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The AIH Transcript for April 8, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening, I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

JD: Tonight:

CO: Under the gun. Toronto City Councillor John Filion's forthrightness has sometimes led to conflicts — but nothing prepared him for someone firing shots at his house in the middle of the night.

JD: Cause and effect. Of the nine people arrested in Saudi Arabia, all but one are men with ties to the women's rights movement — and our guest says the Kingdom is trying to send a message to activists.

CO: Going through the property channels. A guy pays way too much for a house belonging to a coach at Harvard University, then his son gets admitted to Harvard — our guest is not over asking why the man paid over asking.

JD: Getting away with mass murder. Twenty-five years ago, the genocide began in Rwanda — and Judi Rever believes one man has gone unpunished for his monstrous role in it: the country's current president.

CO: A step in the far-right direction. Radio host Charles Adler tells us about grilling the man who may be the next premier of Alberta, his friend Jason Kenney. He asks him what his party stands for, and who's standing for his party.

JD: And... cut the sweet talk. If you've convinced yourself that your mid-afternoon chocolate fix gives you a helpful "sugar rush", bad news: there's no such thing.

JD: "As It Happens", the Friday edition. Radio that tells anyone who believes otherwise: sucrose, and yet so far.

[Music: Theme]

Part one: Toronto Councillor John Filion, Adler/Kenny interview

Toronto Councillor John Filion

Guest: John Filion

JD: As an outspoken Toronto City Councillor, John Filion has had his share of people who disagree with what he stands for. This, however, is the first time someone has arrived at his home — armed with a gun. Mr. Filion strongly suspects it's his work as a politician that led someone to fire bullets into his car and his home in the early hours of Thursday morning. That's after a man with a weapon tried to break in a few weeks ago. We reached John Filion in Toronto.

CO: Councillor Filion, when did you first realize that something was very wrong at your home early Thursday morning?

JOHN FILION: I heard some very loud, unusual noises at around 1:30 in the morning, and got out of bed to check to see what it was.

CO: What did you think it was?

JF: I thought maybe it was somebody pounding at the front door. There was nobody there, and I looked out the window and couldn’t anybody on the street — nobody at the doors. Walked around the house, and noticed some very unusual holes on the wall.

CO: What kind of holes?

JF: Well, as it turned out, they were bullet holes.

CO: These were inside the house?

JF: Yes.

CO: What did you do?

JF: I had already called the police as a result of the pounding. Then after I saw the bullet holes, I called them back and said I need somebody over here right away.

CO: Can you say a bit more about where the bullet holes were and how many you saw?

JF: I don't want to get into those types of details. You know I believe one bullet was fired into my home.

CO But the multiple sounds you heard were multiple shots, is that right?

JF: That's right, and my car was shot multiple times.

CO: And this is not the first disturbing incident that's happened to you, right? Can you tell us what happened a few weeks ago?

JF: Sure. Well in general terms, three weeks earlier, someone with a weapon attempted to force their way into my home.

CO: Did you see the person? Were you able to confront them?

JF: I don't want to go into a lot of details. They knew someone was home, tried to force their way in any way, and were not successful at that.

CO: What were they using in order to get in?

JF: You know it was somebody armed with a metal pipe trying to force their way into my home. I can't really you know go into a lot more details beyond that.

CO: Do police believe that these two incidents are related?

JF: I don't know.

CO: Do you believe that they're related?

JF: Oh yes, I think they're certainly related. Yes.

CO: What do you think's going on?

JF: My strong suspicion, and it's only a suspicion, is that someone is trying to intimidate me.

CO: Any thoughts about who that might be or why they're intimidating you? You're a city councillor, we should again point that out, and in Toronto. For what reason might somebody be intimidating you?

JF: Well, I believe it is related to my job. And I have some thoughts on who that might be and why it might be. But they are only thoughts and suspicions at this point, so I can't really go into that any further.

CO: As a city councillor for decades, you have been very strong in resisting overdevelopment in the city and land speculation. You returned to politics because you were concerned that that was going to happen. Did you make a lot of political enemies doing that?

JF: Well, there are certainly some people who wish I wasn’t a councillor. There are certainly a lot of people who think they would make more money from land speculation if I wasn’t the councillor. Whether that's true or not, I think there are people who believe that. You know what I do want to say anything beyond that.

CO: We should say that we appreciate that you only agreed to do this interview because you were going to limit what you could say because of the investigation. So people should appreciate why you're being cautious. But can you just give us a sense of some of the big fights you've had? Just so people can know a bit about your politics and what you have been doing in Toronto for these years, especially recently.

JF: You know, a few years ago, I was a whistleblower on the land transaction involving the Toronto Parking Authority that was pretty well publicized. The land transaction was cancelled, and the board was disbanded, and the action taken against the executives of the parking authority. In general terms, I'm a stickler for planning rules, and I'm in an area that has massive development. And I would say even too much development to develop follow the rules, and completely uncontrolled development when they don't. So I do my best to make sure that people stick to the rules, and of course, you can make a lot more money if you don't follow the rules. So there's always people pushing back, wanting to break the rules.

CO: You have made a lot of political enemies by virtue of taking these cases on.

JF: I'll answer that by saying every election, but especially for the last two elections, there have been groups of people who go to fairly extraordinary lengths to make sure or try to make sure that I don't get elected. And that involves funding to certain candidates. It involves recruiting candidates. It involves smear campaigns, and all sorts of things that are beyond anything that's normal in municipal politics, or any kind of politics for that matter.

CO: You've been a pain in the butt, haven't you?

JF: Some people would call me that.

CO: Have you ever been threatened before.

JF: I have never felt that my personal safety was at risk until three weeks ago.

CO: Do you think someone is trying to send you a message.

JF: Yeah, I can say that I think I've been targeted for either somebody wanting to punish me for actions I've taken, or deter me from actions which I might take, or try to steer me to a certain course of action. I don't know what other conclusions I could draw.

CO: You're not exactly someone who drives around in a tinted windows limousine. You are out there, you're very open, are you a bit rattled by this?

JF: Well, I try not to get rattled in my job. You know for more than 25 years, I've had people who like me and people don't like me. And the people who don't like me often really don't like me. So you don't let that get to you. But this is you know this is something that when it involves gunfire at my house, it’s obviously a completely different level. And you know so I do have to be concerned about myself. But I also have to be you know even if I drove around with a protective bubble, I would be concerned about the what appears to me to be a something that I've never heard of happening in Toronto politics before, which is I believe that an attempt to intimidate a politician into behaving a certain way.

CO: How is this leaving you? How is this affecting you and your thoughts and what you think about politics?

JF: Well, it makes me very angry. And it makes me more determined than ever to carry on with you know having principles and upholding those principles and not being intimidated by anybody into doing anything else.

