong employs the rhetorical device of enumeration—a technique used for emphasis—which here takes the form of anaphora (an effect created by repeating the same phrase at the beginning of successive sentences: “After that,” “And after,” “And after”). By combining enumeration and anaphora, she systematically presents a series of arguments designed to manipulate the reader into concluding that the RPF is to blame. She further amplifies this effect by invoking the number “617,” using it hyperbolically to attribute all “617 massacres” cited in the “Mapping Report” to the RPF—even though the report actually implicates all armed groups operating in the DRC. This blatant manipulation of “evidence” through exaggerations and distortions is a recurring feature in Wrong’s work and it reinforces a conspiratorial narrative that undermines the credibility of her claims.
In this excerpt, Wrong asserts that the RPF 1) committed acts of genocide prior to April 1994. She claims that “atrocities” were systematically carried out against the Hutu population. Notably, on November 7, 2024, during her appearance in France as a defense witness in the appeal trial of Philippe Hategekimana (who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the genocide against the Tutsi), Wrong described these so-called “atrocities” by RPF as an “ethnic cleansing campaign… four years before the genocide.”
She then claims that the RPF is 2) responsible for shooting Habyarimana’s plane—the event she argues “triggered the genocide” and, in her view, “proves” the RPF’s responsibility for the genocide itself. This conspiracy theory has long been promoted by the architects and deniers of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. However, as law expert and attorney Bernard Maingain—who has worked on this file for decades—has shown in his evidence-based investigation, this narrative is the product of a coordinated judicial manipulation campaign. In his book Le cri du Falcon: Un crime judiciaire d’État (2024), Maingain details how those responsible for the genocide, along with their denialist allies, sought to shift blame for the attack onto the RPF. He describes this effort as “an unprecedented manipulation in the history of French justice,” “[signed] by the inner circle of genocidaires and some of their French friends,” and involving “false witnesses, a fake black box, fake missile launch tubes, false firing locations, fake monitoring station messages, [and] false certificates issued within the French army…” Furthermore, Wrong deliberately fails to mention that the RPF was exonerated of these charges by Judge Trevidic due to lack of evidence, following the manipulated and controversial investigation by Judge Bruguière.
The very fact that Michela Wrong endorses and spreads this conspiracy theory reveals, on one hand, her lack of scientific rigor and professional credibility, and on the other, her deep alignment with genocide ideology and denial. Even more troubling is her argument that the “genocide” was simply a spontaneous reaction to the downing of Habyarimana’s plane, which amounts to denying the premeditated plan to exterminate the Tutsi that existed long beforehand. Wrong ultimately concludes her argument about the RPF/RPA’s alleged responsibility for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi by claiming the RPF 3) committed “crimes of genocide” in Congo, referencing the figure “617” from the “Mapping Report”—a document, like the “Gersony report,” that has been widely discredited for its lack of methodological soundness, and which will be addressed later in this analysis.
The conclusion of Wrong’s argument in this excerpt directly signals her intent to shift blame onto the RPF—a classic tactic used to deny the genocide against the Tutsi. This approach reverses the roles of victim and perpetrator, ultimately suggesting that, in the case of the genocide against the Tutsi, there were neither innocent people, nor perpetrators, but rather that all parties were equally guilty in an interethnic conflict—thus erasing both the reality of genocide and the fact of its premeditation.
She ends this excerpt with yet another conspiratorial statement aimed at demonizing the RPF and, by implication, declaring it responsible for the genocide—explicitly denying the well-established fact that the RPF ended the genocide. Using an antithetical rhetorical device, she claims there is a contradiction between the “facts” (as she lists them to assert the RPF’s guilt) and the “words” (what she calls the “official version,” a term she uses in her book to refer to the narrative that the RPF ended the genocide). She argues, “To present this as ‘the RPF ended the genocide’ is very simplistic; it’s much too simple.” Indeed, Wrong continually denies that Paul Kagame and the RPF ended the genocide, doing so to cast the RPF in a negative light and to bolster her argument about RPF culpability.
Wrong systematically places the claim that the RPF ended the genocide in quotation marks throughout her book to signal her skepticism and distance from it. For example, in chapter 2 she writes: “President Paul Kagame, regarded as ‘the man who ended the genocide’” (p. 74, Kindle edition). In chapter 11, she states: “Despite the label… which is usually attached to the RPF today and presents it as ‘the former rebel group that ended the genocide’” (p. 360, Kindle edition). For Wrong, this term “label” serves as a synonym for “official history,” a phrase commonly used by genocide deniers, and also used by Wrong herself both in chapter 11 (while discussing memorial policy) and in chapter 21, where she laments that those who challenge the “official history” are labeled as “deniers” (p. 614, Kindle edition). Again, in chapter 17, she emphasizes her doubts by using quotation marks: “the man who is regularly regarded by the West as ‘the one who ended the genocide’” (p. 538, Kindle edition).
