Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
4 October 2007
Kigali — French Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner maintains that France deserves credit because it was the only country that intervened during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda as others just looked on, RNA reports.
"We were over there, I was over there, the genocide was committed before our eyes, televised and no one intervened, except France", Mr. Kouchner said on Tuesday, according to excerpts of an interview with privately-owned radio network 'Europe 1'.
The senior French diplomat also refuted any suggestion that his country's military was in any way involved in the massacres in Rwanda. According to numerous accounts from people that faced the carnage, French soldier raped Tutsi girls and often just looked on as militias killed.
Testimonies given to the commission that probed the French involvement in Rwanda show that that the soldiers were often working under orders from Paris. The commission report is expected within the coming days.
Information available also indicates that France sabotaged the decision making mechanism at the UN Security Council by controlling the follow of information to the council about Rwanda - as the mass slaughter rolled on.
Fingers have been pointed to former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali and his Cameroonian envoy for Rwanda Dr. Jacques Roger Booh Booh to keep council member in the dark.
Numerous experts that testified in the Rwanda commission note that Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali worked closely with French president François Mitterrand - who it is said knew everything that was going on the ground.
"I believe there were errors of policy, of political analysis, I've always said that. I've never said, and will never say, that there was any involvement of the French armed forces in any murder whatsoever", said Kouchner. "I've never said that and I was there, so I know what I'm talking about."
Mr. Kouchner - who essentially remains the only senior French official at talking terms with Kigali, said he wants the two countries reconciled to "put an end to the misunderstandings between the two countries".
Let me remind you that the people in power in Kigali are the survivors of the horror and genocide, he noted.
The authorities here say they will only restore normal diplomatic relations with France, if France addresses concerns raised by Rwanda before ties between the two countries went sour.
"We believe unless they (France) address that past baggage, we wouldn't be building a strong relationship for the future. So that is why we shall have to look back critically at what the relationship between France and Rwanda has been, and what went wrong. And there should be a commitment to avoid such past mistakes," Rwanda foreign affairs Chief Dr. Charles Murigande told VOA.
The two diplomats met in New York on the sidelines of the UN Summit last week but there seems to have been very little progress. Mr. Kouchner has even said before that he plans to come to Kigali any time soon but he may not want to come over at a disadvantaged position.
When the time is right, when it will serve some purpose, he told 'Europe 1'.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information. 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.
