Yves Engler with Dimitri Lascaris and Alex Tyrrell
Since announcing his candidacy for the New Democratic Party's leadership, there has been a great deal of consternation over Yves Engler's past denialism of the Rwandan genocide, including efforts to undermine the estimated death tolls inflicted by the far-right Hutu Power government. Many are going to be quick to dismiss this as simply a quirk of a fringe figure who otherwise would have no serious repercussions for the NDP or Canadian politics. This is unfortunately untrue, and instead is part of a larger pattern of disturbing behaviour from politicians who seek to take control of how the public perceives and talks about the crime of genocide to suit specific political agendas that potentially stand to become lucrative causes to support.
Do you believe more Tutsis were killed than lived in Rwanda?
— Yves Engler (@EnglerYves) July 13, 2025
Let us be unequivocal, however: Yves Engler is a Rwandan genocide denialist. He is in every way a genocide denier in the same way that someone like Dahlia Kurtz (who is currently suing Engler) is. In Left Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada alone, what Engler has said about the genocide is indefensible, ranging from questioning whether the campaign was genocide, to suggesting the RPF was behind the Habyarimana assassination, to questioning whether the genocide was planned. Several citations include well-established Rwandan genocide deniers David Peterson and Edward S. Herman, who suggest the Interahamwe are really victims of the RPF. Hintjens and van Oijen describe this as interpretative denial, which is the denial through reframing the facts. Often in this context it meant positioning the genocide as simply part of the civil war or an act of self-defence, or trying to dismiss prosecutions as "western imperialism." Engler engages in interpretative denial and more extensive forms of denialism, documented below.
Engler is complaining about Stephen Lewis, investigator into the crimes of the Rwandan Genocide, as "muzzling any question," which is to say denial of the Rwandan Genocide.
This page alone is quite damning, citing Herman and Peterson to attack Lewis (and genocide expert Gerald Caplan), claim Kagame is the real criminal, and to deny that there was a high-level plan to eradicate the Tutsi. In fact, there was a considerable body of evidence to show propaganda and killings were already taking place. Engler fails to even address the formation fo the Organisation de l’Auto-Défense Civile preceding the genocide, or the admission of guilt by the genocide-era Prime Minister Jean Kambanda. These attacks on Caplan continue.
Here Engler further attacks Caplan for "muzzling" denial and for correctly naming the sorts of people who engage in Rwandan genocide denial. Dallaire is also a subject of Engler's attacks over various other positions on international issues, betraying Engler's obsession with attacking the character of key witnesses of the genocide and in its prosecution by the ICTR.
In the West, there had become a sort of cottage industry for advocacy for authoritarian regimes that has cropped up since the 80s. I am not simply talking about acting as an agent of a government (although there certainly is still much of that too), but an industry of paid lobbying, the production of sympathetic media, and marketing that media to the global public. The firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly was an early example, becoming known as the "Torturer's Lobby" for their willingness to lobby on behalf of the interests of right-wing dictatorships around the world. Two of the Republican partners for the firm would later go on to be interviewed over the 2016 Trump campaign's coordination with Russian intelligence, which investigators later proved had involved partner Paul Manafort providing campaign data to a Russian intelligence agent, and partner Roger Stone being used as an intermediary in contact with an officer of Russia's GRU foreign intelligence service. Stone and Manafort would later be pardoned by Donald Trump.
Yves Engler is not a lawyer. He is not a politician, he's just the guy who likes interrupting politicians' events while shouting about the trending atrocity of the day to build his profile. Engler's primary activism lies in trying to insinuate his works in academia and social movements, often through sympathetic individuals and institutions. He publishes books, which seems to be a small source of income for him. He currently sits as the interim director of the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, another platform for hosting events sympathetic to the narratives of various authoritarian states. But how did he get to participate in the new, global Torturer's Lobby? How does a Canadian socialist activist get into denying a 31-year old genocide perpetrated by fascist paramilitaries in Rwanda?
Understanding Yves Engler's turn towards Hutu Power apologia requires examination of a network of lawyers, authors and activists who dominated the communist scene Engler emerged from. Many of these were campists who would masquerade as "peace activists." To call oneself a peace activist has become a favourite rhetorical device for framing one's efforts to advocate for the aggressor, and to demand global acquiescence to the aggressor's whims.
The Canadian Denialist Network
Communist Party of Canada politicial candidate Christopher Black (who died in June this year) was the lawyer for Augustin Ndindiliyimana, former Chief of Staff of Gendarmerie Nationale, who was acquitted for his role in the genocide. However, Black was still a denier of the genocide himself, and often pitched Rwanda as being a "semi-socialist" state, ignoring the fact that it most certainly was not, but run by anticommunist ultranationalist movement and its militias. Black had also been a leading figure in the defence of Serbian war criminals involved in the Bosnian Genocide, which he also denies, defending Slobodan Milosevic himself. Black worked on the defence for the alleged perpetrators in both cases alongside figures like Ramsey Clark and Sebastien Chartrand, who would go on to support denialism of both genocides themselves. According to Liora Israel, Black was part of a strategy to undermine the public's recognition of the genocide among some of the lawyers, a tactic at least taken up by Black, Clark, Chartrand, and John Philpot (see below). Indeed, it is not normal for lawyers for defendants of crimes against humanity to deny the extent, context, and nature of the atrocities that happened. Clark, who was Attorney General for the Johnson Administration, oversaw the Justice Department's direction of federal agencies. Clark's actions as Attorney General paved the way for COINTELPRO, the illegal FBI surveillance programme primarily targeting left-wing and liberal activists in the United States with the intent of repressing those targets.
Black maintained that he was briefed by Ndindiliyimana that the genocide did not take place, undermining his own client's defence to further the denialist cause.