Finally, in the excerpt from Wrong’s interview referenced above, her use of antithesis—highlighted by the adversative “but”—acts as a clear marker of genocide denial. Take her statement: “yes, there was undoubtedly a genocide, but also there is a rebel movement that has blood on its hands.” With this sentence, she explicitly challenges her own initial statement (“yes, there was undoubtedly a genocide”). This preliminary acknowledgment (part A) seems to function as a rhetorical strategy to shield herself from accusations of genocide denial—a tactic that appears repeatedly across her publications and media interventions.
However, this acknowledgment is quickly undermined by the second clause (part B), introduced with “but.” In this construction, part B directly contradicts part A—forming the antithesis at the heart of her statement. Through this rhetorical move, Wrong implies that it is impossible to speak of a genocide perpetrated against one group, the Tutsi, when, in her view, that same group is itself guilty of or provoked the genocide. She justifies this by referring to what she calls the RPF’s “atrocities” against the Hutu population before the genocide and the allegedly pivotal role of the RPF in the attack on the presidential plane—arguments she uses to challenge what she terms the “official story.”
Additionally, she reinforces her skepticism toward the “official version” by insisting, “we need to acknowledge that.” In other words, Wrong maintains that there is an alternative narrative to “the one that everyone believes”—in other words, the so-called “official story.”
From Conspiracy Theories to Whitewashing the Genocidal Project
As previously noted, Wrong’s claims fit into a persistent pattern of denialist discourse that relies on creating moral equivalence and shifting responsibility. Throughout her work, she follows a fundamental postulate: if the RPF is guilty of anything, then it must be guilty of everything—including the genocide itself. Both this underlying assumption and the arguments she employs reveal a clear intent to whitewash the genocidal project and to place blame on the Tutsi, portraying them as responsible for their own extermination.
Her approach is illustrated in a recent interview on ABC Radio National, Australia’s public broadcaster, aired on ABC Listen on October 3, 2024. During the segment, host Hamish Macdonald asks Michela Wrong who, in her view, is responsible for the genocide: “Michela, I know you’ve researched this extensively. You’ve written a book about it. Can you help us understand who was to blame?” (00:16:20–00:16:29). Wrong replies, “I think the people to blame are the people who committed the killings. First and foremost.” (00:16:30–00:16:35). She then continues:
“There were widespread killings, and they were carried out by members of the Rwandan army. And they were also carried out by members of the Hutu militias who had been training and forming. But I think it is important to talk about context. And one of the things that people tend to focus upon is the fact that the plane had been brought down with the president and that had sent out to the Hutu community this message of, you know, the inyenzi as the Tutsi, the RPF, were called the inyenzi, the cockroaches, they’re coming and they’re coming to get you. And so, when the plane, came down, all the, you know, Hutu militias and the army, rolled into action. But it is important to point out that the invasion that the RPF had launched in 1990, four years earlier had changed the atmosphere in Rwanda. You know, they had been one million refugees, Hutu refugees created by that invasion who had gathered around Kigali, living in really squalid refugee camps. There have been reports, widespread reports of ethnic killings being conducted by the RPF. And people were hearing about that in Kigali. And so, a sort of psychosis had taken place in which local Tutsi were then seen as being members of sort of possible traitors, a sort of Fifth Column community. And that’s why the Hutu militias and the Hutu army, you know, turned on the Tutsi who were living inside Rwanda” (00:16:39 – 00:18:08).
Here, we see Wrong’s emphasis on what she calls “context.” In this interview, as in her other work, she offers a selective and conspiratorial version of events, omitting crucial elements. Although she quickly acknowledges that “members of the Rwandan army” and “Hutu militias” are “to blame” for the genocide, she immediately contradicts this with a “but.” This serves two purposes: (1) to cast doubt—characteristic of conspiratorial rhetoric—on the “official story” that blames the army and militias, and (2) to introduce an alternative narrative, arguing that the RPF “provoked” the genocide by shaping the “context.”
