Utter Balderdash!

 

A comment on Rwanda’s 30-year assault on Congo – the crimes, the criminals and the cover-up by Judi Rever

    Conspiracy advocate Judi Rever describes violence that has plagued eastern Congo for the past thirty years. She accuses Rwandan President Paul Kagame of being behind it all. Furthermore, she alleges that the conflict, especially the deaths of hundreds of thousands (her figure) of Rwandan Hutu refugees, were the result of intentional American policy.  Specifically, that the U.S. government aided and abetted Rwandan and Ugandan forces and their local proxies in order to murder the Hutus, depose Mobutu and secure mineral rights to the region.  Her allegations in that regard are simply spurious.

    Woven within her bag of lies are some facts including accurate quotations from me and other American ambassadors. Even though she quotes us, Rever blithely dismisses our statements as fabrications designed to cover-up American involvement.  Rever especially impugns the reputation of Robert Houdek, accusing him of being a CIA mastermind, but who in reality as a State Department retiree, headed up the USAID team in Kisangani and liaised with UNHCR in the successful effort to repatriate thousands of refugees to Rwanda.

    No student or observer of the region, including American diplomats, doubt that violence, some of it horrific, occurs there.  Rever names some of the African cast responsible. Yet, she returns to the allegation that somehow the U.S. is responsible.  This sentiment is both patronizing and racist because it infers that Africans are not competent to wage their own wars or pursue their own interests. They must rely on the U.S. for direction.

    Don’t honor this garbage by buying this book.

The Founders

 

I write occasional reviews of books by Peace Corps authors for PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org. Following is a review of The Founders by Bryan Tenney, Dorrance Publishing, 2025

The premise of the novel, which appears in the first chapter, is that Thomas Jefferon and George Washington are reincarnated from their times to ours.  Their mission as devised by the scientific cabal that brought them back to life is to cleanse modern America from an evil tyrant, aka Trump.

But first the founders must realize when and where they are. They have to come to terms with the times and with the changes that the centuries have wrought.  A sub-plot is that Jefferson remembers a treasure, which he recovers. This provides the where-with-all for the two to pay their way but also alerts law enforcement to mystery bandits.  Much of the novel revolves around their moving around the country to avoid capture.

Value in the story comes from the mirror in which we see ourselves through the founders’ eyes. They marvel at dress, transportation, communications, and race relations in the current era and bewail the loss of simplicity and courtesy in everyday life, and in politics especially, comity.

Corrupt, venial, misogynist President Bribe is a thinly veiled portrait of Trump.  Despite the author’s effort to depict him, the reality of Trump’s egregious behavior is greater than the fiction.  Some things you just cannot make up.  Nonetheless, Bribe provides comic relief as the founders finally engage in their mission.

In the end it all works out although the fate of the protagonists remains unresolved.

This novel is a mirror, a satire and an inditement.  The author’s desire for a cure to current ills comes through strongly.  That is the strength of the tale. Let’s look at ourselves, make honest judgements and corrections.

Robert Gribbin built rural water systems as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya (68-70).  He later served forty years in the U.S. Foreign Service as a diplomat and ambassador. He is the author of two memoirs; In the Aftermath of Genocide – The U.S. Role in Rwanda and My African Anthology. His latest novel is Freida’s Secret, a story starting with Stanley’s rescue of Emin Pasha in 1888 and culminating in a treasure hunt in Idi Amin’s Uganda.