We may soon learn France's real role in the Rwanda genocide
In a milestone court case in Paris, unprecedented testimony could
reveal the Elysée's links to the 1994 génocidaires
Wednesday 5 February 2014 19.11 GMT
'The policy was devised in secret ... within the confines of the Africa
Unit. At its heart was François Mitterrand.' Photograph: Brian
Harris/The Independent/Rex
Linda Melvern
The trial this week of a Rwandan genocide suspect in a Paris courtroom
is a well-earned victory for the French human rights groups who
lobbied so hard and so long for justice. The milestone trial signals
the end of France as a safe haven for génocidaries. But more than
this, the trial is likely to see intense public scrutiny of one of the
great scandals of the past century - the role of France in the 1994
genocide of the Tutsi of Rwanda, which for 20 years journalists and
activists have tried so hard to expose.
Pascal Simbikangwa, the defendant in Paris, is said to have been a
member of an inner circle of power in Rwanda that devised genocide as
a planned political campaign. Developed by Hutu ideologues, it was
intended to prevent a power-sharing system of government that was to
include the minority Tutsi. The genocide claimed up to a million
lives.
A captain in the Rwandan gendarmerie until 1986, when he was paralysed
in a car accident, Simbikangwa - a fanatic who hoped to create what
was known as "a pure Hutu state" - worked for the security services in
the capital Kigali. He was eventually found hiding out in the French
department of Mayotte, an island group in the Indian Ocean, with 3,000
forged identity papers - more than enough for the hundreds of Rwandan
fugitives still at large. He denies all the charges, and his lawyer
says he is a scapegoat.
Until now there has been a complete absence of will in Paris to bring
to justice any of the estimated 27 Rwandan genocide fugitives who live
on French soil. The country was a staunch ally of the Rwandan
government which planned and perpetrated the genocide. The trial may
well show the French electorate just how appalling its secret policy
towards the central African state really was.
The policy was devised in secret, with no accountability from press or
parliament and largely determined within the confines of a special
office in the president's Elysée Palace known as the Africa Unit. It
operated through a network of military officers, politicians,
diplomats, businessmen and senior intelligence operatives. At its
heart was President François Mitterrand, who had operated through
senior army officers: General Christian Quesnot, Admiral Jacques
Lanxade and General Jean-Pierre Huchon.
The prosecution testimony in the trial will be unprecedented in the
detail it will provide about the genocide. The evidence combines the
results of investigations into the Simbikangwa case at the
international criminal tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and details from
investigations carried by Rwandan authorities. Never before, not even
in the courtrooms of the ICTR, has such an impressive array of
witnesses assembled. It is hoped that their combined testimony will
put paid to a campaign of denial waged by defence lawyers at the ICTR
who claimed the killing in Rwanda was not the result of a conspiracy
but was somehow "spontaneous".
Simbikangwa's prosecutors are concentrating on his role during the
killing, when he allegedly encouraged the murder of Tutsi by
Interahamwe militia on roadblocks and provided them with weapons. The
roadblocks and the Interahamwe were an integral part of the planned
killing mechanism and ensured the speed and scale of the slaughter.
But the impact of the Simbikangwa trial will be felt far beyond the
courtroom. It is hoped that for the French public the nature of the
genocide will be laid bare, and that at long last a debate about
France and Rwanda will begin. Twenty years too late, a true reckoning
may at last be possible.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/05/paris-trial-elysee-rwanda-genocide
--
SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
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