‘The only way France can renew and reinforce its relationship with Rwanda is by first accepting its past mistakes and asking for forgiveness. Failure to do this will be like building a house on sand, with no concrete foundation.’
(David Glucksmann)
The Rwandan genocide ended the twentieth century on a note of unimaginable evil. A century that had begun with the extermination of up to ten million Congolese people in a violent grasp for colonizing riches by Leopold II of Belgium, ended with Hutus taking up axes and machetes to annihilate their fellow countrymen, whose only crime was to come from a different ethnicity. The suffering, unlike the bodies of the dead, cannot be counted.
For France, the genocide marked the nadir of its francophone policy. It exploded the myth of La Gloire and exposed the arrogance and prejudice that bedevilled the Élysée’s African policy. That the subject is still such a sensitive one to politicians and military figures in Paris two decades after the genocide is testimony to the continued undercurrent of guilt, anger and frustration. With each new revelation from survivors, journalists and ex-soldiers who break rank with the official version of events, there is a move towards an acceptance, unofficially at least, of French responsibility for what occurred.
Prunier has likened France’s role to that of a person giving a bottle of brandy to an alcoholic. The drink does not cause the man’s death but it contributes.1 Why did certain French political and military figures choose this path? Why did it give a country so much political and military support when it was already, according to information its own sources were sending back to Paris, on the verge of an implosion of catastrophic proportions? In 1990, the defence attaché at the French embassy in Kigali had sent a note to the foreign office in Paris detailing his view that the Tutsis in Rwanda were already fearful of genocide. According to this diplomat, any total victory by the Habyarimana regime could result in even more repression and persecution of the minority ethnic group, leading to ‘the total elimination of the Tutsi’.2 His warning went unheeded.
Other commentators have likened the French response to the Rwandan crisis, after the invasion of the RPF in October 1990, to ‘sleepwalking’ into a disaster ‘on the assumption that established policy would continue to work’.3 This was the well-established neo-colonial strategy that had been in place for the previous nine years. The Mitterrand government had decided, after just a few months of experimentation in 1981, that a foreign policy based on human rights, fair trade and democracy was inappropriate for modern-day France. Personal and financial dealing with francophone dictators and military intervention were once more the order of the day.
In such an atmosphere, in 1990 it was hardly news if another African head of state wanted French paratroopers to crush an invasion. For Mitterrand, it would have been controversial to have resisted a call to send Gazelle helicopters, heavily armed paratroopers and special services to repel the RPF, especially since much was made of these invaders being not Rwandans, but Maoist, Ugandan, Anglophone ‘Khmer Noir’ revolutionaries hell-bent on carving out a whole Tutsi empire in the Central Lakes region that would expel France and all its interests. In October 1990 Mitterrand could have backed a negotiated peace and refused Habyarimana military support. That the option was never discussed or considered shows how much Paris had stigmatized the RPF ‘enemy’ and reinforces the view that the Élysée saw all such African questions as best solved by military might rather than discussion and conciliation.
In supporting Habyarimana, the French president was supporting a personal and political friend and ally, and sending a signal to other African leaders of his intent to protect la Francophonie. On another level, it allowed Mitterrand to bask in the glow of la Gloire in action, the tricolour again rescuing troublesome natives from their constant wars and inter-ethnic violence. Mitterrand, on his luxury tour of the Middle East in October 1990, failed to take any proper briefing before deciding to intervene militarily in Rwanda. Questions that needed to be answered went without even being asked. Would the French intervention help promote democratization and bring peace to the country? And what was the real nature of the regime he was supporting?4
For three years, 1990–93, the civil war was characterized by rising violence towards Tutsis. The same forces France was training and arming were carrying out horrific massacres all over the country. The Interahamwe militia comprised not of drunken ill-disciplined men but of highly politicized, well-trained, armed youth responsive to government demands. And as witnesses, including French military whistleblowers have testified, the French assisted the training of these militias. Equally, the French military knew full well that the Interahamwe were terrifying and killing innocent civilians. Indeed, in early 1994, two weeks before he was assassinated on 21 February, opposition politician Félicien Gatabazi referred to the militia’s training camps around the country in a well-publicized speech. For France to deny it knew this was taking place defies reality.
Discounting the massacres as ‘rumours’, France gave Habyarimana all the military backing he needed. The French effectively took over running the campaign against the RPF, using their frontline troops to do everything bar fire the impressive armaments and field batteries flown in to assist their Rwandan allies. While Mitterrand, Huchon and the Africa Cell backed this policy, it was left to a single under-secretary from the French embassy in Tanzania to consider a ‘soft’ diplomatic approach by supporting negotiations at Arusha.
Operation Noroît quietly went about shoring up a regime that was murdering political opponents and civilians alike. The radio station RTLM, founded and financed by Akazu, broadcasted daily inflammatory messages aimed at de-humanizing the Tutsi population. For the literate, the extremist newspaper Kangura, among others, was as fulsome in its denigration of its ethnic enemies as it was in praising Mitterrand as ‘a very real friend’. Human rights groups had been warning of impending ethnic meltdown for three years, while diplomats in Kigali knew months before the genocide that something horrific was about to happen.