CO: Councillor Filion, please be careful. Please be safe. I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

JF: Thank you.

JD: John Filion is a Toronto City Councillor. We reached him in Toronto. And we've got more on that story on the "As It Happens" website. That can be found at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient]

Adler/Kenny interview

Guest: Charles Adler

JD: Voters in Alberta were gripped by a feisty exchange this week. And it wasn't last night's election debate. It was a radio interview. During a 34-minute conversation, conservative radio host Charles Adler took his longtime friend Jason Kenney, leader of the United Conservative Party, to task on everything from his own party's controversial candidates, to anti-gay views Mr. Kenney himself once held. Here's a clip.

SOUNDCLIP

JASON KENNY: It's true Charles, as I've said to you before, that 15 and 20 years ago, I supported the traditional definition of marriage — as did pretty much everybody in Democratic politics in the western world until pretty recently.

CHARLES ADLER: Well, you did more than that, Mr. Kenny. I mean everyone now knows what some of your activity was about and in San Francisco. I mean you actively participated in an initiative to take away rights from people with AIDS and their spouses. You actively participated, and were gleeful about not allowing lovers to visit their dying lovers dying of AIDS — they couldn't visit them in the hospitals. Some of them couldn't even attend their funerals. And this was something that you were proud of. So…

JK: No, Charles. I don't agree with your with your characterization.

CA: What was the consequence of your action, Mr. Kenny?

JK: Now I acknowledge that the political and social mores has changed on those questions.

CA: In the meantime, AIDS patients were dying alone. I could go on here. Mr. Kenny, we could put this to bed immediately if you could only offer a genuine, fulsome apology I’ll move on from San Francisco. Have you ever offered a genuine, remorseful apology for the many people that you and your colleagues hurt with that initiative?

JK: Charles, I have said that I regret many things I did when I was a young man.

CA: That’s not an apology, Mr. Kenny.

JK: I wouldn't take the same…

CA: That's not an apology.

JD: That was Global News radio host Charles Adler, in an interview with Jason Kenney this week. We reached Charles Adler in Vancouver.

CO: Charles, I know you say right off the top that Jason Kenney is a friend of yours — a good friend of yours for a long time. Where does that friendship stand now since that interview?

CA: I honestly don't know because we haven't been in touch since, and he seemed to take it rather personally. But I'm not naive about these things politics, religion. Those are the kinds of things that sometimes make relationships cool. And at some point there, might be some mending to do. That's my best guess. As we say in Alberta, some fences may have to be mended.

CO: But why was it important to you to do this? I mean we should point out this is not your typical interview. I mean you ask hard questions. This is the kinds of interviews you do, but nothing quite like this. What was it? What had touched you in such a way… what compelled you to approach Jason Kenney in this interview in the way that you did?

CA: When Mark Smith, the controversial MLA, the tape emerged of the sermon from six years ago, in which he likened gay people to pedophiles, questioned whether gay love was real, talked about women who choose to have abortions having a love of killing babies, I was asked by friends of mine who were conservative what I thought Jason Kenney would do both this. And I was 100 per cent wrong in my prediction. I predicted that he would immediately push the button on this particular candidate, and he promised me a year ago that he would simply if it was passed you know that the date where you can't just pull a candidacy, he would simply tell the people in the riding look you can vote for this person, but I will never seat them in my caucus. And I thought that this would be the very, very easy play for Mr. Kenny that would have what I would think of his moral authority behind it. And when he chose not to do that, went the other way, got into you know doing this I regret what he said, I disagree with what he said, I'm offended by what he said, et cetera, et cetera. And then just started praising him on my show — this is what I was hearing in my in my headset — I couldn't believe that this was the person I've known for 20 years, and that's why I knocked on the desk as if knocking on his head, and said what did you do with my friend Jason?

CO: The answer he gave you about about Mark Smith. He said he was elected to the legislature four years ago to a different party. He's apologized for what he said six years ago in that sermon about homosexual love not being good love, and equating it with pedophilia. And then Mr. Kenny said to you Charles, I guess you and I have a difference of view on this. I think that people should not be condemned for life because they've said something that's offensive at some point in the past. Isn't that fair?

CA: With all due respect, in my headset when I was listening to him, it felt as bogus as could be. First of all, Mark Smith did one of those apologies that are not really apologies. He said he apologized if people were offended by that. This business about Mark Smith is different today, and that's ridiculous. If you're going to look at a person's character, you judge it from the point of view of what they say when they're with people who they're comfortable with. And he was in his church. They were very comfortable with that kind of rhetoric. What Mr. Kenny was saying to me didn't really feel like the much deeper, much more intelligent Jason Kenny that I know.

CO: This isn't just an isolated case, is it? And you point out in the course of the interview, and other interviews on your show, that this is others who have made homophobic, Islamophobic remarks, White Supremacy remarks who have been associated with a party. And there’s just one exchange that you have. And we're going to play a bit of this of your interview because people can get a taste of what it was like. And I know it’s a 34 minute interview, but this might characterize it. Here it is.

SOUNDCLIP

CA: Why are so many people who bash gays, and bash women, why are so many people who bash Muslims attracted to the United Conservative Party?

JK: Charles, I reject that. You know who are attracted to this party amongst the groups you just mentioned? Thousands and thousands of Muslim Albertans. This is a broad tent coalition. That reflects the diversity of today's Alberta.

CA: Why are the knuckle draggers attracted to your party?

JK: Charles, I'm sorry. You're just you're just throwing around insults now. I regret that.

CO: All right. Who are the knuckle draggers you're talking about?

CA: I'm talking about the extremists. I'm talking about the Islamophobes. I'm talking about the white nationalists or white supremacists. I'm talking about misogynists. And those folks, it's a small percentage of Albertans, a small percentage of Canadians, those folks seem to be very comfortable with the UCP. And one of the reasons they're feeling comfortable is because you've got many radical far-right groups, pro-life groups, and other groups in Alberta who feel very comfortable with Jason Kenney and the UCP. I don't think it's doing Alberta any favours. I don't think it's doing the UCP any favours. But you know you've had many nomination meetings and other meetings where the radical far-right groups, the pro -lifers and others, have invested money, invested time, and they've invested heavily in Jason Kenney. And I regret that. I mean I have no trouble with the idea that all large parties will attract certain people who are fringe elements. But it's up to the leader to say something like you can come to me if you wish. But I'm definitely not coming to you.

CO: And on a number of occasions, well throughout the interview, what you keep asking him is to show who he is. Is the Jason Kenney the one you knew before, or is this Jason Kenney who is seems to be comfortable with these knuckle draggers as you call them? Is this the Jason Kenney? And at some point, you say I'm not asking you for your position, Jason Kenney. I'm asking for your moral compass. What were you trying to get out from him?

