Editor,

RE: "France’s genocidal legacy in Rwanda” (The New Times, December 15).

France should stop skirting around their role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The recent report by Cunningham Levy Muse LLP, a law firm operating from Washington DC, USA has concluded that senior French officials were aware of and aided the actions and goals of both the Habyarimana government and the génocidaires. It also states that French officials have continued to interfere with efforts to achieve truth and justice for the victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi.

The report is based on publicly available information about the role of France in planning and execution of the genocide that claimed over one million lives in just a hundred days span. I am really convinced that the report did not exhaust all information about France’s role in the Genocide against the Tutsi and shielding its masterminds and perpetrators in the aftermath.

Despite the glaring evidence proving its role, France has always rejected any allegation about the role its political and military officials played in atrocities that turned Rwanda into almost ashes.

French officials were deeply involved in the genocide masterminding. Among them are Georges Martres (France’s ambassador to Rwanda from 1989 to 1993) and Jean-Michel Marlaud (France’s ambassador to Rwanda from March 1993 to April 1994).

Through his telegram to Paris in the diplomatic telegram (TD) of 12th October 1990, Georges Martres described the anti-Tutsi nature of the regime, the violence it exercised over them and the possibility of the genocide. This is a proof that he knew everything taking place: "There are some symptoms indicating that this conflict may eventually degenerate into an ethnic war. (...). The arrests of suspects in the city of Kigali alone would amount to several thousands (10,000 minimum). Interrogations are violent; people are imprisoned several days without food or drink. Indeed, Rwandan officials have asserted that Tutsi invaders have inscriptions on them, demanding the return of Tutsi kingship ‘Ramba Mwami’ (Honor the King). This also prohibits any national reconciliation between Hutu of the North and the Hutu of the South as well as some liberal Tutsi who were still hoping for democracy that Habyarimana had promised”.

Besides, French military officers were involved in the genocide both as perpetrators and accomplices, and do not want their acts to be known despite their proofs. This is the biggest cause explaining the persistent’s refusal of the French authorities to validate the ballistic investigation by French experts in Rwanda in 2010 which indicated that missiles were fired from Kanombe military barracks where several French officers were present.

Its high time France admits its role in the horrible Genocide that reveals the humanity’s shocking capacity, instead of skirting around culpability.

Bemba