In fact, Wrong explicitly accuses the RPF of having created the “context” that led to a climate of “psychosis” through its “invasion” in October 1990 and its actions over the next four years, culminating in the attack—which she claims, both in her book and in the interviews referenced above, was orchestrated by the RPF. She also points to the existence of a supposed “Fifth Column,” arguing that all Tutsi were “traitors” or “infiltrators” and thus inherently linked to the RPF. However, in doing so, Wrong omits critical aspects of this context and provides a selective and skewed interpretation of the events. She fails to address the state machinery established to systematically carry out the genocide or the sustained state propaganda that stigmatized and demonized the Tutsi minority—factors that led to repeated pogroms over the three decades leading up to the RPF’s offensive.
In this interview, as in all her appearances, Wrong similarly ignores the role played by hate media such as Kangura and RTLM, both of which were created and controlled by members of the state. As early as 1990—long before the “reports of ethnic massacres” she references—these outlets were already inciting the public to view all Tutsi as “traitors,” “liars,” and “invaders,” and portraying Tutsi women as “spy prostitutes.” Wrong also fails to mention that the “Ten Hutu Commandments,” first published in 1959, were republished by Kangura in 1990—documents saturated with racist, colonial stereotypes drawn from Hamitic ideology. In addition, she omits the fact that roadblocks were set up just hours after the attack and that hundreds of thousands of machetes had arrived from China shortly before April 6.
By invoking a “Fifth Column” and a supposed “psychosis”—framed as a “spontaneous” reaction to the actions of the RPF—Wrong overlooks the reality that conspiracy was a deliberate and integral component of the genocidal project. This phenomenon is clearly perceptible in the report of the Rwandan military commission from December 1991. That commission, established by Habyarimana and led by Colonel Théoneste Bagosora (widely considered the chief architect of the genocide who had promised to provoke an “apocalypse” after the signing of the Arusha Accords), explicitly defined “the enemy” as “the Tutsi from inside or outside the country, nostalgic for power (…) and seeking to reclaim power in Rwanda,” a category that also included “Tutsi refugees,” “foreigners married to Tutsi women,” and “the Nilo-Hamitic peoples of the region.” Significantly, the document labeled anyone who “refused to fight the enemy” as an “enemy” themselves—undermining any claim that mass participation was purely “psychosis” or a product of a “Fifth Column.” In effect, all citizens—Tutsi and Hutu alike—were summoned to man the roadblocks and participate in the violence. This December 1991 report was essentially a direct implementation of the “Ten Hutu Commandments,” authorized by the country’s head of state. The designation of “the enemy” was distributed to all officers. Wrong, however, completely omits this state machinery and the extensive government resources mobilized to carry out the extermination of part of the population.
Throughout her so-called journalistic work, Wrong consistently seeks to blur the distinction between what she sees as “all victims,” while ignoring the fact that the government and its army made no effort to protect the actual ones. In reality, no level of “psychosis” against alleged “Tutsi traitors” can explain the systematic massacre of entire families within just 100 days—including babies, children, and the elderly. The notion of a “Fifth Column” is a colonial-era fantasy that does not account for the fact that one-third of the genocide’s victims were between 0 and 14 years old. The “Tutsi enemy” was not identified based on actions but purely on identity—on a supposed “original crime.” In fact, the idea of this “Fifth Column” is wholly untenable; targeting was based on physical appearance and physiological features. Execution lists were drawn up according to a conspiracy theory rooted in colonial classifications—specifically, Hamitic ideology—which established hierarchies between “true” and “false negroes.” The genocide was a state-sponsored project, not the result of popular panic or anxiety. For thirty years, it was the state that deliberately fostered this so-called “anxiety.” By accusing the Tutsi of provoking or being responsible for their own extermination, Wrong attempts to erase the full machinery of state-orchestrated genocide. In doing so, she actively engages in whitewashing the genocidal project and, as a result, directly supports the underlying ideology of genocide.