CA: I wanted to know whether or not all of this was just a show, simply a means to an end. In other words, using these far-right groups because they've got money, they've got influence, they helped him get the UCP leadership. He was prepared to be nice to the mark Smiths and other people, and it helped him win. So I wanted to know whether this was just a tactical thing, or whether this was now the real Jason Kenney? I can't honestly tonight tell you that I really know who Jason Kenney is. It's a mystery to me, and it troubles me.

CO: You are a conservative. What kind of reaction are you getting from other conservatives since you did this interview?

CA: Well, from people that we would think of as the hardcore base, and I'm not talking about extremist necessarily at all, just people who are fans, who want very much for that party to win. Some of them, as you can imagine, are very angry with me, and they're all over social media. But I am completely blown away by the amount of what I call mainstream conservatives, name brand conservatives, current leaders former leaders elders in the conservative movement in Canada and Alberta and elsewhere who have contacted me thanking me for holding Jason Kenney's feet to the fire. They're very concerned about whether it's the federal party or the provincial party becoming too much of a safe space for extremists. By the way Carol, I don't believe for a moment that what Jason Kenny did the other night on my show is going to hurt him on election day. I just don't believe it. I think he was the front runner before he appeared on my show. He's still very much the front runner.

CO: I have interviewed Jason Kenney many times, and I've never shaken him. I have tried everything to perhaps hold his feet to the fire, and I've never heard him respond the way he did to you. Do you think you blindsided him? Do you think that you shook him? Why do you think he reacted that way?

CA: Well, one of the reasons that I don't understand why Jason Kenney was expecting anything different from me is because I've shared a lot with Jason Kenney. Let me say something that Jason Kenney did a number of years ago, which was moving. Jason Kenney knows that it was a person with Christian generosity and Christian charity by the name of Raoul Wallenberg. Raoul Wallenberg was the Swedish Ambassador to Budapest. It's because of Raoul Wallenberg that my mother survived. She was a 9-year-old. She was rescued by Wallenberg, who gave her a Swedish passport. And that was something that anyone can google search tonight and find out. Raoul Wallenberg, his name is in the Holocaust museum in Israel. And Jason Kenney made sure that Raul Wallenberg got an honorary Canadian citizenship. Jason Kenney knows my personal story, and knows how I feel about a fact with respect to the LGBT community, and the fact is that my paternal grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, a huge amount of my family perished in the Holocaust — most of them at Auschwitz. And Jason Kenney knows that I feel a special affection for the LGBT community because so many of them shared the same chimney as my grandparents. So when the LGBT community is marginalized, I grieve. I always say to myself this can't happen in Canada. And any politician, any person who calls themselves a public servant who enables that, shame on them.

CO: But just to finish about him being so rattled, What do you think about your tone in your questions that that affected him so much.

CA: He knew I was right. He knew that I was searching for his moral compass. He was going to stay with politics 101: never apologize, never give the opponents a piece of tape saying I'm sorry, never give them a chance to say well, okay, he’s sorry about this. And he's apologized for this, but what about that, and what about that, and about that about that? And so in doing political science 101, and just refusing to… he wouldn't even apologize for what he did in San Francisco, when he participated in an initiative to deprive dying AIDS patients of being able to see their partners. He participated in that. That's wicked, that's evil, and after all these years, I was giving him an opportunity to say I'm sorry, and to tell us why he's sorry. And he just gave me the routine that was then, this is now, times have changed. I wouldn't have done that today. I wouldn't have done today what I did then. It's not good enough.

CO: Charles, there’s a lot more in this interview we could talk about. We're going to we're going to have a link on our website so people can hear the entire 34 minutes. But I appreciate speaking with you, and thank you for asking the hard questions.

CA: Thank you, Carol.

JD: Charles Adler is a radio host for Global News. We reached him in Vancouver. And as Carol said, you can find a link to Mr. Adler's interview with Jason Kenney on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Jazz]

Sugar rush myth

JD: Finding the truth about giving candy to a baby is as easy as taking candy from a baby. First, let me say you shouldn't give babies candy — not very much, anyway. But you should take candy from babies because it's not good for them. Not because it causes a sugar rush. It doesn't. There is no such thing. I can practically hear parents insisting that there is. That even a single M & M — an M, I guess — makes their kid freak out. Or that some sugar at the right moment gives adults a quick mood boost. It's just a simple accepted fact. Well, it's not. In fact, it's been proven false time and again, by study after study. Most recently in a new study published in the journal "Neuroscience and Bio-Behavioural Reviews". A meta-study that studied 31 other published studies. The conclusions: sugar consumption does almost nothing to alter your mood. Study subjects who ate sugar actually felt less alert and more weary than those who didn't. And — to quote from a statement from the University of Warwick, where some of the researchers work — "The idea of a 'sugar rush' is a myth without any truth behind it." You got that? It's a myth, and the worst kind of myth: one with no truth behind it. So whatever happens to your child when she eats a whole thing of ju jubes, that's something else. And after dozens of studies proving that, it's time we all stop sugar-coating the truth. And maybe everything else, too.

[Music: Show tune]

Part two: Saudi arrests, Harvard admission

Saudi arrests

Guest: Guest

JD: It's said to be the first round of mass arrests of activists in Saudi Arabia since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi back in October. The London-based rights group ALQST, which advocates for human rights in Saudi Arabia, says at least nine activists have been rounded up — most of them men with ties to the women's rights movement. We spoke to a Saudi Arabian women's rights activist who knows many of these men well. We're withholding his name and location for his safety.

CO: Why do you think that so many people are being arrested in Saudi Arabia right now?

GUEST: I believe that this is being done as a means and not to show any weakness. Because the Saudi government has released a few activists, they have taken in some more as a means to show that they will not be backing down on their oppression. And that the release of these activists is not a victory. Things will stay the same.

CO: Remain the same, or perhaps even get worse.

GUEST: The way things are at the moment, same is worse. It just keeps getting worse day-by-day.

CO: Tell us a bit about the people who are targeted in this most recent round of arrests?

GUEST: The people who are targeted most of them were activists in the cultural sphere. So most of them were writers, they are authors, one of them is a novelist. And the thing that connected to all of them together is that they were all active in women's rights activism. And some of them have been at the forefront of that for a while. I personally received a lot of my education on this from the writings, from their publications. Some of these people are my friends, and I've seen them work to basically propagate a progressive vision for the country for years. They were trying to break tribal sectarian and regional divides. They were, as I said, advocating for women's rights. They were fighting against basis discourse in the country. And to see this as the cost of doing such things it is devastating.

