CNLG urges France to cancel arrest warrants against Rwandan officials

The National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) has issued a fresh call for French courts to cancel standing arrest warrants against nine Rwandan officials and senior officers of Rwanda Defence Forces, saying the warrants are politically motivated. CNLG executive secretary Jean Damascène Bizimana said in a statement yesterday that the French judiciary should emulate Spain that recently cancelled arrest warrants against Rwandan officials after realising that the accusations against them were politically motivated. In 2006, ex-anti-terrorism French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière accused nine members of the Rwandan government of involvement in the assassination of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, and issued arrest warrants against the accused following a controversial investigation. But other French anti-terrorist judges Marc Trévidic and Nathalie Poux, who replaced Bruguière on the plane crash file, have since dismissed Bruguière’s thesis that the plane was downed by former soldiers of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi). After conducting their research in Rwanda, unlike Bruguière who never set foot in the country during his investigation, Judges Trévidic and Poux concluded in a 2012 report that Kanombe Barracks was the launch site of the missiles that brought down the former president’s plane. Since the barracks was tightly guarded by ex-FAR (the national army during Habyarimana’s government), under the authority of Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, a key mastermind of the Genocide committed against the Tutsi, the French judges concluded that the president’s plane might have been shot by Hutu extremists who went on to commit the Genocide. CNLG officials say that since “an opaque silence’ has followed findings of investigating judges Poux and Trévidic, the French judiciary should realise that Rwandan officials have no case to answer and cancel arrest warrants against them. “It is time that a dismissal is delivered for people affected by the unjustified arrest warrants issued by Judge Bruguière, based on motives other than judicial. Such a decision would silence some voices who espouse the theory of double genocide and whose master thinkers include members of association “France Turquoise”,” said Dr Bizimana in the statement. He said that members of “France Turquoise” include French military officers who played a role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, such as General Jacques Hogard, Jean-Claude La Fourcade, Jacques Rosier and Michel Robardey. The officers are “founding members of the Association France-Turquoise, whose purpose is the justification of the role of its members in the Genocide against the Tutsi, denial of planning (of the Genocide) and deliberate demonisation of Rwandan authorities”, Bizimana said. The official said that Spanish arrest warrants, which were cancelled recently, had been inspired by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière and they were aimed at destabilising the government in Kigali. “It is therefore high time for the French courts, like the Spanish justice, to distance itself from the clutches of some militaro-politico influences of certain individuals that were involved in some way in the Genocide against the Tutsi. Justice wherever it is requested and issued, shall be independent and respectful of the people. The French justice should understand this and follow reasonable and meaningful steps towards the real justice,” he said. All the Rwandan officials indicted by Bruguière fought in the liberation war that stopped the Genocide and defeated Habyarimana’s regime. CNLG says that cancelling the arrest warrants against the officials would honour the victims and survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

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CNLG urges France to cancel arrest warrants against Rwandan officials