French historian Vincent Duclert on Friday, April 9, officially handed over to President Paul Kagame the report of the Commission he chaired on Frances role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. This follows the release of the report in Paris, France on March 26, which was welcomed by the Government of Rwanda saying it was a step in the right direction. The team of experts and researchers was commissioned in 2019 by French President Emmanuel Macron to probe the then French government role in the 1994 Genocide in which over a million people were killed. At the time, a government statement indicated that the report represents an important step towards a common understanding of France’s role in the 1994 Genocide, something that Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Vincent Biruta, reiterated on Friday. Biruta also noted that the current French government has taken a major step in making a bold decision to try and establish clarity about the European countrys role in Rwandas dark past. This report shows a clear role of France in Rwanda in the period between 1990 and 1994 and especially shows the role of French leaders in 1994 during the Genocide against the Tutsi. There are leaders during that period that played a role, Biruta said. It is therefore an important report regarding the relations between the two countries because it means that both countries can build a better relationship based on a common and clear understanding of the truth about what really happened. Recently, the French government also moved to make public about 8,000 archives including some that were previously classified. Among other things, Duclert noted that the archives - including those of the French secret services - they examined clearly confirm that a Genocide against the Tutsi was well planned and executed. Refuting the genocide revisionists theory of double genocide, Duclert also confirmed that there was only a Genocide against the Tutsi and that the deaths that happened during the advancing of the Rwandan Patriotic Army on the battlefield during the liberation struggle cannot be, in any way, called a genocide. Meanwhile, Biruta reaffirmed the fact that an investigative report commissioned by the Government of Rwanda in 2017 will be released in coming weeks, the conclusions of which will enrich those of the Duclert Commission. Biruta emphasised that the upcoming Rwandan report will complement the French report. In April 2019, Macron appointed a panel of experts to probe France’s actions in Rwanda during the Genocide, a subject that, for long, hindered relations between Rwanda and France. The Duclert Commissions report, among others, concludes that France bears heavy and overwhelming responsibilities over the 1994 Genocide but makes no mention of any evidence of French complicity. The 1,200-page report which appears to absolve France of complicity in the massacres where more than one million people died, concludes that the European country, led by the François Mitterrand during the Genocide, was blind to preparations of the massacres. The French governments complicity, however, is well documented in various reports and books by French authors. France is accused of aiding the genocidal regime in Rwanda at the time and having a direct hand in the Genocide. Activists have said the French report, among others, does not give enough explanation and leaves a bitter taste because it does not admit complicity.
