Editor,

I wish to respond to the article, "French author tells Paris to own up on Genocide” (The New Times, April 26).

Words can never express France’s role in the planning and execution of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Former French Government leaders, especially the late President François Mitterrand, took the lion’s share responsibility in financially and militarily arming the genocidal government.

French soldiers trained the former Rwandan corrupt and undisciplined soldiers, and supplied them with weapons that were used to execute the Genocide. Those same French soldiers also viciously fought gallant Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in order to prevent them from rooting the génocidaires of Rwanda.

When the RPA’s victory was imminent, French leaders launched "Opération Turquoise” to create a safe haven for the génocidaires under the cover of humanitarian assistance mission, but their goal was to facilitate genocide perpetrators to escape to DR Congo (former Zaire).

Not only that, France is also reluctant to bring Genocide suspects (most them masterminds) to justice, or to extradite them to Rwanda.

In my opinion, this is the right time for the current French Government to apologise to the Genocide victims for the tragic actions of the Mitterrand regime. By doing so, they should also sweep those suspects from the streets of France and bring them to justice.

Yonas, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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Les faits sont têtus, indeed! No matter how much they try to stuff the fact of their intimate involvement in the Genocide against Rwanda’s Tutsi, in its preparation, execution, the ex-filtration of the génocidaires and the extensive denial and revisionist since, the French government is like King Canute ordering the tide to retract itself.

They will lose because as Rwandans have always held, truth is indestructible. It eventually triumphs no matter the resources and efforts the French government and their allies mobilise to browbeat down the truth.

As President Paul Kagame stated at Amahoro Stadium on April 7 during the 20th commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi, no country is strong enough, even when it thinks it is, to change historical facts; indeed they always remain obstinate.

Mwene Kalinda, Rwanda