CO: But these don't sound like aggressive activists. I mean even in Saudi terms, do they? I mean these are people who were writers, and thinkers, and bloggers, and so these were people who were involved in some kind of discourse rather than activism, is that fair to say?

GUEST: I would say that they were yes writers, and they were mostly active in writing and publishing for the most part. But it did create a new culture of people who were hoping for a better future. And I do think that on its own — the fact that people are hopeful — is something that the Mohammad Bin Salman finds threatening.

CO: We've known a number of women have been detained recently. Some of them who were campaigning for a women's right to drive. And in this round of arrests, it seems to be most of them are men. Why do you think that's the case?

GUEST: I think that is the case because even when the women's rights activists were in prison last year, we saw that in all of the media coverage there was no attention given to [the men] who were arrested. And I think that the Saudi government, that MBS, took note of that. And I think that's why he thought it would be safe to actually just take in these men and not face any consequences.

CO: It's interesting. In one case, there's some people have been released — including a very prominent women's right rights activist who had temporary release last week, but they arrested her son in this round. So what does that say?

GUEST: It says to her that this is not… because we don't know if you've seen it? When she left, they took a selfie together, her and her son. And they seem to be very happy you know with their release, and with the fact that they finally see freedom. And I think that this is the thing that angered him — the fact that they're smiling. He took that as a challenge, as something that requires punishment. And I think that he's trying to punish [her] by taking in her son.

CO: The woman who was released, her son, he's a dual citizen, isn't he? He is also an American.

GUEST: Yes.

CO: So has there been any outcry from the United States, any support for his case from the U.S.?

GUEST: I have not seen anything come out from the United States at the moment. There might have been something I'm unaware of. But at the moment, I have not seen anything. There was this businessman, who was in jail for around three years now, and he has been in very horrifying conditions of torture and all kinds of I can't even say the words. And we've only seen delegates talk about him and visit him very recently. I have no clue why exactly that is the case, but I think that he, again, taking a clue from that that this would not be an issue. And the fact that Trump basically says that regardless of what MBS does, the relations all stay the same.

CO: We haven't even seen Mr. Trump challenge the Crown Prince for what possible role he played in the assassination of Mr. Khashoggi. You mentioned earlier that some of the people arrested in this round, you have friends among them — people that are close to you. Yeah. One in particular I understand is one of the men arrested. Can you tell us about what who he is and what's happened to him?

GUEST: [He] is is an activist, and a translator, and a friend of mine. We have been close since we worked on translations, and making kind of feminist knowledge available to the widest possible audience. That's why he always insisted on not pay-walling any of his works, and making sure that it's accessible to everyone. He took an approach that put those who are most oppressed at the centre of his work. And he always understood that they knew most what needed to be done. And that's what I found most inspiring about him, and why I just loved being around him.

CO: How do you think he is being treated in prison?

GUEST: It is something I would rather not think about. But I do hope for the best. I'm hoping that the national spotlight will prevent them from mistreating them.

CO: We have withheld your name and your location for your safety. And if you were still in Saudi Arabia, do you think you would be among these people who'd just been arrested?

GUEST: Yeah, I do. I do, yeas. Yeah, I've been working with several of them. And so I've been working on the same things that they worked on. So you know?

CO: I know this is a sad time for you, but I do appreciate that you would speak to us and take that risk. Thank you so much.

GUEST: Yeah, thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

JD: That was a Saudi Arabian women's rights activist. For his safety, again, we are withholding his name and location.

[Music: Instrumental]

Breast implant correction

JD: We have an important correction to make about a story we aired yesterday. The story was about Health Canada's proposed ban on a type of breast implant: the Biocell textured implant. Last night, on the program, We spoke to Nikki Carruthers, a woman in Winnipeg who believes her health problems were caused by her breast implants, which she has since had removed. In our coverage, we said that Ms. Carruthers had the same textured implants that Health Canada wants to ban. In fact, we have since learned that she had a different kind of implant. We apologize for that error.

[Music: Instrumental]

Muffet McGraw

JD: Muffet McGraw wants more women in power. And not just in basketball. In a recent interview, the coach of the Notre Dame women's basketball team said that she would not hire another man for her coaching staff — because, quote, "People are hiring too many men." Unquote. And last night, Ms. McGraw voiced her frustration again. Here is part of what she had to say at a Final Four news conference in Tampa Bay, Florida, starting with a question from a reporter.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: I know you made some comments about hiring practices and what you do in the future. How important as your career has gone and we lost past summit, how seriously do you take being that voice?

MUFFET MCGRAW: Did you know that the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced in 1967, and it still hasn't passed? We need 38 states to agree that discrimination on the basis of sex is unconstitutional. We've had a record number of women running for office and winning, and still, we have 23 per cent of the House and 25 per cent of the Senate. I'm getting tired of the novelty of the first American… the first female governor of this state… the first female African-American mayor of this city. When is it going to become the norm instead of the exception? How are these young women looking up and seeing someone that looks like them, preparing them for the future? We don't have enough female role models. We don't have enough visible women leaders. We don't have enough women in power. Girls are socialized to know when they come out, gender roles are already set. Men run the world. Men have the power. Men make the decisions. It's always the men that is the stronger one. And when these girls are coming out, who are they looking up to to tell them that that's not the way it has to be? And where better to do that than in sports? All these millions of girls that play sports across the country, they could come out every day, and we're teaching them great things about life skills. But wouldn't it be great if we could teach them to watch how women lead? This is a path for you to take to get to the point where, in this country, we have 50 per cent of women in power. We have right now less than five per cent of women are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. So yes, when you look at men's basketball, and 99 per cent of the jobs go to men, why shouldn't one hundred or ninety-nine per cent of the jobs in women's basketball go to women? Maybe it's because we only have 10 per cent women athletic directors in Division 1. People hire people who look like them, and that's the problem.

JD: Muffet McGraw is the coach of the Notre Dame women's basketball team. She was speaking at a news conference last night in Tampa Bay.

[Music: Horns!]

Harvard admissions

Guest: Joshua Miller

JD: It's a three-bedroom house, on a quarter-acre lot, in a Massachusetts suburb called Needham. In May 2016, it had an assessed value of nearly 550-thousand U.S. dollars. It was sold, however, to a wealthy Maryland business for nearly a million dollars. The suspicions raised by that transaction have prompted a review into a legendary fencing coach, and into Harvard University — an institution that here-to-fore has remained unscathed by the roiling college admissions scandal. Joshua Miller is the Boston Globe reporter who broke the story.

CO: Joshua, what's so remarkable about this house in Needham that it sold for nearly double its value back in 2016.

