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POLITICS: France Fails to Accept Responsibility over Rwanda
By Julio Godoy
PARIS, Apr 7 (IPS) - In the face of overwhelming evidence that France backed
the Hutu-dominated Rwandan army responsible for the massacre of some
800,000 people ten years ago, it continues to deny its responsibility in the
tragedy.
On the contrary, former minister for foreign affairs Dominique de Villepin
claimed three weeks ago that "French intervention in Rwanda saved hundreds
of thousands of lives."
New Rwandan leader Paul Kagamé, a Tutsi, corrected De Villepin. "Yes, the
French saved many lives - of those who committed the genocide."
De Villepin was referring to Operation Turquoise, a peacekeeping mission
launched by the French government with UN authorisation on June 23, 1994 -
when the genocide was mostly over.
Experts who have studied the events say Kagamé is right. Operation
Turquoise protected Hutu authorities who had led the massacres since April
1994, partly to flee Rwanda and to seek refuge in neighbouring Zaire, then
controlled by another Francophile dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.
France had been involved in Rwandan politics for many years before the civil
war peaked in the spring of 1994.
Rwandan dictator Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, had enjoyed strong French
and Belgian military support since the late 1980s despite strong evidence that
Hutu militias linked to the Rwandan army (FAR, after its French name) had been
massacring opposition leaders, especially Tutsis.
FAR had been fighting back the guerrilla rebellion of the Rwandan Patriotic
Front (FPR) led by exiled Tutsis, including now president Paul Kagamé. The
exiles were based in Uganda.
Rwanda, a small country of barely 24,000 square kilometres, is located at the
centre of the Great Lakes region, bordering Uganda, Tanzania, the former Zaire,
and Burundi. Hutus are about 80 percent of a population of some eight million.
The Tutsi community forms most of the rest.
Tutsis were being massacred since 1990, but the major genocide began after
the aircraft carrying Habyarimana was brought down on April 6, 1994. The
Rwandan dictator was returning from peace negotiations in Arusha in
neighbouring Tanzania.
Tutsi rebels were blamed for the killing of Habyarimana. In retaliation the
Hutu-controlled army and militias led waves of massacres of Tutsis, but also of
moderate Hutus.
The Hutu militias killed up to 800,000 people over the following three months,
according to United Nations reports.
Classified documents and testimonies from international observers confirm
that the French government knew of Hutu plans to carry out the massacres.
French military officers posted with the Rwandan army in their headquarters
"necessarily knew what was going on in the Rwanda military structures, they
were fully informed that massacres were in preparation," says Romeo Dallaire,
the Canadian general who headed the UN mission sent to Rwanda in 1993.
French journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupery, author of a book on the Rwandan
genocide confirms Dallaire's accusations against French military advisers.
"French military officers trained the killers in the genocide," De Saint-Exupéry
says in his book 'L'Inavouable - La France in Ruanda' (The unspeakable -
France in Rwanda). "They did that on orders, by teaching the Rwandan army
counter-insurgency strategies and tactics."
Dallaire believes that French officers even participated in skirmishes between
the Rwandan army and the guerrillas. "In the days that followed the killing of
Habyarimana, we saw Europeans soldiers wearing the Rwandan military
uniform, taking part in manoeuvres," he had said in a statement made following
the massacres.
These European soldiers, apparently French nationals, later joined Operation
Turquoise. By then most of the massacres had taken place, and the operation
served only to protect fleeing Hutu leaders.
A report by a group of independent observers said state-owned French banks
delivered about six million dollars to the Hutu army and militias at the time.
All this information has been publicly known for years, but France has refused
to accept any responsibility for the Rwandan genocide. A parliamentary
assessment of French intervention in Rwanda published in 1998 spoke only of
"institutional dysfunctions" in French aid to the Rwandan army, and called the
French policy in Rwanda "a strategic error."
But Pierre Banner who headed the parliamentary commission admits now that
France was heavily involved in leading the Rwandan army. "We did support a
racist army, and didn't take the necessary distance at the moment of the
genocide. I think France would do a good thing in accepting its responsibility."
(END/2004)
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