Review by Choice Review
Wallis, a British journalist, names France as the active partner of the Hutu genocidaires in the Rwanda horror of 1994. Some readers may object to the author's moralizing, but the evidence invoked seems overwhelming--that the French government armed and assisted the Hutu extremists, i.e., they trained the men who carried out the genocide, although they did not teach them directly to commit genocide. The author quotes UN envoy Stephen Lewis: "The French government ... knew everything that was going on and not only didn't complain but did the opposite--legitimized and spoke on behalf of the government everywhere in the world." Wallis ascribes motives for the French actions to worry about increasing British and American influence in Africa, a suspicion that the return of Tutsi leader Paul Kagame (now president of Rwanda) from exile in Uganda would spell mounting Anglo influence in the midst of a Francophone central Africa. Even the supposedly humanitarian French "Operation Turquoise," mounted at the end of the genocide, protected the Hutu perpetrators and even aided them. Although told with some repetition, the story is sobering and deserves pondering. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels. H. Glickman emeritus, Haverford College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