JOSHUA MILLER: Well, just to start. There are these two characters in this rather extraordinary story about this house. One is Peter Brand, who is the house's owner with his wife, and also Harvard's longtime fencing coach. And the other is Jie Zhao, a wealthy businessman from the Washington, D.C. area. Now Zhao has two sons. His older son started at Harvard College in 2014, and was on the fencing team. And the father said he got to be friends with Coach Brand. He told me that he loves this guy as a friend. And at some point, the friendship turned also into a business relationship in 2016. So after he hadn't known the coach that long — less than two years probably — Zhao bought coach Brand’s house for about a million dollars in a private transaction. Way above what it appeared to be worth.

CO: What was its value at that time?

JM: It was assessed at that time at five hundred and forty nine thousand, three hundred dollars. And he bought it for nine hundred eighty nine thousand, five hundred dollars.

CO: And this was his friend?

JM: He says he was just doing a favour for a friend. And also, he thought it would be a good business opportunity.

CO: All right. How is this transaction connected to Mr. Zhao’s son being admitted to Harvard the next year?

JM: We can't say what the connection might be, but I can tell you the facts are right when this purchase happened, when it was executed, when Zhao gave almost a million dollars to Peter Brand and his wife in exchange for a house, Zhao’s younger son was actively looking at applying to Harvard with an eye toward being on the fencing team. And he was eventually admitted to Harvard, and joined the fencing team the next year.

CO: Mere coincidence?

JM: Zhao says that there wasn't any intention of that. He was just trying to help a friend, and make what he thought would be a really good investment. He ended up selling the house 17 months after he bought it for a very significant loss. People can make of it what they will.

CO: The loss was about three hundred twenty thousand dollars when he sold the house. You have spoken with Jack Zhao face-to-face. What did he say to you?

JM: So I got in touch with Mr. Zhao earlier this week, and he immediately confirmed he was the buyer of the house. And why yes, it did look pretty bad. But he wanted to sit down with me and explain everything in great detail. He wanted to tell me his story. And it was really important to him that I look him in the eyes, so I could understand his character. So he flew to Boston's airport from Virginia, and I met him when he exited security. As we were walking, he told me all about his life. Born in Beijing, came to the U.S. in the eighties, became an American citizen in the 90s, founded a very successful telecom business. And then we sat in this airport hotel lobby for an hour talking. And he really deeply, profoundly wanted to convince me that he didn't have any intention of trying to get his son into Harvard by buying the coach's house.

CO: And did he convince you of that?

JM: I am not one to be convinced or not convinced. I'm not making any judgment on intent. But I thought it was a newsworthy and interesting story.

CO: Do you think that even if it wasn't intended, those two things are related. That the friendship did persuade Peter Brand to make this decision?

JM: We should say that Harvard is investigating the matter. And the university underscored that coaches don't make admissions decisions. Coaches can flag favoured recruits for the admissions committee of 40 people, where each person has one vote on each of these whether they accept the kid or not. But the committee has the final say. Coaches don't have the final say. So that's an important caveat from the perspective of Harvard. Now Zhao told me, I see when you put everything together it looks really bad. But he swore up and down that he was just making an investment, and doing a favour for his friend. He wasn't, he said, trying to help his younger son.

CO: How did you come across this story?

JM: The old fashioned way. We got a tip from a family that had been looking to flip a house in Needham, this suburb outside of Boston. And they saw this property that Mr. Zhao had put on the market, and they thought it was listed for an awfully high price. And they looked on property records, and found it had sold for almost a million dollars, and were shocked because it really wasn't in very good shape. So they Googled the person who sold it — the Harvard fencing coach — and the person who bought it — the father of two Harvard fencers — and began joking among themselves that there must have been some kind of funny business here. And it became something of a running joke with them. But after American federal prosecutors indicted 50 parents, coaches, consultants in what they allege is this massive college bribery scheme last month, the family decided to call someone, and they called the Boston Globe.

CO: Now, of course, this reporting of yours comes on the heels of the college admissions scandal, which we covered on this show, and you did. And you can't say that this is part of that. But is that why the university is concerned with how this appears?

JM: I think it definitely comes in that context, and that whole scandal has opened this window into the crazy lengths that wealthy parents will go to get their children into elite institutions. I think it's also important to note some differences here. No one's been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. And unlike some of the cases in court, both of the Zhao boys — the older son who was there already at Harvard at the time of this house purchase, and the younger son, had sterling academic credentials in high school, were actually competitive fencers.

CO: Do either of Mr. Zhao’s sons know about their father's property dealings?

JM: They do now. But when I reached them on the phone earlier this week, they were absolutely shell shocked. And both said they had no idea.

CO: What do you think the university should do about this?

JM: They say they're investigating, and they've hired an outside firm, outside counsel to look into this. We'll see what the outcome of that is. I think one of the key things, for me, in reporting this story was to try to understand it before I made any calls to Mr. Zhao, or tried to get in touch with Coach Brand, who didn't respond to repeated requests for comment. Was this purchase done at fair market value? It was a three-bedroom house, one hundred thirty square metres, modest yard. But I called the town's top assessor, and I asked him about this transaction, and he remembered it. And he said the outside looked really tired. So he was expecting inside to be sparkling, gleaming, fancy. But he walked in, and it was vintage 1960s in his words. Snd he took notes at the time because it was so bizarre. And he wrote in his notes: Makes no sense.

CO: Well, I guess you're trying to make sense of it. I appreciate that, Joshua. It's good to talk to you. Thank you.

JM: Thanks so much for having me.

JD: Joshua Miller is a reporter with the Boston Globe.

[Music: Ambient]

Brexit wasteland

JD: Amid the chaos and din of British politics these days, some MPs are finding solace... in poetry. But given that it's April — and the UK is set to cruelly crash out of the EU next week if a deal is not hammered out — T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" doesn't seem like an uplifting choice. Nonetheless, when Attorney General Geoffrey Cox sat down with the BBC's Nick Robinson to talk Brexit and poetry — he read a particularly prescient passage from that work.

SOUNDCLIP

GEOFFREY COX: I'm increasingly fatigued by the stresses and pressures of this role. And that is no country for old men comes back repeatedly to my mind, it's one of those lines and one of those poems by Yates which I very much love. But no, I mean look, any great poetry is worth reading. Because as I said, it orders one's thoughts and it helps one think.

NICK ROBINSON: Eliot — T.S. Eliot was a particular favourite when you were younger.

GC: Yes, indeed.

NR: So you know “The Wasteland?”

GC: I do. It's not my favorite of Elliott's, but I do know “The Wasteland.” Yes.

NR: Can you recall how it begins.

GC: April is the cruelest month. Breeding lilacs out of the dead land. I think as I recall.

NR: Mixing memory…

GC: Mixing memory and desire, absolutely.

NR: There we are, you remembered some of it. There's another bit that's particularly interesting at the end. Enormously long poem, but can you read a little?

