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world news Diamars 20 aPriL 2021

Rwanda report blames France for 'enabling' the 1994 genocide

(AP) — The French gov- It also strongly criticizes the
ernment bears “signifi- French government for not
cant” responsibility for making public documents
“enabling a foreseeable about the genocide. The gov-
genocide,” a report com- ernment of Rwanda notably
missioned by the Rwan- submitted three requests for
dan government con- documents in 2019, 2020 and
cludes about France’s this year that the French gov-
role before and during ernment “ignored," accord-
the horror in which an ing to the report.
estimated 800,000 people
were slaughtered in 1994. Under French law, docu-
ments regarding military and
The report, which The Asso- foreign policies can remain
ciated Press has read, comes classified for decades.
amid efforts by Rwanda to
document the role of French But things may be chang-
authorities before, during, ing, the Rwandan report says,
and after the genocide, part mentioning “hopeful signs.”
of the steps taken by France’s
President Emmanuel Macron On April 7, the day of com-
to improve relations with the memoration of the genocide,
central African country. Macron announced the deci-
sion to declassify and make
The 600-page report says that accessible to the public the
France “did nothing to stop” archives from 1990 to 1994
the massacres, in April and that belong to the French
May 1994, and in the years president and prime minis-
after the genocide tried to ter's offices.
cover up its role and even of-
fered protection to some per- “Recent disclosures of docu-
petrators. ments in connection with the
(French) report ... may signal
It was made on Monday af- a move toward transparency,”
ter its formal presentation to authors of the Rwandan re-
Rwanda's Cabinet. point in relations between spoke anonymously in accor- Operation Turquoise, a port said.
the two countries. dance with the French presi- French-led military inter-
It concludes that in years dency's policies. vention backed by the U.N. President Paul Kagame of
leading up to the genocide, Rwanda, a small but strategic which started on June 22, Rwanda praised the report
former French President country of 13 million people, The Rwandan report, com- "came too late to save many commissioned by Macron
Francois Mitterrand and his is “ready” for a “new relation- missioned in 2017 from the Tutsi,” the report says. as “a good thing,” welcom-
administration had knowl- ship” with France, Rwanda’s Washington law firm of Levy ing efforts in Paris to “move
edge of preparations for the Foreign Affairs Minister Vin- Firestone Muse, is based on a Authors say they found “no forward with a good under-
massacres — yet kept sup- cent Biruta told AP. wide range of documentary evidence that French officials standing of what happened."
porting the government of sources from governments, or personnel participated di-
then-Rwandan President Ju- “Maybe the most important non-governmental organiza- rectly in the killing of Tutsi Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan
vénal Habyarimana despite thing in this process is that tions and academics includ- during that period.” long wanted for his alleged
the “warning signs.” those two commissions have ing diplomatic cables, docu- role in supplying machetes to
analyzed the historical facts, mentaries, videos, and news This finding echoes the con- the killers, was arrested out-
“The French government have analyzed the archives articles. The authors also said clusion of the French report side Paris last May.
was neither blind nor uncon- which were made available they interviewed more than that cleared France of com-
scious about the foreseeable to them and have come to a 250 witnesses. plicity in the massacres, say- And in July an appeals court
genocide,” the authors stress. common understanding of ing that “nothing in the ar- in Paris upheld a decision to
that past,” he said. “From In the years before the geno- chives" demonstrates a “will- end a years-long investiga-
The Rwandan report comes there we can build this strong cide, “French officials armed, ingness to join a genocidal tion into the plane crash that
less than a month after a relationship.” advised, trained, equipped, operation.” killed Habyarimana and set
French report, commis- and protected the Rwan- off the genocide. That probe
sioned by Macron, concluded A top official in Macron's of- dan government, heedless of The Rwandan report also aggravated Rwanda’s govern-
that French authorities had fice on Monday welcomed the Habyarimana regime’s addressed the attitude of ment because it targeted sev-
been “blind” to the prepara- the report as a “decisive step” commitment to the dehu- French authorities after the eral people close to Kagame
tions for genocide and then which showed "the willing- manization and, ultimately, genocide. for their alleged role, charges
reacted too slowly to appreci- ness expressed by Rwandan the destruction and death of they denied.
ate the extent of the killings authorities to write a shared Tutsi in Rwanda,” the report Over the past 27 years, “the
and to respond to them. It history and, above all, to look charges. French government has cov- Last week, a Rwandan priest
concluded that France had to a common future.” ered up its role, distorted the was arrested in France for his
“heavy and overwhelming French authorities at the time truth, and protected” those alleged role in the genocide,
responsibilities” by not re- He also noted “unprecedent- pursued “France’s own inter- who committed the geno- which he denied.
sponding to the drift that led ed political trust” reached ests, in particular the rein- cide, it says.
to the slaughter that killed between Paris and Kigali forcement and expansion of Macron's office said the
mainly ethnic Tutsis and the as Rwandan officials have France’s power and influence The report suggests that French government is com-
moderate Hutus who tried to shown signs that they agree in Africa.” French authorities made mitted to provide the “nec-
protect them. Groups of ex- with the "irreversible rap- “little efforts” to send to trial essary means” to allow the
tremist Hutus carried out the prochement approach" taken In April and May 1994, at those who committed the “intensification” of legal
killings. by France. the height of the genocide, genocide. Three Rwandan proceedings against alleged
French officials “did nothing nationals have been con- perpetrators of the genocide.
The two reports, with their Macron is considering travel- to stop” the massacres, says victed of genocide so far in Activists estimate more than
extensive even if different ing to Rwanda in the coming the report. France. 100 of them are believed to
details, could mark a turning months, said the official, who live on French territory.