John Philpot was another lawyer involved in the Rwandan defence, representing the acquitted Protais Zigiranyirazo, as well as Jean Paul Akeyasu, convicted of genocide, incitement, and crimes against humanity by the ICTR. Philpot also represents Yves Engler. Philpot is the primary organiser for the Rwandan Political Prisoner Support Network, which denies the genocide. Philpot has since written a book with Sebastien Chartrand denying the legitimacy of the ICTR and the ICTY. John's brother Robin Philpot is a noted Rwandan genocide denier himself and president of Baraka Books, which publishes at least four books by Yves Engler. one by Chartrand and John Philpot, as well as by Assadist Stephen Gowans and pro-Russian activist Dan Kovalik, who went on to a similar propaganda trip as Dimitri Lascaris, organised by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War is a blog run by Ken and Brendan Stone. Ostensibly dedicated to "peace," it instead functionally operates as a platform for genocide denial, including for the Rwandan genocide and Darfur genocide. In the list of authors can be found Anthony C Black, who has as recently as three years ago taken up Holocaust denial in an article for the Unz Review that utilises many of Engler's tactics in denying the Rwandan genocide, and Robin Philpot, as well as several articles linking to Global Research, the blog owned by Canadian National Bolshevik Michel Chossoudovsky, who is widely understood to be an asset in Russian information warfare capabilities. Chossoudovsky is represented by John Philpot, and has been publishing Engler since at least 2012. The Coalition has also held events for others seeking to deny various genocides, including in Xinjiang, in Ukraine in a couple cases, and in Bosnia and Kosovo. Beyond genocide denial, it hosts Lascaris, Tyrrell, Engler, Desai, Freeman, the Philpots, Kovalik, and more.
Although not popular in Canada or considered "Canadian" the network surrounding Living Marxism (now Spiked!) and its leader, Canadian academic Frank Furedi falls under a similar pattern, with members declaring that the events in Rwanda should not be understood as a genocide. Writers for Living Marxism such as Barrie Collins are integral (footnote 56) to persisting denialist narratives used by Christopher Black, the Philpots, Herman & Peterson, and by extension, Engler himself.
So why is this happening?
The real reason why is quite obvious. Tyrrell, Engler, and Lascaris have all undertaken efforts to influence the direction of Canada's small left-wing parties and the perceptions of the broader public towards the interests of certain authoritarian regimes that these men sympathise with. When Tyrrell went to China it was with a man named Donovan Martin, who was a Liberal candidate in Manitoba's Notre Dame Winnipeg area, and has since been involved in promoting tourism and business in Xinjiang during the Uyghur genocide. This trip mirrored circumstances leading to Dimitri Lascaris' own trip to Russia and occupied Ukraine, for which he established contact with the Russian embassy and was subsequently paraded to legitimise the Russian foreign policy establishment. In their discussion, Alex Tyrrell voiced his intent to take over the federal Green Party of Canada, with the obvious underlying intent of turning it into a vehicle for the sort of advocacy for authoritarian regimes that Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly would undertake. Lascaris already tried to do that with his leadership run, almost succeeding Elizabeth May with a second-place finish. He would later go on to take a state-sponsored trip to Russia and occupied Ukraine to whitewash the genocide, interviewing involved persons: a Wagner sniper released from prison after being incarcerated as a mafia hitman; a "refugee center" director who actually works for a volunteer organisation dedicated to resourcing and aiding the war effort and genocide of Ukrainians, who was caught supplying weapons attachments to the Russian army; and "filtration camp" personnel. The "refugee center" is directly implicated in providing Russification materials for Ukrainian children, and the organisation that acted as Lascaris' guide is implicated in sending another Westerner to whitewash the Artek camp, which has been alleged to host kidnapped Ukrainian children. When Tyrrell took to attacking a leading Green Party youth activist for participating in a Youth NATO event, it was Engler who coauthored at least one hit piece on the teenager, trying to influence the direction of the Green Party just months before announcing his leadership run for the NDP.
Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group were involved in Lascaris' campaign as the chairs of his campaign. Desai and Freeman are frequent collaborators with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute where Engler sits as interim director, and shares a frequent collaborator with Engler in CFPI's fellow Arnold August. In Engler's case, his campaign is backed by Socialist Action Canada, which is a Trotskyist sect that runs the "NDP Socialist Caucus," which is best described as an entryist effort to insert activists into the NDP to take it over. Still, there is plenty of time to see whether our party system will experience a greater confluence of efforts to radicalise weakened parties.
Authoritarian states have perceived a vulnerability in Canada's party system for several years. This vulnerability is greater than ever, now that smaller left-wing parties have been devastated by the 2025 election results and the Conservative Party grows increasingly desperate to expand its base. While Lascaris, Tyrrell, and Engler are all part of a clown car of discredited conspiracy theorists and hate activists, it is important to acknowledge that those are exactly the sorts of people who proliferate apathy and malice among the public. When we ask how humanity could let a crime such as genocide happen, we must acknowledge that it is because public perception was shaped to make it acceptable in the moment and well after. Denial is not simply an act following genocide, it is the basis for starting genocide anew. This isn't going to let up any time soon, but speaks to the need for greater vigilance to prevent our instiutions from being hijacked by the interests of the far-right.
That leads me into the segue for the next article.
The past month has seen activity from Conservative activists towards reconciliation with the Hindutva movement after a devastating loss in Brampton East. The Canada India Foundation is a known vector for the Modi regime's ongoing global transnational repression campaign, and recently held an event in Vaughan for legitimising India's transnational repression campaign against religious minority dissidents. Co-organised by Tafsik, a far-right civil society organisation dedicated to promoting Israeli interests, this overlap is remarkably similar to that seen in pro-Russian and Chinese camps.
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