GC: Which do you want? The start or the middle or the end?. There is a shadow under this red rock, come in under the shadow of this red rock, and I will show you something different from either. Your shadow at morning, striding behind you, or your shadow at evening, rising to meet you. I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

JD: Echoes of Darth Vader. The dulcet tones of UK Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, reciting part of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” on the BBC.

[Music: World music]

Part three: Encore: Rwanda anniversary

JD: 25 years ago, one of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century started in Rwanda. Over the course of hundred days, between April 7th and July of 1994, more than 800 thousand Tutsis and Hutus were massacred. At the time, “As It Happens” had a close view of the conflict, through the eyes of two Canadians who saw the genocide firsthand. General Romeo Dallaire was the commander of the UN's Peacekeeping force in Rwanda. He was a frequent guest, along with Doctor James Orbinski — who was working with Medicins Sans Frontieres in Rwanda's capital, Kigali. Here's Dr. Orbinski from June 17th, 1994.

SOUNDCLIP

JAMES ORBIBNSKI: It’s just absolutely phenomenal to even experience, and very, very difficult to describe. There is blood everywhere. There’s bodies all over the place along the road to the emergency room, and in the emergency room. And our staff, they are overwhelmed as well, and not able to move fast enough to move the dead. The hospital itself is completely overrun with people, wounded people, who have had surgery, and who have had various medical procedures done. And who can now, in fact, leave the hospital. But are so afraid to leave the hospital that they`ve set up tents between the buildings. They fear for their lives should the leave the hospital. They will certainly be slaughtered if they do.

SOUNDCLIP

JD: General Dallaire witnessed the unimaginable violence inflicted on those Dr. James Orbinski tried to treat. During his frequent appearances on “As It Happens,” General Dallaire repeatedly stressed how dire the situation was. In 2016, he spoke to Carol about his memoir, "Waiting For First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD" — and about the mental wounds he still carries.

SOUNDCLIP

ROMEO DELLAIRE: All I was doing was camouflage. I was really just trying to kill myself by working. I had been unsuccessful other ways. It was the safest place to be. Safest in the sense of having a focus by just honourable driving myself into the ground, often hopping that I’d have a stroke or something that would turn me into a vegetable, and I wouldn’t have to hurt anymore. I remember a few people asking me why are you so busy, why are you doing things? And I used to get all kinds of criticism, and worthy. I came up with this phrase I used to say you know it hurts less when I’m busy and working. It created a defensive mechanism to all that guilt and all that hurt of Rwanda simply overwhelming me.

JD: General Romeo Dallaire, speaking to Carol in 2016 about the trauma he carries from serving during the Rwandan genocide. Despite General Dallaire's efforts to alert the world, the international media was slow to acknowledge the genocide. In 2007, Carol spoke to Thomas Kamilindi. Before the genocide, he worked as a journalist at state-run Radio Rwanda. But when the massacres began, he was among many liberal Hutus accused of being sympathetic to the Tutsis. He took shelter at Kigali's Hotel Des Mille Collines. There, he famously made contact with friends at Radio France International, who put him on the air. Here he is talking about that moment — one of the first times those outside Rwanda were alerted to the scale of the genocide.

SOUNDCLIP

THOMAS KAMILINDI: my colleges at Paris told me what is going on, what is happening? We don’t know because we don’t have any information about Rwanda now. Are those killings going on? What about the civil war? I was afraid because I said to myself if I say something on air, maybe it’s very bad for refugees. And the refugees in my life also told me we have nothing to lose. Tell it!

CO: And what did you tell them about what was going on? It was an unbelievably atrocious moment, was it not? I mean people were being massacred. How did you tell them the story of what was going on?

TK: The first question was are the killings going on still? I said yes. I tried to describe that throughout the whole country, civilians were killed only because they were Tutsis. And I said that I couldn’t imagine how many were killed.

JD: From 2007, Rwandan journalist Thomas Kamilindi speaking about the moment he alerted the world to the horror that was taking place in his country. After one hundred days of violence, a force of Tutsi rebels, led by Colonel Paul Kagame, took control. In the end, more than 800 thousand Tutsis were slaughtered by Hutus in a horrific ethnic cleansing. Historically, that has been the agreed-upon narrative. But Judi Rever has a different story. In 2018, the investigative journalist spoke to Carol about her book, "In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front". In it, she argues there was second genocide of Hutus that has never been properly accounted for. And she says Paul Kagame — who is now the president of Rwanda — is responsible. Here's an encore presentation of Carol's conversation with Ms. Rever.

CO: Judy, welcome to As It Happens.

JUDI REVER: Thank you.

CO: You are treading on controversial — even dangerous — terrain with this book, and in many ways attempting to rewrite history. I just want to ask you first of all, what concerns do you have for your own security?

JR: Well, I take all these issues seriously every day. I watch what I do. I often change my routine. My sense was always that the campaign that Kagame and his government waged against me as I was doing the research was intended to stop me from publishing — stop me from bringing out this degree of evidence. Now that it's there, it's in book form, and people will understand it and talk about it and debate about it. There's really very little he can do now. That's really my belief.

CO: of course, Paual Kagame, you’re talking about the president of Rwanda. You believe that he has personally tried to shut this book down?

JR: Yes, I do. Very little is done in Rwanda without his approval. And he works with a quite extensive network of intelligence agents in Rwanda, in neighbouring countries in Africa, and abroad. And they're very effective. They've infiltrated a lot of organizations. They have managed to operate in clandestine ways everywhere, and threaten a lot of people. And they're particularly active in Belgium, in Europe, but they're also active here.

CO: In Canada?

JR: Yes, they are.

CO: I know that you talk about some people — your sources were threatened. They would know you are going to see somebody, they would not want to talk to you, or they would even in some cases, disappear. What are you doing to protect your sources at this point? You name some of them. They've given you their names. They have allowed you to publish who they are.

JR: Well, the people I've named — the people who have agreed to be cited in my book — are safely living in Europe. And I say safely: they're taking all the necessary means to remain away from Rwandan circles where they could be penetrated and reached. And so they have asylum; they have refugee status. Others I can't name because they are in Africa, or they're in countries where they could be located.

CO: I want to start talking to you about what you are saying in this. Because you are, obviously, we said just in the introduction, that you questioned the official version of events. Any encyclopedic version of the genocide in Rwanda is the same. It is that the president of Rwanda’s plane was shot down by Hutu Power militias in an effort to trigger what happened, which was the opening salvo of a genocide in which the Hutus set out to kill all the Tutsis, and that Paul Kagame — Colonel Kagame — who headed the forces for the Tutsis, eventually was able to reach the capital and end the war and the genocide after 100 days. You question that narrative. What specifically do you question?

