France played role in enabling the 1994 genocide, report says
France played a “significant” role in “enabling a foreseeable genocide” in Rwanda, according to a report commissioned by the Rwandan government that was released on Monday and that echoed the findings of a recent appraisal by France.
The report offered a damning new perspective on the events that led to the killing of at least 800,000 people in 1994, arguing that France “did nothing to stop” the slaughter of ethnic Tutsis by a Rwandan government dominated by members of the Hutu ethnic group.
Twenty-seven years after the genocide, France and Rwanda are making attempts to set the record straight on what happened during the bloodletting, government officials have said, both to respond to domestic demands and to improve bilateral relations.
The 600-page report, generated by a Washington law firm, concluded that the French government was “neither blind nor unconscious” in regard to the imminent genocide, yet continued in its “unwavering support” for the government of then-Rwandan President
Juvenal Habyarimana. It accused the government of former French President Francois Mitterrand of doing so in order to advance and reinforce its own influence and interests in the country.
A landlocked nation of more than 12 million people in central Africa, Rwanda was a Belgian colony until it gained independence in 1962. But during the genocide, France, which had close ties with the Habyarimana regime, sent its troops to Rwanda as part of a United Nations-mandated military operation.
“French officials armed, advised, trained, equipped, and protected the Rwandan government, heedless of the Habyarimana regime’s commitment to the dehumanisation and, ultimately, the destruction and death of Tutsi in Rwanda,” the report said.
The report also accused France of covering up its role in the genocide — which took place over roughly 100 days — protecting those who participated in the killings and withholding “critical documents and testimony” that would shed more light on its actions.
The report’s authors, however, found
“no evidence that French officials or personnel participated directly in the killing of Tutsi during that period.”
Last month, France released a report concluding that the French government bore “overwhelming responsibilities” for the genocide, as it remained allied with the “racist, corrupt and violent” Hutu-led government even as the leadership prepared to slaughter the Tutsis. But the report, commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron and written by historians, cleared the French of complicity in the genocide.
During a ceremony in the Rwandan capital of Kigali this month to mark the 27th anniversary of the genocide, President Paul Kagame praised the French report, saying it showed how “Rwandan lives were just pawns in geopolitical games.”
“We welcome this report because it marks an important step toward a common understanding of what took place,” Mr Kagame said. “It shows the desire even for leaders in France to move forward with a good understanding of what happened.”