6 August 2008
document
Kigali — France's Involvment During The Genocide
During their stay at the French embassy in Kigali, they contributed in forming the ministerial cabinet of the so-called interim government which organized and supervised the execution of the genocide.
A number of these personalities who took refuge in the French embassy would become part of the interim government as can be seen in this table.
Colonel Bagosora was in charge of the formation of the interim government, with the collaboration of the leaders of the "power" parties or the power factions of the opposition parties.
A cousin to President Habyarimana's wife, Bagosora received his training at the War College in Paris, where he obtained a certificate of higher military studies.
He was successively deputy commander of the Kigali Higher Military Academy and commander of the important Kanombe military camp, from 1988 to 1992, in which the French officers and instructors were operating, before his appointment to the post of Director of Cabinet in the Ministry of Defense in 1992.
He was retired from the army on the 23 September 1993, but nevertheless he continued to exercise his functions of Director of cabinet until his departure from Rwanda in July 1994.
He is one of the main organizers civil self-defence program during which distribution of arms were carried out to civilian Hutus who had undergone military training, sometimes provided by French soldiers.
According to Filip Reyntjens, it is Bagosora who, in the night of 6 to 7 April 1994, between 2h and 7h in the morning, from the Ministry of Defence, gave the orders of massacres to the Presidential Guard, the reconnaissance battalion and the paratrooper battalion with which he had direct and private radio connection. Today he is on trial at the ICTR as the organizer of the genocide.
The French ambassador, Jean-Philippe Marlaud, got personally involved, at Bagosora's side, in the formation of the interim government, to the extent of suggesting some people called upon to be part of it.
According to Ambassador Marlaud's declarations at the MIP, since 7 April, in the company of Colonel Jean-Jacques Maurin, he had "approached Colonel Bagosora, the Director of Cabinet in the Ministry of Defence, while the latter was on a trip to Cameroon.
He had told him that it was necessary to resume control of the situation and that the Rwandan armed forces needed to cooperate with the UNAMIR, but that warning did not prove useful and the situation continued to deteriorate."
Colonel Bagosora's radically anti-Tutsi tendencies and moderate opposition political parties were common knowledge.
Thus, in June 1992, when the new coalition government led by the former opposition removed from office the former chiefs of staff of the army and the gendarmerie because of their extremist political positions, President Habyarimana tried to have Bagosora appointed to the post of chief of staff of the FAR.
The parties of the former opposition refused by virtue of his extremist political orientations. It was the very same Bagosora who, after participating in part of the negotiations of the Arusha Agreement had, on 8 January 1993 "openly expressed his opposition to the concessions made by the government representative, Boniface Ngulinzira, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the extent of leaving the negotiations.
Colonel Bagosora left Arusha and declared that he was returning to Rwanda to prepare the Apocalypse". This declaration, widely relayed in the Rwandan press, had been strongly shocking at the time.
The adjustment that constituted Ambassador Marlaud and Colonel Maurin's approach to ask Bagosora to take "control of the situation" is well expressed by the former Prime Minister of the interim government, Jean Kambanda, during his interrogation on 26 September 1997 by two ICTR investigators.
To the question of knowing if Colonel Bagosora had encountered any opposition from the highest military officers about his intention of taking control of the military crisis committee that was constituted during the meeting of 7 April at the army headquarters, Kambanda replied: "- Jean Kambanda: Yes to his project of taking over power [ ] And he was rather advised to ask for the opinion of the French ambassador.
The support given by Ambassador Marlaud to the person who is today considered as the main organizer of the genocide, and the protection given to the most radically extremist members of the Hutu power who took refuge in the embassy, differs strongly from the way the French diplomat treated the case of the Prime Minister in office, Agathe Uwilingiyimana.
She represented the legitimate political authority as the head of government. She was, at the legal level, the person authorized to secure the vacant seat of power. But she had perhaps the disadvantage, in the eyes of the French ambassador, of being opposed to the Hutu power.
Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana had intervened on the morning of 7 April on RFI by launching a highly strung call for peace and the stop to violence. When she tried to go to the studios of the national radio, the FAR prevented her from reaching Radio Rwanda to send a message to the nation.
With that radio broadcast intervention on the morning of 7 April, whereas several opposition personalities had already been assassinated, France knew that the Rwandan Prime Minister was alive and in danger of death.
Yet, between the Prime Minister's residence and the French embassy, there was a distance not exceeding 500 m! She was executed very near her home between 11h and 12h.
She could have been saved if the French ambassador wanted to do so.
Interviewed by the MIP, Marlaud acknowledged having, as a matter of fact, held meetings with political officials who constituted the interim government:
"The morning of 8 April had been marked by [ ] the arrival of several ministers at the Embassy. They then held a meeting during which they fixed three thrusts: to replace the dead or ministers and officials who had disappeared; try to once again take control of the Presidential Guard in order to stop the massacres; and finally reaffirm their commitment to the Arusha Agreement. However, they refused to appoint Mr. Faustin Twagiramungu Prime Minister in the place of Mrs. Agathe Uwilingiyimana".
Concluding on Marlaud's hearing, the MIP wrote: "Towards 20 hours [8 April], the embassy was informed of the appointment of the President of the Republic and an interim Government.
The composition of this government was apparently in accordance with the Arusha Agreement since it provided for the allocation of the portfolios between political parties".
Ambassador Marlaud distorted the truth, because the interim government brought together only representatives of the member parties of the Hutu power delegation as well as dissident Hutu power factions of the opposition parties.
This Hutu Power coalition was, since the end of the year 1993, radically against the Arusha Agreement and advocated the massacre of Tutsis and Hutu political officials loyal to the Arusha peace process.
The formation of the interim government, an essential stage in the achievement of the genocidaire program, had required first of all the assassination of the political leaders opposed to the Hutu power coalition, among them the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who, according to the constitution, was supposed to assume power, by virtue of the disappearance of the Head of State.
Some rare non-Hutu power political leaders had gone into hiding. Thus, the formation of the interim government was a clear manifestation of the blow against the Arusha Agreement and the political stage necessary for the commission of the genocide.
After contributing to its formation, Ambassador Marlaud tried, four years later, to recognize the government that organized the genocide.
Since its formation, Ambassador Marlaud worked on getting the diplomatic support for this government from European partners.
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