JR: I questioned that he stopped the genocide. He did not stop the genocide. Because at the same time that ethnic Tutsis were being killed in Hutu-controlled zones, his Tutsi troops were killing with equal zeal and organization. And in every zone that the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its army entered, they killed massively and in an organized way.

CO: Killed Hutus?

JR: Killed Hutus. They also fueled the genocide against the Tutsi.

CO: In what way?

JR: So they infiltrated the Hutu militias very successfully. And they baited the violence. They egged in the violence. But some of their commandos participated in the slaughter of Tutsis at roadblocks. This is a known phenomenon. This is recorded in documents from testimony of RPF defectors. I have testimony from my own sources who have said this was widespread. So they fueled that genocide against the Tutsis. And they committed a genocide against Hutus as well. So my book says that the violence during the genocide was bi-directional.

CO: And the record is that Hutu Power militias — the Interahamwe as it was called — massacred Tutsis in the numbers of somewhere between 500,000 and a million. What numbers are you saying that the Tutsis kill of Hutus?

JR: Several hundred thousand anyhow. I've spoken to a lot of people, and many of them have said that there are at least 500,000 Hutus who were killed by Kagame’s troops during the genocide and in the months after the genocide. Now, some people have said that figure could be as high as a million. It's very difficult to know in Kagame’s Rwanda without doing studies and investigations of the numbers. But clearly, it's a massive number of people who were targeted.

CO: But you're saying you believe you have evidence that shows equivalency — that equal genocides were committed on both sides. Even though one genocide is only documented — only the genocide against the Tutsis has been documented, and it has been done with books, reports, just thousands of documents. An entire war crimes tribunal looked at evidence of that 100 days in the past. That genocide is completely documented. You're saying there is an equivalent genocide that occurred that was absolutely not documented in any way, because your version does not appear in any other books?

JR: No, it doesn't. And this is a real problem that the killing was not investigated — the killing in RPF-controlled zones was not investigated. And I point out that Human Rights Watch was on the ground after the genocide, and didn't fully investigate the areas that Kagame controlled. So number one: there's a problem with the human rights organizations that were there. Number two: the journalists who were there during the genocide had a very hard time figuring out what was going on at first. And when they did go into RPF zones, they were under RPF escort.

CO: RPF meaning the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which was the force and the army of Paul Kagame.

JR: Yes, exactly. And number three: we had an incredible campaign of propaganda going on that started with an NGO called African Rights. And they basically primed world opinion and journalistic opinion on what happened during the genocide. And this was an organization that we have learned was a front organization for the RPF — for Kagame’s political party. This is organization that received funding from Kagame’s government afterwards. And so were able to look at how they did research. Then how that research from African Rights was absorbed and regurgitated by even Human Rights Watch, by journalists worldwide. And so we we've never really had a look at these things. The other aspect of my book that I want to make sure that people understand is that the campaign of violence that started even before the genocide, but certainly in the genocide and after the genocide in earnest, has been waged to some extent against dissidents in order to cover up Kagame’s record. So he's continuing to kill in order to shut down any witness testimony coming forward, anybody talking about his legacy, anyone talking about the scorched earth campaign that he waged before the genocide, and what his troops actually did behind the front during the genocide. So this is a difficult matter to address today because people are afraid to talk about it.

CO: One of the major accounts of what happened in the Rwandan genocide comes from General Romeo Dallaire, who wrote a book, “Shake Hands With the Devil”, and his account is the official one. He was there. He was there, and he was the one who flagged in advance that he believed that the genocide was being planned, or something big was being planned. He watched what was going on. He could see what Paul Kagame was doing, and he could see what would Hutu Power was doing. He had neither you nor I, and many of the people who you've just mentioned who wrote these later reports. He was there — an eyewitness — and he says this is what happened, not what you say. Do you think he's part of the propaganda?

JR: I wouldn't say he's part of the propaganda, but I think he's part of the problem. I mean let me just say, first of all, Romeo Dallaire is not responsible for Rwandans tearing each other apart. He's not responsible for what Kagame did. But I do question his judgment for a number of reasons. He, in his book, talks about the killing fields that Kagame captured — Kagame’s troops captured — as it moved from the north down the eastern edge of the country to the south. And, in fact, they weren't capturing killing fields. What they were doing was killing peasants, luring them to meetings, shooting them, burning them, taking them to parks. And there is no mention of this in Romeo Dallaire’s book. And there should have been, and I'll tell you why.

CO: Do you think that was an omission? Do you think that he deliberately admitted that?

JR: I have no idea. I would like to ask him that question. And I think he should speak about this because he continues to show up at conferences and talks about the genocide, but he doesn't want to talk about anything that pertains to the RPF and its activities. And one of the interesting things that happened in May — because this is fairly early on, and he was certainly in Kigali, as you mentioned. He was there in Rwanda during the genocide. He saw a lot of things as force commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations peacekeeping force that was in Rwanda. I think he would have gotten access to UN refugee reports, a major cable that Refugees International another refugee organization picked up, these reports were coming out of the east of the country, which were detailing wide-scale slaughter by Kagame’s troops — by the RPF and RPA — along the eastern edge as against Hutu refugees, against Hutu civilians that were fleeing into Tanzania. Now that is documented. There is a report that came out in May — a cable.

CO: May 1994?

JR: May 1994. It seems to me very strange. It's odd to say the least that the force commander of the UN peacekeeping force would not be aware of this, or would not mention it in his book. He also talks about the fires — the smoke — coming from Akagera Park because of dryness during the genocide. And yet, it rained. There was record rainfall in April.

CO: So do you think he was lying?

JR: I don't know. I'm not accusing him of lying.

CO: Did you talk to him? Did you interview him?

JR: I tried to; he doesn't want to be interviewed by me. But I think these are questions that he can answer. I think he is dismissing the crimes. And willfully, I think he's not acknowledging Kagame’s record. And there is enough evidence for someone like Romeo Dallaire to understand and realize that this is a war criminal.

CO: This is As It Happens and I have with me in the studio Judi Rever. We're talking about her book, “In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front”. And Judy, one of the issues you raise — and you're not the first to do this — is to say that the genocide, which seems to have begun on the night of April 6, when the plane carrying the president was shot down, and always maintained to be the Hutu Power militias that did that as a prelude to the genocide. You say that's not the case. You believe that Paul Kagame’s forces shot down the plane. Why would he do that?

JR: Paul Kagame could not live with the peace. There would be no way that he could hold on to power. There would be no way he could win an election. And because of the crimes he had also committed — his troops that committed during the invasion war three years before the genocide — that area under a peacekeeping agreement if he shared power that area would have been opened up. And some of those crimes that he committed even before the Interahamwe and the Hutu militia committed crimes that would have been discovered. And he wanted power. I think he was part of a group of Tutsis — Rwandan Tutsis — who grow up in Uganda, were marginalized, and they wanted their place back. They also wanted to secure land, homes, property, a place for all of the Tutsis who had been chased out and pogroms in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. So there's that aspect to it.

