Activists react to new report on France's role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi

The recently released report by a team commissioned by the French government to probe the latter’s role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, does not give enough explanation and leaves a bitter taste because it does not admit complicity. This is the observation of Yolande Mukagasana, a Genocide survivor and president of the Yolande Mukagasana Foundation whose objectives include fighting against denial and revisionism of the 1994 Genocide. In a statement published on Monday, March 29, Mukagasana noted that her foundation salutes the French government’s effort but pressed that Genocide suspects living in the European country be brought to justice. France is known to be home to at least 47 indicted Genocide suspects. President François Mitterrand who was in power in France during the Genocide, and his government and relatives, bear great responsibility in the 1994 Genocide, Mukagasana noted. “President Mitterrand and his relatives were the first deniers and revisionists of the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi, which offered a significant place to denial and revisionism of all kinds in the world. Rwandans still have to face this today,” the Foundation stated. “The responsibility of President François Mitterrand and his entourage is overwhelming, especially that of Hubert Védrine, his secretary. Hopefully, France will not wait for his death or some serious illness to hold him accountable, and he is not alone.” As far as complicity is concerned, the conclusion of the report drowns the fish or does not give enough explanation “and leaves us with a bitter taste” because it does not admit complicity, the Foundation stated. “Could this be a way to avoid justice?” the Foundation asks. According to the Foundation, even if the report insists on the blindness of the power of Mitterrand and his close entourage, it was a deliberate choice because the French military fought alongside the Rwandan Armed Forces since 1990. “We expect that this commission, for which we congratulate the step taken, will end up answering the questions we are asking ourselves about the role of French soldiers in Murambi where the French flag was flying during the Genocide, as well as in Bisesero, where the French soldiers are more noticed than elsewhere by the failure of their policy in Rwanda.” In addition, the foundation makes it clear that it is waiting for the Commission to also look into Operation Turquoise, an operation called humanitarian when it was military given its armament. Operation Turquoise, it is noted, facilitated the escape of the genocidaires and absolutely wanted to put the country in their hands. It was in the Operation Turquoise area that the weapons passed to allow the forces of the genocidal regime to continue committing the Genocide during an embargo. Guillaume Ancel, a retired French officer who was assigned to Operation Turquoise during the 1994 Genocide, has also published another article shedding light on facts including that the operation was a cover to prop up the falling genocidal regime. Officials from Ibuka, the umbrella body for genocide survivors, declined comment as they are still reading the 1,200-page report and plan to come out with their own observations later this week. Mitterrand and his acolytes Alain Gauthier, president of Collectif des Parties Civiles pours le Rwanda (CPCR), a rights group in France which has for nearly two decades worked to bring Genocide suspects living there to book, said “we are pleased that the Duclert report speaks of ‘the crushing responsibility of Mitterrand and his relatives including the soldiers. Among the mentioned names include Gen. Christian Quesnot, Special Chief of staff of President Mitterrand from 1991 to 1995, and Gen. Jean-Pierre Huchon, deputy to General Quesnot from April 1991 to April 1993, and Hubert Védrine, a top politician known to still wield much influence in France. During the Genocide, Védrine, the former Secretary-General of l’Elysée (French Presidency) under Mitterrand is known to have given direct orders to rearm the Rwandan army and Interahamwe militia, defying a UN arms embargo. Gauthier said: “We would have preferred the term ‘complicity,’ which we have been pushing for over 20 years. If ‘responsibility’ for historians means ‘complicity’ for jurists, a big step towards a truth still to be discovered will have been taken. We will have to analyze the report closely.” And then Gauthier said there are questions to ask in this whole saga. He posed: “Why did the Bureau of the National Assembly refuse access to the archives of the MIP, the Parliamentary Information Mission of 1998? Other archives could not be consulted. Why?” Not much is revealed, Gauthier said, about the April 6, 1994 attack on former President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane and the possibility of French participation through mercenaries or through possible French links with the attack. He said activities of French agents such as Captain Paul Barril, an ex-French military officer, and Commander Grégoire De Saint Quentin, who was technical advisor to the Commander of the Para-commando battalion, Major Aloys Ntabakuze and training officer of aerial troops, from 1992 to 1994, should have been tackled. The Duclert report, Gauthier said, is a first step which could go towards a little more truth. More political than legal According to Dr Alphonse Muleefu, a legal scholar and senior lecturer at the University of Rwanda, the Duclert Commission’s report, was commissioned by the French President and as such, “it serves more in politics than in law.” Muleefu said: “It serves as a source of information, and I think it has more value now under international relations than international law, because it gives a basis to any good intentioned French official to publicly acknowledge the French role and work towards improving their relationship with Rwanda.”

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Activists react to new report on France's role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi