FRANCE played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled today by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted. "French forces directly assassinated Tutsis and Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis... French forces committed several rapes on Tutsi survivors," said a justice ministry statement released after the report was presented in Kigali.
| This isn't pegging my "likely" meter... |
The 500-page report alleged that France was aware of preparations for the genocide,
contributed to planning the massacres
and actively took part in the killing.
| For sheer love of the sight of blood? Does... not... compute, unless the Frenchies were flat out nutz. |
It named former French prime minister Edouard Balladur, former foreign minister Alain Juppe and then-president Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, among 13 French politicians accused of playing a role in the massacres.
| Much as I disliked Mitterrand, I can't see him raping Tutsi maidens for the fun of it. It wasn't his style. Not caring a fig whether somebody else did it was his style, but I can't see that as a crime. |
The report also names 20 military officials as being responsible. "Considering the seriousness of the alleged crimes, the Rwandan government has urged the relevant authorities to bring the accused French politicians and military officials to justice," the statement said.
| I wouldn't expect to see much in the way of hard evidence. |
The 1994 genocide in the central African nation left around 800,000 people - mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus - dead, according to the United Nations. Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama presented the report to the press in Kigali, more than two years after a special commission tasked with probing France's role in the genocide began its work.
The statement said the military and humanitarian Operation Turquoise carried out by the French in Rwanda between June and August 1994 abetted the killings perpetrated by the extremist Interahamwe Hutu militia. The French military "did not challenge the infrastructure of genocide, notably the checkpoints manned by the Interahamwes."
"They clearly requested that the Interahamwes contine to man those checkpoints and kill Tutsis attempting to flee," the statement said.
The release of the report comes against a backdrop of tense relations between France and Rwanda. In November 2006, Kigali severed diplomatic ties with France after French investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere accused Kagame of involvement in the death of the then president, Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu. Habyarimana's plane was shot down above Kigali airport on April 6, 1994, sparking the genocide. |