France will never be at peace until they admit their complicity in the Genocide against the Tutsi

According to this report, French forces provided both military training and arms to Interahamwe militias (Photo: Courtesy)

Genocide is the worst crime in the existence of humankind. It has been suffered by millions of people throughout history.

Its memory, inscribed in erasable scars, has shaped the destinies of victims and perpetrators in diametrically opposing ways.

The Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda 23 years ago is a case in point. It was history’s most efficient and brutal campaign to exterminate a people and its ramifications reverberate around the world today.

The impact of the mass murder of more than one million people will continue to be felt for generations to come.For precisely this reason, persons and parties – including governments – complicit in its planning and execution have spared no effort in trying to cover their tracks.

They have engaged in a campaign of denial and disinformation, of trying to distort the truth of what happened. But their vile efforts will not succeed because, as we say in Rwanda, truth always passes through fire untouched.

Such is the fate of France, the supporter-in-chief and financier of the Genocide against the Tutsi. France craves to be free of its burden of complicity but it never will. Only a full admission of its heinous role in that dark chapter in the history of the world will redeem it. This might be a tall order, but there is no alternative.

It is France that advised Rwanda’s genocidaires, it is France that financed them, and it is France that gave them cover when their monstrous campaign collapsed.

It is France that, to this day, denies the Genocide against the Tutsi and it is France that still gives refuge to those who planned and carried out the Genocide. It is France’s fate to suffer the condemnation of survivors of the Genocide and of all peace loving citizens of the world.

This week, Washington DC based law firm Cunningham Levy Muse LLP released an independent report documenting the role and knowledge of French officials in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The report, which has been shared with the Government of France, thoroughly investigating the responsibility of French officials with respect to the Genocide.

The Muse Report, which is based on information already available on the public record, indicates there is sufficient evidence to substantiate allegations of France’s involvement in the Genocide, specifically the role of French officials.

The report also identifies evidence suggesting the accountability process has been and continues to be undermined by French actors.

The Muse Report is illuminative. It details, among many other damning facts;

French officials facilitated the flow of weapons into Rwanda in the build-up to the Genocide, despite knowing about violent attacks against the minority Tutsi group in the country.

Despite this knowledge of recurring massacres of the Tutsi during the early 1990s, French officials allowed genocidaires to meet within the French Embassy in Kigali and begin to form the interim government that presided over Rwanda during the Genocide.

Private communications between French officials reveal that Opération Turquoise, which was presented as a humanitarian mission, had in fact the military objective of propping up the interim government responsible for the Genocide and preventing its removal by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, who eventuality halted the atrocities in July 1994.

French officials provided safe harbour to suspected génocidaires and obstructed attempts to bring them to justice at various points during the 23 years since the Genocide.

French authorities have refused to declassify and release documents that are vital to a full understanding of the activity of French officials at the time of the Genocide, and to allowing the public to finally learn the truth.

France has failed either to extradite or to prosecute the majority of the dozens of Genocide suspects residing within the country.

The 1998 French Parliamentary Commission’s investigation into the role of French officials was neither transparent nor complete.

The Government of Rwanda has accepted the Muse Report recommendation that these facts merit a full investigation into the responsibility of French officials in the Genocide against the Tutsi.

According to genocide scholars, there are eight stages to the act of genocide: Classification; symbolisation; dehumanisation; organisation; polarisation; preparation and extermination, with the final stage being denial.

It’s with no doubt that France is implementing the final phase of this whole process with the aim of masking their evil deeds. Another form of the denial that France is openly exercising is harbouring perpetrators of the Genocide by refusing to prosecute or extradite them.

As of today, France has 39 genocidaire fugitives on its territory wanted by the courts of law to answer for the crime of genocide they masterminded - the largest number of any country in Europe.

Tellingly, none of these cases have been tried yet all that is required for them to be brought before the courts is available.

Justice travels in long and winding contours to reach its intended recipients. But however long it takes, it must arrive at its destination. The crime of genocide cannot be wished away or covered up. And France best understand this. Those that support, finance or give comfort to genocidaires will know no peace until they admit their complicity and seek their victims’ redemption.

Kim Kamasa is the first secretary of the Rwanda High Commission to Kenya. Twitter @KimKamasa.