The damning report accused a raft of top French politicians of involvement in the massacres, threatening to further mar relations between the two countries, which severed diplomatic ties in November 2006.
"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.
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.
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.
Dominique de Villepin, who was then Juppe's top aide and later became prime minister, was also among those listed in the Rwandan report.
The report names 20 military officials as being responsible.
France refused to comment directly on the report's findings, saying the inquiry had lacked legitimacy or impartiality.
A Defence Ministry spokesman instead referred reporters to the government's position as set out in a statement from February 2007.
That original statement declared that the Rwandan inquiry had no "independence or impartiality" because its stated remit was to "gather evidence of the involvement of the French state" in the Rwandan genocide.
The inquiry, it stated, had "no legitimacy nor competence" to conduct interviews on French soil because it had broken off diplomatic relations with France in November 2006.
France has acknowledged making "mistakes" in Rwanda but denies any responsibility for the killing spree.
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.
"The overwhelming nature of France's support to the Rwandan policy of massacres... shows the complicity of French political and military officials in the preparation and execution of the genocide," the statement said.
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 continue to man those checkpoints and kill Tutsis attempting to flee," the statement added.
"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. "
Source: Yahoo News
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- regjoeschmo
- added this
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- recommended by:
- merasyad
- added August 06, 2008
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Those who are responsible, know they are responsible. I have faith that justice will be served in this case. Here's a pod about a young man who fled Rwanda in 1994, and his experience returning years later to find his surviving family members.
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Sometimes is seems like Europe has blinkers on when it comes to crimes like this.
With the attitude: this kind of thing happens elsewhere, nothing to do with us "civilised" folks.
Now with former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic facing charges of crimes against humanity in the Hague, it seems past atrocities comitted in, or by, Europe may well be coming back to haunt us.
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America isn't the only country that can suck. we're all guilty and it's sad to have to say it.
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- MissAmanda
- 5 months ago
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According to a movie that I watched that was based on facts (I take movies like that like someone relating a first hand account...not as something that wasn't embellished---just like any other kind of first hand account) that pointed the finger at the French subtly and I just thought that that was a well known thing that they had a hand in this.
I didn't know it was so downplayed.
Funny the French would state that the investigation was biased when the question that should be asked was who was going to handle the investigation that wouldn't have made it biased their eyes? Who would have cared to start it other than those that were victims of the crimes? Was France handling an investigation? Had they ever handled one?
This reminds me of how proper the Americans had to be when addressing the French about helping during independence and then when they came to ask for help in their war with Britain they were demanding and pompous. It's not wrong to have been demanding and pompous, because the situation was dire and they needed help, but it was wrong to make people behave on your land and then you go off half whacked on theirs. No one should be allowed to do that.
That's why I'm embarrassed when I hear stories of demanding Americans in other lands...it's just a poor show of what good Americans truly are. It's those that are rich enough to leave who put a bad name on those of us who either choose to stay or not have enough money to travel.
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I don't know too much about what happened in Rwanda so I didn't even know the French were involved with them, let alone killing Tutsis.
I need to brush up on this subject.
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The French and 'Marianne' aren't as virtuous as they think they are sometimes, unfortunately...
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- iamwilliamhello
- 5 months ago
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Are the people they are accusing here still in power in modern day France?
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This story to me just makes me really sad. I thought some country in Europe had something to do with Rwanda (Check out responses to post on Solar panels in the Sahara) but not this far. This is why G8 countries are so strong, they prey of weak countries for labor and resources and get away with it. Like demanding money for Independence from countries that won their independence through war (France/Haïti relationship), further making them unstable while the G8 country grows economically. This also proves that Africa instability is not only due because of inner conflicts but also because of outside factors that sparked those inner conflicts. I hope that every country learns from this and tries to find a peaceful resolution to helping each other without extraneous interference.
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- currentlyreading
- 5 months ago
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It's about @#$%ing time.
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I hope justice gets served here. It's time to stop brushing genocide under the carpet and start holding those involved accountable.
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- mookster_07
- 5 months ago
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I am confused - were there French soldiers at these checkpoints? Were there French soldiers anywhere during these events? I was under the impression that the genocide in this country was happening to Rwandans by Rwandans - the images of bloody machettes held by schoolage children on every headline. I did not hear anything about any other countries having troops in the area at all.
If there were no French troops in place, can they really hold the blame for what one group does to another? Can US and British troops be blamed for fighting between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq? Can the UN be blamed for the attacks in Darfur? Every first-world nation on this planet has sold arms to a third world nation now suffering civil war, insurgency, or whatever you want to call it today. No country is truly neutral, even Switzerland is being called to the carpet for Holocaust related reparations. I have no idea how deep France's involvement was in Rwanda, but if its only as deep as arms sales or some basic training, well, every country is guilty of that. The Rwandans brought genocide upon themselves, their government needs to own that and make it up to the people. -
Whether the French actively had a hand in it or not. We are all guilty of sitting by while 800,000 men, women, and children were hacked to bits with machetes and the survivors raped and enslaved to be tortured. The Belgians created the cast system that made this possible and then abandoned the Tutsis who they had propped up for 200 years as superior to the Hutus. The UN and Belgium pulled out of the country and abandoned a Tutsi sanctuary on the eve of a riot where thousands of Hutus waited with machetes to kill all those in that compound and they did.
In 1996 then President Clinton issued the first ever US apology for our inaction as he was touring what was left of the country. Remember that the bulk of the genocide took place in 28 days and the main weapons used were machetes!
Please read up on what really happened because it can, and it will happen again if we continue to have a foreign policy that only allows us to act when oil is involved. The more you learn about this and other atrocities, the harder it will be for us to do nothing while genocide is happening all around us. A very similar scenario is playing out right now in Darfur and it's not too late to stop the genocide. We are all humans and we are all in this together. Lest we forget that genocide can happen anywhere!
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Until we help make things better for everyone in the world suffering right at this moment, we are all responsible for their suffering...
Let's take less time to find the blame and more time to make things better and prevent shit like this in the future...
BFAM_RVS
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guess the french dont have the right to be pointing fingers at us for places like club gitmo.
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Compassion to the people!
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The French Peace Keepers were there, but they failed to protect tihe innocent! They wore the blue helmet, ate the cheese, drank the wine, and then stood by while hundred's of thousands were murdered. The French and the U.N. should be resigned to Hell, for their failure to protect the innocent!