CO: Ok, but what we're talking about — what was launched after that plane came down — was a genocide against Tutsis. You haven't denied that that also happened. So why would Paul Kagame initiate something that he knew would mean the mass slaughter of his own people?

JR: I think he wanted to seize power and hold onto it for a very long time. And the way in which he did that was to create a situation where he was the moral victor. And there were enough Tutsis who had died so that he would appear to have saved the country, so using the deaths and the massacres of Tutsis as fodder for a stock in trade for securing his legitimacy, and also domination going forward.

CO: Another Canadian, Louise Arbour, became the chief prosecutor for war crimes and crimes against humanity for Rwanda. You say in the book — and I've heard this elsewhere — she had heard about this, her investigators had raised the possibility that Paul Kagame had committed these crimes, and that he was not under investigation. Why do you think the International Tribunal for Rwanda did not investigate the crimes of Paul Kagame?

JR: Well, I think they wanted to protect him. And these are questions that should be put to them. I mean wider geo-political questions. But I think they needed to prosecute, and at the same time, provide stability in the region. And their misguided notion at the time was Kagame is our man. They would not have made any progress in prosecuting Hutus if they did not have the cooperation of Kagame.

CO: I know you didn't talk to Louise Arbour — you say that in the book. I did speak with her about this, and I asked her this some years ago. And she had told me at that time that she was beholden to Paul Kagame in order to get access to the crime scene, which was Rwanda — that he was the president. It was very difficult to get the evidence that she wanted to actually seek an indictment against him, but she couldn't gather that evidence without jeopardizing her people. She had people on the ground; she worried about their safety. That she was perfectly aware, and I'd never heard the case that she was collaborating in some way or trying to protect Kagame. What would you say to that?

JR: Well, I think part of that response that you've just given from her is valid, and she did need to get access to the crime scene. But the crime scene involved crimes committed by the former regime, elements that supported the former regime, and Hutu militia, but also Kagame’s crime scene. So right off she's making a judgment call, and saying you know one side committed worse crimes, and we'll have to get access to that. That's our principal objective. And the rest we’ll have to overlook. So that judgement is not legally sound.

CO: It’s a deal with the devil. Maybe it was the only way to get any convictions at all. She was going to do one genocide not the other.

JR: Well, I think that's part of it. I think so it became about politics, but it's very important to understand as well how some of those excuses or explanations don't stand the test of time because they're not legally sound. She has since said that she didn't have the mandate to, for example, prosecute or investigate properly the downing of the plane, which triggered the genocide. She shut down the first attempt at investigating that. She was initially, according to my sources, and according to some public documents, interested in pursuing that. And then she came back, she flipped, and said no, I can't. I don't have jurisdiction. And she has maintained that argument, which is not legally sound because the part of the mandate Article 4 of the mandate of the Rwanda tribunal was to investigate terrorism. And we've seen the UN back several inquiries on other leaders like Rafiq Hariri, Benazir Bhutto, we've had international inquiries into the assassination of these people, yet there has been no international inquiry into this. She certainly had the mandate. It was in the mandate of the ICTR, so that argument doesn't stand up.

CO: I'm in studio with journalist Judi Rever, and we're talking about her book, “In Praise of Blood”, which questions the official version of the genocide in Rwanda. You know there are others who have attempted to examine this story and to question the narrative. And they are often accused of revisionism. They're accused of being genocide deniers. Are you one of them?

JR: I'm not a genocide denier. I do recognize and believe because there's compelling evidence that shows that Tutsis were killed in massive numbers. There was a genocide against Tutsis, and I've met and interviewed enough Tutsis to know that that was true. Am I a revisionist? I guess I am because the official narrative of the genocide stipulates that there is basically one group of people who were targeted that's the Tutsis. And, in fact, that's not true. So there is a whole portion of history that's being concealed, that's been buried, and that needs to be revised. And I actually think that revising historical narratives is necessary because revisionism is the lifeblood of historical scholarship.

CO: Paul Kagame you write someone else said Rwanda no longer is a country; it's a powerful system of control. There are other accounts now slowly coming out about the kind of Rwanda that Paul Kagame presides over. Who do you blame for the power he has? Who do you blame for the account you give in the story? Whose feet do you lay this at?

JR: It's everyone's fault, I think.

CO: Canada? The United States? The international community?

JR: I think the international community led by the United States has steered so many of these events, and have given Kagame the means to become who he is today. There's certainly no more authoritarianism today than there was 20-25 years ago. But what he has now is a greater means to use it. And if we look at the loss of life, it's devastating for millions of people. And so who do I blame for the last two-and-a-half-decades? Yeah, I think the West shares as much or more of the blame. I certainly wouldn't blame the victims, and their needs and their loss has never been examined.

CO: This investigation of yours in your book has I know taken a great personal toll. I know that because you write about it in the book. Your marriage ended, you had fears for your children, your husband warned you that if you kept doing this, if you kept going out and trying to get to the bottom of this that you were actually putting the lives your children at risk. How much have you sacrificed to write this book?

JR: I've sacrificed enormously. For a while, a good part of my life was wrapped up in this. And I couldn't see fully what was going on. I couldn't assess it. But I have to say you know eventually, I was able to kind of break through to my family, and I got a lot of support from them. And we took every possible precaution necessary to help me finish this book. So did I make the right choices? I don't know. But I needed to investigate this story. It was something I started 20 years ago. It was something I needed to finish. And I think there were many points where I felt that I needed to stop, and probably I should have stopped. But in the end, I realized that I needed to do the work in a different way. In more organized and clever way, smartly, and just finish it, and get it out because there was safety and reassurance once it was all done, and I could sit back and just think well, now I have you know some assurance that they can't prevent me from doing something. And there's some you know level of safety in being in Canada. So what I did was I stopped traveling, and just quietly finished writing. And here it is. That's not very good. I don't think I expressed myself well there.

CO: I think that you're going to sit back and relax and rest now. And that this is done, I think you're completely wrong: you're going to find I know the hot seat quite a bit with this book. And I really appreciate all the effort you put into doing this, and the years you've put into it. And thank you for coming into the studio, Judi.

JR: Thank you for having me.

JD: An encore presentation of Carol's conversation with Canadian journalist Judi Rever about her book "In Praise of Blood, The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front." That originally aired in 2018. At the time, we requested an interview with Romeo Dallaire to respond to Ms. Rever's comments, but he declined. This weekend, General Dallaire will give an in-depth interview to Michael Enright, on “The Sunday Edition.”

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April 05, 2019 episode transcript

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