From the Conspiratorial Theory of “Tutsi Feudalism” to Whitewashing Hamitic Ideology
As demonstrated above, in the Aloha News interview—as in others—Wrong invokes the precepts of the “Ten Hutu Commandments.” In her interventions and publications, she advances the argument that all Tutsi are aristocrats nostalgic for power, that they are omnipresent and infiltrate everywhere, that they are liars, with Paul Kagame as the most “perfect” example of all these traits. In line with conspiracy theories, denialist discourse, and another attempt to justify the genocide by demonizing the victims or shifting responsibility, Wrong systematically omits the 1959 pogroms, which marked the beginning of targeted persecution and massacres of the Tutsi. She suggests these events were a “Hutu revolution” aimed at abolishing the “Tutsi monarchy,” which, according to her, led to the flight of Paul Kagame’s family. Indeed, in her Aloha News interview, she states: “because there was a Hutu revolution in Rwanda, and the Tutsi royal monarchy, and [Paul Kagame’s] family was part of this aristocracy, they were expelled from the country” (00:03:36–00:03:55). Similarly, in an earlier interview titled “Michela Wrong: Truth about the Rwandan President” published on Omerta Media’s YouTube channel on April 19, 2023, she says: “after the Hutu revolution in the 1960s, the entire royal court was expelled from Rwanda by the Hutu, and they fled, ending up in Uganda” (00:03:40–00:04:06).
It should be clarified here that Paul Kagame and his family fled Rwanda in 1961, at least two years after what Wrong calls the “Hutu revolution.” In these two interviews, Wrong omits to mention that this “Hutu revolution” was not a “revolution” but a mass slaughter of the Tutsi minority, and that between 1959 and 1963, 30,000 Tutsi were killed in pogroms that began in that year, and 150,000 Tutsi fled during this period to neighboring countries. Thus, Paul Kagame’s family was not “expelled” during a “social revolution” because they were “aristocrats.” Wrong seems to imply that the other hundreds of thousands of Tutsi who were persecuted and killed in the 1960s were all part of the “royal court.” Members of Paul Kagame’s family, like the many other hundreds of thousands of Tutsi, fled for their survival, having been systematically targeted simply because they were Tutsi.
Wrong also deliberately omits here, as throughout her work, the foundational texts of the genocidal ideology that predate the exile of Paul Kagame and his family and which gave rise to the xenophobia and hate speech that incited the pogroms against the Tutsi minority. One should note, for example, Michela Wrong’s omission of the Bahutu Manifesto published in 1957, co-signed notably by Grégoire Kayibanda and Joseph Habyarimana Gitera, as well as the Ten Hutu Commandments published by Gitera in 1959. The first document, in 1957, established a clear racial demarcation between Hutu and Tutsi—based on the Hamitic myth—and envisioned a national political, social, and economic system grounded in the systematic exclusion of the Tutsi. In the second document, published in 1959 by Gitera—and later republished by the hate media Kangura in 1990—one can read, for example in Commandment number 5: “If one were to take revenge for the wrongs committed by the Tutsi, no individual of their kind would survive in Rwanda” (quoted by Antoine Mugesera).
Thus, in Michela Wrong’s work, there is a clear and deliberate intent to distort the facts. By omitting the 1959 pogroms, she denies that “the seeds of the 1990–1994 genocide were indeed sown in 1959” (Antoine Mugesera). In her persistent efforts to portray the RPF—which was created in 1986 by Tutsi refugees who fled Rwanda to survive an extermination project that began in 1959—as a bloodthirsty, rebel-minded group, she seeks to justify the conspiracy theory that maintains that there was a “genocide,” but that violence was committed on all sides, and therefore there were neither victims nor perpetrators.
Justifying Genocide Denial and the Promotion of Genocidal Ideology
In her aim to whitewash the genocidal project, Wrong tends to defend and reference individuals who promote a denialist discourse in support of genocidal ideology—an ideology that has continued to be spread and cause devastation in the Great Lakes region for the past thirty years. In both her book and interviews, Wrong presents Victoire Ingabire as a political “opponent” who is supposedly a victim of censorship and human rights violations.
In chapter 21 of her book, Wrong writes: “When Victoire Ingabire, exiled leader of the main Hutu opposition movement, returned to Rwanda in January 2010 intending to run in the elections, her first act was to visit the Genocide Memorial in Kigali and ask why the remains of Hutu victims were not displayed alongside those of the Tutsi. She was soon arrested (…)” (p. 612, Kindle version). Here, Wrong deliberately manipulates the facts and suggests that Ingabire was referring to so-called “moderate” Hutu victims killed by the genocidal government and the Interahamwe during the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. This is the impression a reader of the book would get from reading this passage.
However, during the press conference referenced by Wrong—when Ingabire left the memorial—she said something entirely different. She declared: “Uru rwibutso ruragarukira mu by’ukuri ku bantu bahitanywe n’itsembabwoko ry’abatutsi. Haricyari uruhare rundi rw’itsembatsemba ryakorewe abahutu kuko nabo barabaye bafite abantu babo bishwe,” which translates as: “This memorial is limited to the victims of the genocide committed against Tutsi. The part about the genocide committed against Hutu is missing, because [the Hutu] also grieve, they also lost their own.” (00:01:30–00:01:38). Here, Ingabire clearly makes a denialist statement at the very site commemorating the victims of the genocide against the Tutsi, invoking the idea of a double genocide. Thus, Wrong not only promotes this denialist theory of a double genocide, as we have seen, but also defends Victoire Ingabire’s denialist position—for which she was convicted and served a prison sentence.
