Focus Media (Kigali)
Hélène Dumas
24 August 2008
opinion
As a French university student currently doing research on certain historic aspects of the Rwandan genocide (the gacaca courts), I was obviously very interested in the work of the Mucyo Commission. I came to Rwanda at a time when the Commission was still carrying out its investigations.
French soldiers patroling near Kayove, some 60 kilometers north of the border with Zaire, in June 1994.
I was impatient for the report's release. I read the report several time.
The first thing that has to be noted is that this is clearly a case of Rwandan public expression. Rwandans have been heard in public sessions, Rwandan documents have been shown-so it's Rwandans telling their own story. Yet this story is not only Rwandan. It is also French. It is for this reason that I am so interested in it.
What instantly struck me when I read the report, is its physical nature. Victims of the massacres spoke of their physical suffering. It is not a too technical debate, as was the case in the Quilès report (the French parliamentary commission that investigated France's role in the genocide in 1998, ed.), which was aloof and cold-as if a surgeon was dissecting a body which does not concern him.
The Mucyo report, on the contrary, goes to the heart of the matter, which is why it is at the same time stimulating and painful to read.
Apart from its captivating nature, the report also sheds light on the essential dynamics of the French engagement in Rwanda. It becomes very clear how President Mitterand's akazu operated, driven by an archaic and racist vision of African societies.
This political concept denies Africans a role as historical actors; they are considered as incapable of shaping their own history, and only the West can be a historical agent. Yet in 1990 the French political officials had lost the plot, they were blind to the course of history due to their neo-colonial vision.
Moreover, the report reveals the political responsibility of the government of that time. This is clearly shown in the section of the report which dealt with the Amaryllis operation, which clearly shows that French military officers were in Rwanda during the genocide.
Therefore, they must have had precise information on what was happening in the country; yet that didn't prevent the French government from receiving, late April, some of the highest-ranking officials of the interim government, Jérôme Bicamumpaka and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza.
On the other hand, the descriptions of the military operations-whether before, during or after the genocide-show how the French military had turned their intervention in Rwanda into a war of their own. In the international context of the end of the colonial wars and the Cold War, where human rights become a priority and peace-keeping operations are managed by the United Nations, war activity fundamentally changes.
And exactly in such circumstances, Rwanda offered the French military a chance to wage its colonial war. The terrain was ideal, the French had chosen their side and took charge of a war that wasn't theirs.
I was struck in particular by the episode on Bisesero which is recounted in the section concerning the operation Turquoise. I have worked in the region to do research, so I wasn't ignorant of the French implication in Bisesero.
Yet once again, the voice of the survivors and the killers, as well as the quality of the descriptions of the region, made me realize-in a brutal and disgust-inspiring way-exactly how deeply the French army was involved in the genocide.
The stories of rape are equally unbearable-I think it's these elements which will be most shocking to French public opinion. The political mechanisms notwithstanding, the fact that soldiers from our army were able to behave in such a way is particularly shocking. And it is another merit of this report to fully reveal them.
I also have the impression that the report is written in a didactical way, allowing it to be widely distributed, especially in France. Any French citizen is capable to understand it and realize its full implications. It is important that the report is distributed in France, given that, as said above, this is about the history of two countries-Rwanda and France.
And when we consider France's history in general, I think the French involvement in the genocide of the Tutsis is as important, in the perspective of 20th century history, as Vichy's involvement in the deportation of Jews during World War II.
In my opinion, it is very important to put the genocide of the Tutsis in the context of the history of the 20th century, because it constitutes one of its major events. Just like the French-Rwandan history is a major episode in both country's history. Indeed, if I look at a chronological frieze starting in 1945, then what do I see in the history of my country?
That in 1995, Jacques Chirac recognized for the first time the role of the French State in the deportation of Jews from France, when only a year before France was involved in another genocide! This simple backward glance is abhorring-it is simply impossible to understand from a moral point of view.
Historical research seems to me to be the only way to elucidate in a serene and dispassionate way this distressing history. Here in Rwanda, as well as in France.
Therefore, the political and diplomatic problems notwithstanding, my wish is that the French political officials would have the heart to let the truth be known by opening the archives to historians.
And why not imagine a joint French-Rwandan commission to carry out this work of truth? This will not be possible, however, as long French public opinion is not correctly informed about the responsibility of our country.
There are precedents. At the end of the 90s, a war of words broke out concerning acts of torture committed by French soldiers during the war in Algeria. It became such a big issue that the then Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, decided to open the archives so that historians could shed light on this other very somber part of French history. Maybe the same might happen in the case of Rwanda.
You know, it is absolutely not easy to know that your country has been involved in a genocide. It's very distressing. Yet the distress only doubles when the responsibility is cynically denied.
However, things change, in France as well as in Rwanda. Diplomatic staff, as well as French policy, change. The French state has embarked on a thorough reform of its operations and public policies. This is encouraging in the sense that future generations will no longer want to be held accountable of the crimes of their fathers.
The only way to get rid of this heavy heritage is to recognize one's responsibilities, and to let historians work in all liberty in declassified archives.
If things change in France, they should also do so in Rwanda. What I found especially interesting in the report of the Rwandan commission is what it says, between the lines, about today's Rwanda. The various components of history and Rwandan society have been able to get together and jointly examine the past.
That has been done through the investigation of the French role, but also through the genocide trials. Such trials are never obvious, they are on the contrary distressing. But they are necessary.
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