VARIOUS: Rwandan court formally charges French politicians with complicty in 1994 genocide

Record ID: 285615

  • Title: VARIOUS: Rwandan court formally charges French politicians with complicty in 1994 genocide
  • Date: 6th August 2008
  • Summary: (W3) GOMA, ZAIRE (FILE - JULY 31, 1994) (REUTERS) FRENCH FOREIGN LEGIONNAIRES WITH HUTU REFUGEES IN BACKGROUND/FRENCH SOLDIERS CHECKING PASSES AS HUTU REFUGEES CROSS BORDER REFUGEES CROSSING BRIDGE
  • Embargoed: 21st August 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVALXTRWO3TBHMLFXS2KITBQH0P
  • Story Text: Rwanda formally accused senior French officials on Tuesday (August 5) of involvement in its 1994 genocide and called for them to be put on trial.
    Among those named in a report by a Rwandan investigation commission were former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and late President Francois Mitterrand.

    "France will have to answer charges of political complicity and supplying arms, because the charges are very concrete. This report goes further than the report of the French investigation commission of 1998 who was presided by Paul Quiles. This report gives us new elements. But on the other hand the report is a bit astonishing because a lot of the crime charges against the French are based on human testimony, so the French will certainly say that testimony has been forged, we know that Rwanda is a dictatorship regime, we know that the international justice has already accused Rwanda of having forged testimony for the TPIR (International tribunal for Rwanda)," said Remy Ourdan, Foreign Editor of the prestigious French daily newspaper Le Monde.
    France denies that and says its forces helped protect people during a U.N.-sanctioned mission in Rwanda at the time.
    The latest allegations from Kigali came on Tuesday with the publication of the report by an independent Rwandan commission set up to investigate France's role in the bloodshed.

    "The French support was of a political, military, diplomatic and logistic nature," the report said.

    "Considering the gravity of the alleged facts, the Rwandan government asks competent authorities to undertake all necessary actions to bring the accused French political and military leaders to answer for their acts before justice."
    French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal told reporters the report and accusations made against French political and military officials was unacceptable.
    Kigali has previously accused Paris of covering up its role in training troops and militia who carried out massacres that killed some 800,000 people, and of propping up the ethnic Hutu leaders who orchestrated the slaughter.
    Paris says the independent Rwandan commission set up to investigate France's role in the bloodshed, which published the report on Tuesday, is biased.

    "The other strong accusation is that France after the death of Arybyama continued to help the Hutu extremists during the genocide. The conclusion of the report is: "During the genocide the French soldiers stayed in Rwanda and were fighting alongside the FAR. During this period France still supplied the FAR with ammunition and weapons." There is a lot of elements on weapons supplies, and that is new. This report goes further than the French investigation commission. France was supplying weapons to a government which was committing the genocide. There is a lot of elements which shows that for the period of April, May, June July, 1994 during the whole period of the genocide. That is something France never admitted," added Ourdan.
    Attached to the report was a list of 33 accused French political and military officials.
    As well as Mitterrand and Villepin, others listed include then foreign minister Alain Juppe, a senior figure in current President Nicolas Sarkozy's party, then prime minister Edouard Balladur and Hubert Vedrine, both still senior politicians.
    Rwandan President Paul Kagame cut ties with France in November 2006 in protest at a French judge's call for him to stand trial over the death of his predecessor in April 1994 -- an event widely seen as unleashing the genocide.
    That call prompted street protests in Kigali. Relations soured further after the Rwandan commission later heard accounts from victims who said they were raped by French soldiers after seeking refuge with them during the genocide.
    But ties between the two nations had improved in recent months after Kagame met Sarkozy at a European Union-Africa summit in Lisbon in December 2007.
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