It is also important to clarify that, contrary to the label Wrong gives her—namely “leader of the Hutu opposition party in exile”—Victoire Ingabire is the head of the political party whose armed branch, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), was formed by those responsible for the genocide against the Tutsi and who fled to Zaire. This genocidal force has been perpetrating violence against Congolese Tutsi communities for thirty years, having promised to return to Rwanda to “finish the job,” and has attacked the Rwandan population several times by crossing the border.
The November 2009 United Nations Group of Experts report (S/2009/603) states in paragraph 103: “The Group obtained confirmation that senior FDLR military leaders were in telephone contact with members of the United Democratic Forces (FDU-Inkingi) political party exiled in Belgium, including Jean-Baptiste Mberabahizi, as well as Naom Mukakinani, the wife of FDU-Inkingi political leader Michel Niyibizi. The Group further explains that Victoire Ingabire, the President of the FDU who resides in the Netherlands, attended meetings of the ‘Inter-Rwandan Dialogue’ in which FDLR sympathizers participated.” Similarly, the Dutch police provided evidence of money transfers by Ingabire to FDLR leaders and of regular contacts with them. Thus, Ingabire’s financial support and direct political links to this genocidal force have been well established. Nevertheless, Michela Wrong continues to whitewash Victoire Ingabire, a convicted denier who leads an armed group composed of those who committed the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and who have spent the last thirty years killing Congolese people and pushing them to exile.
From Fetishization to Negrophobic Racism of Michela Wrong
Added to Wrong’s long list of conspiracy theories—which draw on the racist colonial stereotypes of the “Hutu Ten Commandments”—are references to an alleged “culture of lying” among the Tutsi, mentioned in a lengthy passage in the introduction to her book. In the very first paragraph, Wrong writes: “Rwandans often told me that they loved to deceive others, not to tell the whole truth.” A few paragraphs later, she continues, “It seems this is a practice that is not new.” (p. 22, Kindle edition). Then: “From a historical perspective, perhaps it is not surprising that concealment and secrecy have been valued traits.” (p. 23, Kindle edition). She then offers an entire demonstration—posing sometimes as a historian, sometimes as a linguist, sometimes as a sociologist or anthropologist—where she interprets words in Kinyarwanda, analyzing them as a “way of life.” Throughout these early pages of the book, her demonstration is filled with racism, negrophobia, xenophobia, and fetishization, in the tradition of colonial explorers who “discovered” a community of “extraordinary negroes,” who were supposedly “false negroes” because they were “organized,” “intelligent,” “fascinating,” and thus had nothing in common with what they considered to be “real negroes.”
Wrong makes failed attempts at the beginning of her book to avoid appearing racist, but throughout the book, she only confirms her obsession, her fantasy, her fetishization of the “Tutsi,” whom she essentializes and sees as “creatures from another world” that fascinate her to the point that she imagines them “everywhere at once,” able to reach anyone, anywhere. She fantasizes about an omnipresent and omnipotent Tutsi threat—a “Tutsi peril,” the same way Hitler and the Nazi imagined a “Jewish peril”. Indeed, in Wrong’s work, there is an obsessive fetishization of the Tutsi, whom she objectifies with constant references to their “skin color,” their “slender height,” their “fine features,” like those of Ethiopians, in the tradition of the anthropometric measurements carried out by the Germans and the Belgians, which fixed these physical traits in identity cards that were used for the extermination of this Tutsi in 1994. Wrong initially fetishizes the Tutsi—she never hides her initial admiration for Paul Kagame—but ultimately ends up demonizing them. In effect, Wrong transforms herself into an outright negrophobe.
