Genocide against Tutsi: Declassified French documents confirm Paris fought RPF to the bitter end

It has been 23 years since the start of the Genocide against the Tutsi. Pope Francis this year begged forgiveness for the Churchs role in the Rwandan tragedy, nineteen years after then US President Bill Clintons apology. But France, accused of complicity in the Genocide, refuses to apologise, often slamming Rwandans for distorting history. However, the declassified French documents reveal a different story; a story of French officials who fought the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to the bitter end when they knew that only a military victory of this rebel force could stop the Genocide. Nearly 30 years after the decolonisation of Africa, French officials continued to view the continent as a battlefield between France and Anglo-Saxon powers led by Great Britain and the United States, the documents indicate. The Ugandan Tutsis are moving ahead to conquer Rwanda, its worrying...We are on the edge of the Anglophone frontline, then President François Mitterrand alerted his cabinet ministers, following the Uganda-based RPFs 1990 offensive into then Francophone Rwanda. The left-leaning President also viewed the conflict through colonial ethnic lenses and held prejudice against the Tutsi whom he blamed for the conflict. The fear of losing to the Anglo-Saxons combined with anti-Tutsi prejudices led France to aid and abet Juvenal Habyarimanas murderous regime even after French Ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres informed Paris that a human rights inquiry collected reports on the systematic genocide ordered by President Juvenal Habyarimana, the archive documents show. Amb. Martres himself promoted the slaughter of Tutsi through the dreaded self-defence groups, when he expressed regret that the then Rwandan government “couldnt exploit to the maximum the loyalty of the peasants who are increasingly participating in the military action through self-defence groups, armed with arrows and machetes”. Throughout the war, the massacre of Tutsi civilians didnt seem to bother Paris. It didnt stop it from increasing its military support which ranged from arming, training, advising and supervising the Rwandan army to developing battle plans, questioning Tutsi prisoners and operating in combat zones, according to Frances own 1998 parliamentary inquiry. Despite this range of support, the then Rwandan army (ex-FAR) couldnt defeat the RPF rebels (known as Rwanda Patriotic Army). The powerful RPF attack of February 8, 1993 instilled a state of panic in French officials as the army stopped fighting altogether, the files show. Pierre Jox, then French minister for defence, suggested a tactical withdrawal of French troops to make both Uganda and the RPF give up a military victory for a political one. But Mitterrand came up with a face-saving strategy that would drag the United Nations into a lethal quagmire. We must, as soon as possible, hand over our position to international forces from the UN. Vis-à-vis the rest of Africa, if France pulls out, which would be wise, everyone will feel threatened. To stay would be to risk being helpless spectators of the conquerors arrival. We should leave, but not under the current conditions, he said. Yet in the chilling premonitory memo of October 15, 1990, Amb. Martres conveyed to Paris the RPF’s firm belief that only a military victory of the RPF could help the Tutsi escape genocide. Sadly, for Mitterrand, the RPF-led victory had to be stopped at all costs. It is not in our interest for the Tutsi to advance too quickly. We have to win more time, slow everything down by all diplomatic means, and continue to support the Rwandan army by supplying it with the munitions it needs, he instructed his cabinet ministers. From that March 3, 1993 meeting onwards, the French diplomatic machine would work around the clock to achieve Mitterrands plot that sealed the fate of non combatant Tutsi. In just three days, the UN chief Boutros Boutros Ghali made the then Rwandan government and the RPF sign a new ceasefire. By March 12, the UN Security Council agreed to consider sending observers to monitor the border between Uganda and Rwanda. Five months later, the Habyarimana regime signed the flawed Arusha peace agreement under pressure, coercion and threats of international funding cuts, the files indicate. The agreement secured Frances exit through the UN door. Soon after French troops handed Rwandas ticking bomb off to the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), they mostly, but not entirely, left the country. To help its Hutu protégés keep their grip on power, France continued to train the army and secretly ship weapons to them until the mass slaughter of Tutsi erupted on April 6, 1994, after Habyarimanas plane was shot down. UNAMIR commander Gen Romeo Dallaire found himself in charge of a mission short of ammunition, fuel, food, medical supplies and the license to shoot except in self-defence. He reached out to New York, begging for help. Instead of empowering UNAMIR, the Security Council incapacitated it by reducing the force from 2,548 to a token of 270 soldiers. A few weeks later, an embarrassed Security Council reversed its decision and extended it to 6,800 troops. But no country, including France, was willing to send troops or pay the bill. Worse still, at the height of the Genocide, France was caught illegally supplying weapons to the Rwandan army through Zaire (now DR Congo). And after 76 days of watching its Hutu allies exterminate Tutsi civilians, it suddenly asked the UN to authorise it to protect civilians in Rwanda. Five skeptical countries abstained from voting in favour of a French-led intervention the Security Council was pressured to authorise. With 2,500 boots back in Rwanda, France changed the UN mandate to meet its true objectives, obviously without consulting the Security Council. General Jean-Claude Lafourcade, the Commander of Operation Turquoise, admitted that he was ordered to also help restore the Hutu authority in a safe zone lying in the western part of Rwanda. French troops did just that. They helped Hutu refugees while protecting the mass murderers to prevent an RPF conquest of the entire country. But after bringing most of Rwanda under control, the undefeatable RPF rebels headed towards the French-controlled “Hutu land”. Incapable of propping up the genocidaires, France helped them flee into neighbouring Zaire, where it reportedly rearmed them, hoping they could someday recapture its lost Francophone Rwanda. As for the RPF, it declared victory on July 17, 1994, bringing an end to three months of carefully planned carnage and butchery. Many believe that, had France not fought this victory, at least 800,000 women, men and children would likely be alive today. Aicha Elbasri is a former Spokesperson for the United Nations Mission in Darfur, winner of the 2015 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, published author and media contributor.

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Genocide against Tutsi: Declassified French documents confirm Paris fought RPF to the bitter end