According to French Rwanda expert René Lemarchand:
It is difficult to believe that the French were not aware of the potential for genocide created by the systematic manipulation of ethnic identities, by the mob killings of Tutsis over a period of years, and by the incitements to violence broadcast by Radio Mille Collines. If so, it defies Cartesian logic to comprehend how the self-styled ‘patrie des droits de l’homme’ could shove under the rug such massive human rights violations in the name of threats posed to its higher geopolitical interests by the Trojan horse of Anglo-Saxon imperialism. It only took a logic of calculated risks for the authors of the genocide to grasp this paradox.5
Events from 1990 to March 1994 are easily brushed over as analysts concentrate on the genocide, yet this period is critical for judging French responsibility for the eventual carnage. Without Paris’ military support for Habyarimana’s regime the RPF would have seized power sometime in 1993, if not earlier. Mitterrand’s involvement unwittingly gave the Akazu network time to plan the genocide down to producing detailed death lists, getting local officials primed and in place, and building up arms caches around the country. The Interahamwe were brought into being, armed and trained, while radio RTLM was also established to give ‘direction’ to the Hutu population and the genocidaires during the summer of 1994.
Mitterrand and his political and military advisers chose to ignore the impending doomsday scenario. One reason for this is the Hutu extremist sympathizers who held sway in vital policy-making areas in Paris. A French official is quoted as saying shortly after the genocide began, ‘we got rid of the most extremist [officials] of our past policy, in fact, [they were] totally pro-Hutu.’6 The question then is why did it take so long for such men to be moved aside if their views were so well known? Agnes Callamard, in her analysis of the situation considered:
the political responsibility for inaction in this respect was enormous. Second, the political establishment could not have chosen a worse time to wake up from four years of collective amnesia. If some French actors were totally pro-Hutu, they were the only ones who could have some influence upon the Rwandese extremists during the first phase of the genocide and could perhaps have limited the killing.7
When Habyarimana’s plane was shot down on 6 April 1994 to usher in 100 days of carnage, France’s reaction was to reverse totally the policy it had followed for the past three years. Troops were sent in not to fight the RPF but to get everyone out. The French plainly knew within hours of the crash that genocide, or at least killing on an unprecedented scale, was under way. Through their secret intelligence, radio intercepts and surveillance, as well as their close relationships with Bagosora, Agathe Habyarimana and members of Akazu, the French military and government had a clear idea of what was taking place. The new interim government, incredibly put together in the French embassy after the genocide began, can have left few doubts in the minds of Ambassador Marlaud and the French foreign office which way policy would go in Rwanda. Bagosora was a recognized extremist, as were the cabinet chosen to rule the country. All were well known to the French, and yet little attempt seems to have been made to put pressure on them to halt the carnage. Paris became the first government to recognize the ‘bunch of killers’ as the new government – and continued to do so throughout the genocide.
Members of the interim government were welcomed at the Élysée three weeks into the genocide. The French supported the Rwandan ambassador’s condemnation of the RPF at the UN and call for a ‘ceasefire’ that again confused the genocide with the war. The 1998 National Assembly inquiry noted that French politicians and diplomats had become so caught up in Rwanda’s affairs that they ended up ‘holding conversations, discussions … with a criminal government’ and, even after Operation Turquoise had been launched, were still recognizing the interim regime. This meant that Paris was ‘either not taking into account the reality of the genocide or not analysing the responsibilities of the Interim government in this event’.8 A more cynical view would be that Mitterrand and Huchon knew exactly what was happening and that Bagosora and his coterie were responsible for it, but for wider political and geo-strategic objectives were still prepared to support them. While Clinton used every trick in the diplomatic book to avoid getting involved in a country in which (with or without genocide) the USA clearly had no interest, Mitterrand and his military advisers were determined to get the best outcome for France out of the carnage.
As it was, France did everything possible to keep its Rwandan extremist allies in power for as long as possible. Rwandan military chiefs flew to Paris to meet Huchon and the MAM in a successful bid to gain more weaponry for their cause. Encrypted telephone systems were sent to allow the French military a direct means of communication with their Rwandan FAR and presidential guard allies. Arms shipments were flown in, via Goma, with assistance from Paris. Barril operated not just as Madame Habyarimana’s investigative spokesman, but also to train Rwandan special forces in ‘Operation Insecticide’ against the RPF.
Operation Turquoise became one of the most controversial interventions undertaken by France in Africa. To attempt to save thousands of people from a genocidal regime was a humanitarian task par excellence. However, the motivation for the operation and its eventual realization in the field have left a distinct feeling in the minds of those who witnessed it that yet again France was playing a ‘double game’.
Operation Turquoise, with its arsenal of weapons and special forces personnel, arrived with a plan based more on stopping the RPF advance than on rescuing those at risk; when such unfortunates were found, as at Bisesero, there was either no will or no transport to rescue them. The interim government, Rwandan army commanders and troops, and the Interahamwe retreated into the French ‘safe zone’ where they were not only allowed to keep their weapons, but in some cases were also escorted or given transport into Zaire. No arrests were made, no information on the killers handed over to the UN, no attempt to put radio RTLM off the airwaves. It hardly smacked of an operation doing everything in its power to bring justice and stability to the country, or smash the genocidaires. Other witnesses, as seen, have testified that some French troops assisted the Interahamwe and were involved in gross human rights violations, including the rape of Tutsi refugees. While many of its troops and officers acted with courage and dedication to their humanitarian task, Turquoise remained an operation presided over by many politicians and military top brass still ‘fighting’ the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ RPF threat.
