Kigali — The first witness testifying against the alleged involvement of the French government in the genocide that left close to one million people dead has said that he witnessed France's illegal arrest and detention of the senior RPA/F officials including President Paul Kagame. The former Rwandan Ambassador to France, Ambassador Jacque Bihozagara took the number one witness stand yesterday to give a chronology of events of the French leading to, or during the genocide. "In 1992, we went to France, with Kagame (the President), Aloysia Inyumba, Patrick Mazimphaka and Colonel Emmanuel Ndahiro. Our purpose of visit was to advise the Paris government to pull out from the war that was going on in Rwanda" testified Bihozagara

He added, "In our first evening in Paris, Colonel Ndahiro disappeared. We spent the whole night looking for him and in the morning, the French police stormed our hotel and they roughly and rudely checked our rooms"

Bihozagara said that at the hotel, the police brought with them Colonel Ndahiro as a captive.

"Later on; they took him (Col Ndahiro) and Kagame but the French did not handcuff Kagame. This was a total illegal arrest" he said

"They were arrested and detained for about ten hours and then they were released" he said, adding that the four later went to Paul Bijou, who was in charge of the Central African countries to enlighten him about the war in Rwanda and the need of France not to be involved.

"It was really hard for us to convince him because he was a hardliner" Bihozagara says

In his three hour testimony, Bihozagara also pointed out that General Marcel Gatsinzi and other two ambassadors were representing Juvenal Habyarimana's regime in the earlier talks with the RPA.

By then, Congo Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) was the mediator in the talks before President Mobuto Seseko was discovered to be siding with President Habyarimana. The talks were later shifted to Arusha, Tanzania and the country was given the task of facilitator.

"During the Arusha talks, the Habyarimana representatives had an agent in hotel Meridien; Arusha where they were residing. The secret agent was advising Habyarimana representatives about the next step of the talks," said Bihozagara.

Speaking about France's move to lobby from European Union to intervene in Rwanda, Bihozagara said that after Francois Mitterrand's government realised that they were losing the war, they called on 15 members of the EU, requesting them to intervene and stop the RPA advancement.

"After getting the information about the French's move, I immediately sent a detailed fax in the meeting room where all the 15 countries had met. The fax was mentioning the role played by France in inciting the genocide, their interest in Rwanda and how the massacres were being perpetrated" he said, adding that immediately after the 15 countries received the fax in the meeting room; they all moved out, including Italy that had earlier expressed more support to France.

Bihozagara also says that, later, after the French lost the move, they decided to intervene on their own and landed their strong Jaguar air fighters in Kisangani and Goma but it was too late for them because the RPA was in control of all the strategic points.

He also said that the French government has continuously denied the genocide and sheltering the implementers of the mass killings. Many French scholars have been supported and sponsored to write book refuting the genocide.

The witness also said that the former French President, Mitterrand, said that what was happening in Rwanda was between the lords and the servants and that was the reason why his government was helping the servants because they were weak.

Later in the day, two other witnesses including Jean Marie Gatabazi; a Member of Parliament and another Senator who could not be identified by press time also testified against the French government.

The Commission of Inquiry into the alleged complicity of the French government in the Rwandan genocide is holding the public hearing of testimonies and 25 witnesses including several Rwandan government officials are expected to testify. The Commission is headed by Jean de Dieu Mucyo. Last year, a former French soldier alleged that French troops had trained Rwandan militia two years prior to the genocide. Currently; a French military tribunal is investigating claims by six Rwandans who filed a case accusing French troops of facilitating the genocide.

Particularly, the French army is said to have facilitated the mass murder of Tutsi civilians who had staged a strong resistance in Bisesero hills in the former Kibuye province, now the Western province. For years, Kigali has repeatedly accused Paris of abetting the genocide, but France has denied having a hand in the genocide in which over one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were horribly slaughtered.