It is also interesting to note Michela Wrong’s choice of Stephen Smith to write the preface for her book. This same Stephen Smith wrote a book published in 2003 entitled Négrologie: Pourquoi l’Afrique meurt [Negrology: Why Africa Dies]—a title that is particularly representative of its content—in which Smith writes: “Here we are: Africans are slaughtering each other en masse, or—even if you’ll forgive us!—are eating each other. The 3.3 million deaths in Congo-Kinshasa come after some 800,000 people butchered with machetes during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994; after 200,000 Hutu who died between October 1996 and May 1997 in the jungles of the former Zaire” (p. 24). Indeed, Wrong did not randomly choose Smith for her book’s preface. Both strongly support the denialist and conspiratorial theory of a double-genocide. This is evident in their obsessive negrophobia, apparent in their work, in which they describe Rwandans as groups locked in constant interethnic tension, who “slaughter each other en masse” and “eat each other,” in Smith’s own words. In chapter 12 of Wrong’s book, she makes a similarly ethnicist and negrophobic comment: “Given Rwanda’s toxic history, some solutions appear not so much as last resort methods, but as yet another turn of the country’s horrible wheel of ethnic Fortune” (p. 397, Kindle version).
The “Mapping Report,” Standard-Bearer of Conspiratorial and Denialist Double-Genocide Theory
Stephen Smith is not a novice as a journalist when it comes to Rwanda. He covered Rwanda for Libération during the time of the genocide and was one of the first to publish rumors about the alleged systematic and targeted massacres of the Hutu population by the RPF between April and July 1994, as well as afterward, thus supporting the double-genocide argument. Indeed, on February 27, 1996, Stephen Smith published the article “Rwanda : exécutions massives de Hutus dans l’ombre du génocide des Tutsis” [Rwanda: Massive Executions of Hutus in the Shadow of the Tutsi Genocide] in which he writes: “The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), representing the Tutsi minority ethnic group, tolerated, if not organized, the massacre of at least several tens of thousands of civilians during its advance and since it took power in July 1994.”
Wrong relies on Smith’s publications—which are based on uncorroborated rumors—as well as on the biased and misrepresented conclusions of Gersony, as discussed above, but also on the questionable “Mapping Report.” In fact, Wrong makes numerous references to the “Mapping Report” to suggest that “crimes of genocide” were committed by the RPF. What Wrong omits is the fact that this is a report which does not constitute any evidence and has never been the subject of any judicial investigation confirming the allegations made. Wrong fails to mention that the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who commissioned this project, declared on October 1, 2010, at the time of the report’s publication that:
“it is not a judicial investigation. It was not meant to be one in the first place and it does not pretend to be something else than what it is – a preliminary exercise. The aim was to gather basic information on incidents during the period covered. As a result, it did not provide for in-depth investigations, and the gathering of sufficient evidence to be admissible in court. It also does not establish individual criminal responsibility…
The report notes that the vast majority of the 617 serious incidents it describes, point to the commission of multiple violations of human rights and/or international humanitarian law, which may constitute crimes against humanity or war crimes, and often both at the same time. In some cases, it even invokes the possibility that genocidal acts may have been committed. However, the report stresses that these questions can only be addressed by a competent court. It does not, and cannot, deliver definitive conclusions as to the nature of the crime.”
The words of High Commissioner Navi Pillay make it explicitly clear that this document cannot be accepted as evidence of systematic and targeted massacres by the RPF against the Hutu population in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For Michela Wrong, it is simply an attempt to promote a conspiratorial and denialist discourse that reflects her deep-seated negrophobia.
Wrong is posing with Dr. Deborah Kayembe known for her genocide denial statement in 2022 as the Rector of the University of Edinburg in Scotland. The University issued apologies to Rwanda.
“Scotland’s University of Edinburgh has vehemently distanced itself from Rector Debora Kayembe, who sparked outrage after alleging in a tweet that the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was orchestrated by Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The Democratic Republic of Congo-born rector has been accused of “flagrant” genocide denial. In a now-deleted tweet on 14 April, Kayembe said: “Mr Prime Minister Boris Johnson, we’ve reach the bottom of evil. Should I remind you that the genocide of Rwanda was orchestrated by [President] Kagame. Good luck with your plans.” (“Edinburgh distances itself from rector’s genocide views, apologises” University World News, by Jean d’Amour Mbonyinshunti, 28 April 2022)
“The University of Edinburgh – in step with the UN, multi-national organisations, and nations all over the world – acknowledges the Genocide against the Tutsi as one of the most appalling crimes against humanity; and rejects outright the notion that the Rwandan government and its sitting President are responsible.” (Statement by the University of Edinburgh following Deborah Kayembe’s denialist statement).
Wrong contributed to the flawed, conspirational and denialist campaign “Rwanda Classified” which was discredited by a collective of scholars, historians, journalists in “Rwanda Classified: Une faillite journalistique” Le Point, 4 juin 2024.