France, a hotspot of deniers of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi is finally trying an author, Charles Onana for the crime. It is only the second case of this kind, despite the country’s involvement in the atrocities. Onana and his publishing director at Editions du Toucan, Damien Serieyx, were sued four years ago over the book titled “Rwanda: The Truth about Operation Turquoise” published a year before. The French-Cameroonian author has been for a long time, a supporter of perpetrators of the Genocide against the Tutsi. He is a permanent fixture at trials of masterminds of the Genocide that took over a million innocent lives where he appears as an expert witness. ALSO READ: Charles Onana’s Genocide denial trial begins in France In the book, Onana allegedly describes the idea that the Hutu government had planned a genocide in Rwanda as one of the biggest scams of the last century. Although France’s lengthy process to put this man with his virulent ideology in the dock has been a disappointment to many, especially survivors of the Genocide, the precedent it sets is the silver-lining. It at least sends a message to deniers who have made France and the entire Europe at large that what they are doing is actually illegal, and that sooner or later, they will be caught up by the law. ALSO READ: Charles Onana: An Ideological Successor to the Genocidal Regime It should also serve as an example to other countries that overlook Genocide denial, which is not only a grave crime but also an inhumane one in which victims are disregarded, survivors silenced, and history distorted. With the Genocide, there is no neutrality. It is either the facts, or denial and complicity in denial. Will Onana’s case bear results? Time will tell. But can we learn from it? Most definitely.
