PARIS (AP) – The French government bears “significant” responsibility for “making possible a foreseeable genocide,” concludes a report commissioned by the Rwandan government on France’s role before and during the atrocity that killed an estimated 800,000 people. were massacred in 1994.
The report, which The Associated Press has read, stems from Rwanda efforts to document the role of the French authorities before, during and after the genocide, part of the steps taken by French President Emmanuel Macron to strengthen relations with improve the Central African country.
The 600-page report says that in April and May 1994, France “did nothing to stop the massacres” and in the years following the genocide tried to cover up its role and even protect some of the perpetrators.
It will be made public later on Monday after its formal presentation to the Rwandan cabinet.
It concludes that in the years leading up to the genocide, former French President Francois Mitterrand and his government had knowledge of the preparations for the massacres – yet continued to support the government of then Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana despite the “ warning signs. ”
“The French government was not blind or unaware of the foreseeable genocide,” the authors emphasize.
The Rwandan report comes less than a month after a French report commissioned by Macron, concluded that the French authorities had been “blind” to the preparations for genocide and then reacted too slowly to understand and respond to the scale of the killings. It concluded that France had “burdensome and overwhelming responsibilities” in not responding to the frenzy that led to the massacre that killed mostly ethnic Tutsis and the moderate Hutus who tried to protect them. Groups of extremist Hutus have committed the murders.
The two reports, with their extensive albeit different details, could mark a turning point in relations between the two countries.
Rwanda, a small but strategic country of 13 million inhabitants, is “ready” for a “new relationship” with France, Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta told AP.
“Perhaps most important in this process is that those two committees have analyzed the historical facts, analyzed the archives that have been made available to them and come to a common understanding of that past,” he said. “From there we can build this strong relationship.”
The Rwandan report, prepared in 2017 by Washington law firm Levy Firestone Muse, draws on a wide variety of documentary sources from governments, nongovernmental organizations and academics, including diplomatic cables, documentaries, videos and news articles. The authors also said they interviewed more than 250 witnesses.
In the years before the genocide, French officials “armed, advised, trained, rested and protected the Rwandan government, disregarding the Habyarimana regime’s commitment to dehumanization and ultimately the destruction and death of Tutsi in Rwanda,” said the report. .
The French authorities at the time pursued “France’s own interests, in particular the strengthening and expansion of France’s power and influence in Africa”.
In April and May 1994, at the height of the genocide, French officials “did nothing to stop the massacres,” the report said.
Operation Turquoise, a French-led military intervention backed by the UN that began on June 22, “came too late to save many Tutsis,” the report said.
Authors say they have “found no evidence that French officials or personnel participated directly in the Tutsi murder during that period.”
This finding echoes the conclusion of the French report acquitting France of complicity in the massacres, saying that “nothing in the records” demonstrates a “willingness to participate in a genocidal operation.”
The Rwandan report also addressed the attitude of the French authorities after the genocide.
Over the past 27 years, “the French government has obscured its role, distorted the truth and protected those who committed the genocide,” it says.
The report suggests that the French authorities made “little effort” to bring those who committed the genocide to justice. Three Rwandan nationals have so far been convicted of genocide in France.
It also strongly criticizes the French government for not disclosing documents about the genocide. Notably, the government of Rwanda submitted three requests for documents in 2019, 2020 and this year that the French government “ignored,” the report said.
Under French law, documents related to military and foreign policy can remain secret for decades.
But things could change, the Rwandan report says, citing “ hopeful signs. ”
On April 7, the day of the commemoration of the genocide, Macron announced his decision to release the archives from 1990 to 1994 belonging to the French President and Prime Minister and to make them accessible to the public.
“Recent disclosures of documents related to the (French) report … may indicate a move towards transparency,” said the authors of the Rwandan report.
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda hailed the report commissioned by Macron as “a good thing”, and welcomed efforts in Paris to “move forward with an understanding of what has happened”.
Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan long-wanted for his alleged role in supplying machetes to the killers, was arrested outside Paris last May.
And in July, an appeals court in Paris upheld a decision to end years of investigation into the plane crash that killed Habyarimana. and caused the genocide. That investigation exacerbated the government of Rwanda as it attacked several people near Kagame for their alleged roles, allegations they denied.
Last week, a Rwandan priest was arrested in France for his alleged role in the genocide, which he denied.
AP writer Rodney Muhumuza contributed from Kampala, Uganda.