We are not a generation of denial: French youth

Visiting French youth political and civil society leaders have said their quest for truth about the 1994 Genocide against is meant to break silence on France’s complicity in the Genocide. Benjamin Abtan, head of the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (Egam), an umbrella bringing together leaders of youth wings of political organisations, students unions, anti-racist movements and NGOs, said the time is ripe for France to accept its role in the 1994 mass slaughter. “We want the whole truth known about the individual responsibilities of French leaders of the time who were involved in the Genocide against the Tutsi. We know some of them,” Abtan said. “This is a new generation, we want truth. We don’t want to be the generation of silence, the generation of denial or anything like that; we want to be a generation of truth. We want to know people who were responsible for such evil acts.” Abtan was speaking to journalists after a meeting with the executive secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) in Kigali yesterday. “This meeting has addressed some of the key concerns of what happened during and after the Genocide. We also talked about Gacaca court system, among others. For some of us, it is our first time to be in Rwanda, we wanted to know the whole background before we could embark on our quest for more truth on the Genocide,” he said. Abtan added that there are some elements that are documented about French individuals that collaborated with the genocidal government. “What we know is that there are some French individuals who worked with the genocidal regime before, during and after the killings,” he said. “The president of the time, the minister of foreign affairs... to name but a few. We want these people to be known in France and be held accountable for their acts. We want all their responsibilities to be known,” Abtan added. ‘Hard task’ The delegation is in the country for a weeklong research trip on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and the level of French complicity in the pogrom that claimed more than a million lives. Laura Slimani, the head of the youth wing of the French ruling Socialist Party, said it’s a hard task to make the party acknowledge its role in the Genocide, but she insisted that the struggle would go on until it is ‘won’. “We told the president and the prime minister that it was not right for France not to observe Genocide commemoration. They should have attended the commemoration events. It’s difficult to move the lines and to make our the Socialist Party acknowledge some things that some former politicians might have done in the past, but we are trying one step at a time,” Slimani said. Slimani added that from the trip, they will be able to gather all evidence that would be presented in France, indicating that the European nation collaborated with the genocidal government. CNLG chief Jean de Dieu Mucyo said the Egam visit was an important step toward France acknowledging their collaboration with the genocidal government. “Some external forces deny foreign collaboration, but these ones (the visiting youth) are among those that acknowledge the collaboration. They want to know the truth and speak out the truth. We believe this visit will help a lot,” Mucyo said. Rwanda maintains that there is enough evidence implicating France of complicity in the Genocide. “They (French) trained Interahamwe militia, and they were engaged in field killings,” said Mucyo. Egam brings together at least 35 anti-racist organisations from 29 European countries dedicated to fight racism and related vices.

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We are not a generation of denial: French youth