It could be worse: Rwanda vs France Part II

The classic 1993 movie ‘Groundhog Day’ is about a weatherman, played by Bill Murray, who is caught up in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over again. Well, forgive me for believing that we are living a kind of Groundhog Day ourselves, playing the same old game with Paris. Once again, French judicial authorities are opening the Juvenal Habyarimana dossier despite the fact that the original indictment by Jean-Louis Bruguière was discovered to be not only politically motivated, but grounded in false testimony from its star witness, the late Abdul Ruzibiza. The exiled former soldier recanted his testimony, saying that he was promised political asylum if he testified that he heard the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) high command planning the assassination of the former Rwandan president. This new investigation ignores the fact that Judge Marc Trévidic and his team came to Rwanda (something Bruguière never attempted to do), and arrived to the conclusion that whoever shot down the plane probably did so in close proximity to Kanombe Military Base, a Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR) stronghold; an area that the RPA rebels were unlikely to be able to enter with a missile without detection and probable death. This time, ‘investigators’ are travelling to South Africa to record testimony from Kayumba Nyamwasa, a man with a huge ax to grind with the leadership here. I mean, he seems like a man who will say anything and do anything to hurt his former colleagues. So, the question that I must ask is this, what is the possibility that he will tell a tale that doesn’t point a finger to the RPA and its high command, accusing them of planning and executing the assassination? None at all is my humble opinion. Reacting to the news, President Paul Kagame, speaking succinctly on Monday, warned that the severing of diplomatic ties, à la 2006, was within the realm of possibility if the judicial witch-hunt continued. What I suspect is that Paris took this possibility into account when it gave the green light to these new investigations. What I am left to ponder is why Paris continues to flog a dead horse of an investigation that it knows will not only never see the inside of a French courtroom but serve to further dampen diplomatic ties between Rwanda and itself. It is my believe that Paris has ‘done the math’ and decided that further damage to its ties with Kigali is worth the price of protecting its interests in Central and Western Africa. Think about it, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Benin, the Central African Republic have not only further consolidated diplomatic ties with Rwanda, their leaders are actually researching the Rwanda ‘Agaciro’ development model; a model that I believe goes against everything that the corrupt Françafrique model stands for. Whereas the former lauds self-determination, the latter extols the benefits of letting the Metropole control everything. So there is a lot of money and global influence that Paris stands to lose if all these countries go the ‘Rwanda Way’. So, in order to protect their Petit Carré (backyard), Paris is willing to demonise Rwanda’s leadership in the knowledge that a gormless media will run with the ‘RPA shot down the plane and caused the Genocide’ nonsense and, therefore, poison ‘Brand Rwanda’. Therefore, discouraging other nations from following its example. In fact, we should be thankful that the worst they can do to us in the public eye is paint our leadership in an unflattering light (what they can do far from the public eye in certain international financial bodies is a topic for another day). I mean, we have seen what Paris can do if there is a smidgen of disunity in a nation that is acting outside French interests. All we have to do is look at Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Libya to see what can happen when Paris is given free rein to divide and conquer. Former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo is now at the International Criminal Court charged with crimes against humanity; Captain Thomas Sankara was killed in a French-supported coup by his ‘friend’ Blaise Compaore, and Libya’s Mummar Gaddafi is just a memory (as is his country to be honest). So, let us count our blessings and be thankful that the only thing they can do is make our lives a bit more challenging than we would like. Which should be a piece of cake when one remembers where we once were.

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It could be worse: Rwanda vs France Part II