James Munyaneza
7 December 2006
Kigali — President Paul Kagame has singled out the Prime Minister of France Dominique de Villepin as one of the French government officials who supported the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. Kagame, who was speaking on BBC's Hard Talk live show yesterday morning, said.
France took part in the planning and execution of the killings, which saw an estimated one million Rwandans killed in a record spell of 100 days. "The current French prime minister is among the French officials that supported the Genocide. The role of the French government in the killing of Rwandans is public knowledge," Kagame said in the interview with Stephen Sucker.
During the Genocide, de Villepin was the Director of Cabinet in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He becomes the first serving French official to be publicly implicated in the Genocide, which was stopped by the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A). Kagame also lashed out at France and magistrate, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, for linking RPF to the April 6, 2006 shooting down of a plane carrying former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana.
He said the allegations were intended to cover-up Paris' own involvement in the Genocide.
"France gave the then government of Rwanda money to commit Genocide. If he is credible, why doesn't he (Bruguiere) investigate the role of the French government and officials in the Genocide... Why fabricate stories?" asked Kagame.
"I am surprised that people are still asking this. There is documentary evidence. It is public knowledge that they (French) actively supported the Genocide," Kagame added.
Last month, Bruguiere published a 64-page report in which he claimed that the RPF/A brought down the Falcon Mystere 50 aircraft which killed Habyarimana and former Burundian president, Cyprian Ntiryamira.
The allegations sparked angry protests, with a series of anti-France demonstrations being held both within and outside the country. Also, the government severed ties with the European nation. "There is no evidence whatsoever for Rwandan leaders who stopped the Genocide to be tried and moreover by France which is implicated in the killings. They are wild allegations.
"The report is based on testimonies from people who are wanted by the ICTR for committing genocide crimes. These suspects cannot be accessed by the tribunal, but they are accessed by France," Kagame, who was on a working visit to Britain, said.
Burundi and Uganda have also publicly scoffed at the French allegations, with Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni describing France as 'an African problem which requires an immediate solution'.
Bruguiere's report has also suffered a serious blow with some of the 'witnesses' he quotes in the report, disassociating themselves from the information he attributed to them.
In a letter to the French Magistrate, one of the 'witnesses', Emmanuel Ruzigana, is quoted as writing: "I categorically refute all that was attributed to me. I am bitterly surprised to find that on page 23 of your document you wrongly attributed my association with Network Commando, a group whose existence I did not know.
In the same document ... you even went further to confirm lies that I knew who shot down the plane, yet I told you that I wasn't aware of such a thing'.
The president said Rwanda had absolute rights to sue the government of France based on findings of the ongoing Commission of Inquiry into the French role in the Genocide. The 'Mucyo Commission' is currently gathering evidence against the French government.
Analysts have accused Paris of relentlessly pursuing a 'colonial-like' foreign policy in its former African colonies and in countries where it gained considerable influence in the post-colonial era.
A French soldier at a road block pulls a would-be-victim out of a jeep as the Interahamwe militia and Ex-FAR come to his assistance.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2006 The New Times. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
