Fondation Yolande Mukagasana has commended the Muse Report on the responsibility of France in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, saying that the report puts the the two countries on course for reconciliation.
The Foundation, whose objective is to fight denial and revision of the Genocide against Tutsi, made the observations in a press statement it issued on Tuesday, April 20, 2021.
The statement was signed by Yolande Mukagasana, the president of the Foundation. Mukagasana is a Rwandan writer and survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
The Muse Report was produced by a team of legal experts led by American jurist Robert F Muse from the Washington-based law firm Levy, Firestone Muse LLP.
On April 19, the team handed their 600-page report dubbed; ‘A foreseeable Genocide: the role of the French Government in connection with the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi,’ which was presented to the cabinet chaired by President Paul Kagame.
It was commissioned in 2017 by the Rwandan government.
The report showed that the French government was neither blind nor unconscious about the Genocide and provided unwavering support to the Genocidal government that was in power then.
"Finally, reconciliation is possible between our two countries, France and Rwanda. This will lead to harmonious co-exisistance between our peoples who are innocent,” says the press release published in French.
The statement says that a true reconciliation can be achieved through having truth about the common history, a history which exacerbates the tensions between the two peoples (of Rwanda and France).
She added that reconciliation between France and Rwanda is not a sign of weakness, but a great proof of humanity, that reconciliation is not synonymous with impunity.
"We can now look our children in the face both in Rwanda and in France and tell them that there was indeed a Genocide against a part of the Rwandan population that was called the Tutsi, that it happened in an African country named Rwanda,” the statement said.
"And do not forget to tell them that it is Rwandans who planned this genocide and that the leaders of a European country, France, ‘the country of human rights’, have committed their country to this crime,” it added.
Meanwhile, the Muse report follows the report by a Commission of experts led by a French Historian Vincent Duclert, which, among others, concluded that France bears heavy and overwhelming responsibility over the 1994 Genocide.
Turning point
The Foundation said that the conclusions of these two complementary reports mark a historic turning point unexpected between France and Rwanda.
Thanks to these two reports, it said, denial and revision of the genocide against the Tutsi no longer have a place in the world.
"Everything was clear, France bears a very heavy responsibility in the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi because it was engaged in the crime by its highest authorities,” the Foundation indicated.
"This at least makes it possible to show that the survivors are not mad, they bear witness to what they have seen and experienced in their flesh and what they have endured in their hearts for thirty years,” it noted.
The Foundation "commended the courage and determination" of the French President, Emmanuel Macron for commissioning a team to study its role in the Genocide.
However, it said that he should use all his influence to allow researchers to access the archives of the French parliamentary commission of enquiry led by Paul Quilès in 1998, as well as to the French military archives in order to bring out the whole truth.
The foundation also urged Macron to put more effort in ensuring Genocide fugitives currently living in France are apprehended and brought to justice.
Several Genocide mastermind have for the past 27 years lived scot-free in France where they apparently enjoyed protection from previous regimes.