The actions of Mitterrand’s government in the months after the genocide betray the mindset that many a media appearance had testily denied. For example, French representatives stormed out of conferences when the president of the new regime in Kigali stood up; aid was denied to Rwanda, EU help to the country was blocked and the ‘double genocide’ myth was perpetuated to conceal the responsibility of its FAR allies. It also continued to give military support to the re-forming militia and FAR in the refugee camps outside Rwanda, and put pressure on the new ICTR in Arusha to restrict its mandate to 1994 while deterring it from investigating any French government involvement in the genocide. That stark fact that dozens of alleged genocidaire, including those at ‘the heart of the genocidal regime’ continue to live openly and freely in France only perpetuates the feeling that politics is again interfering with justice. For the survivors of the horror it is living proof that France seems no more prepared today to face up to its history in Rwanda than it was under Mitterrand.
In a rare BBC interview, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, former head of the Africa Cell, vehemently denied an allegation that ‘this killing machine would never have been created if you and your father hadn’t given this government so much encouragement.’ He replied, ‘Bullshit – and I answer in English!’ When asked if he had sleepless nights because of the events in Rwanda, he responded:
No, not at all. That’s to say if you’re talking about the question of responsibility, not at all. If you’re talking about the horror of the photos or the films of the massacres, then obviously yes. But you can discover the same … in Mauritania or Senegal. You could ask me the same question about them. You can find the same thing in certain images you can see from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Obviously that can give you sleepless nights. But I reject the question in the sense you have put it to me, in suggesting that I have some kind of responsibility.9
Like Jean-Christophe, French politicians and generals at the heart of French Rwandan policy react with indignation at any attempt to tarnish their reputations, but other scandals have forced many leading players besides Jean-Christophe into the political wilderness. Alain Juppé, foreign minister in 1994, was found guilty in February 2004 of misappropriating public funds to benefit Chirac’s RPR party while acting as deputy mayor of Paris and given an 14-month suspended sentence; The court added in sentencing him ‘It is equally regrettable that Mr Juppé, whose intellectual qualities are unanimously recognized, did not judge appropriate to assume before Justice his entire criminal responsibility and kept on denying established facts.’ Words, one suspects many in Rwanda may echo.10 However, the conviction and criminal record was no bar to a return to high office for Juppé who returned to his former job at the Quai d’Orsay in February 2011 under Sarkozy. Michel Roussin, cooperation minister from 1993 to 1995, was caught up in the same scandal and forced to resign during the November 1994 Biarritz francophone conference. He was gaoled briefly on corruption charges in 2000 and was among 47 former Chirac allies put on trial in March 2005. The 66 year-old former minister was found guilty, given a four-year suspended prison sentence and fined $60,000. In all, 43 of the accused politicians, aides and party officials were found guilty of corruption. In August 1998 former defence minister François Léotard pulled out of frontline politics after being placed under formal investigation on charges of alleged money laundering. Justice finally caught up with Chirac who had avoided corruption charges by having a law passed giving a serving president immunity from prosecution. In December 2011 he was given a two year suspended sentence for corruption and abuse of public trust. According to former President Giscard d’Estaing, ‘Chirac can have his mouth full of jam, his lips can be dripping with the stuff, his fingers covered with it, the pot can be standing open in front of him. And when you ask him if he’s a jam eater, he’ll say: “Me, eat jam? Never, Monsieur le Président”.’11
French policy was not unified. The defence and foreign offices disagreed over the amount of support proffered to Habyarimana and the interim government, and some soldiers were traumatized by the role they were expected to play alongside their killer hosts. But over and above the policy debates stood a president wholly committed to an interventionist solution, regardless of the suffering this could and did cause. The man who had been caught up in the atrocities of the Vichy regime and Algerian war, and was a keen Milosevic supporter, could go to his grave knowing he had been the personal hero of thousands of genocidaires in Rwanda where his nickname ‘Mitterahamwe’ had been well earned.12
In April 2005 French film makers David Glucksmann, Raphaël Hazan and Pierre Mezerette previewed their film Tuez-les tous (Kill them all) to a Kigali audience that included high-ranking government officials and Mr Decherf. Glucksmann told the crowd that, ‘this film is an alarm to our government that it should not continue with the silence. We hope it will make our President come to Kigali one day and apologize … our film depicts the role that French soldiers played in training the militia, prior to the Genocide.’ He added that his idea to produce such a film was to ‘inspire fellow Frenchmen to accept their role in the Genocide and ask for pardon’. Ambassador Decherf commented, ‘The work is being done to clarify the exact responsibility [of France]. There is no denial of the responsibility in principle, we have to see through the historical truth and what exactly is the extent of the responsibility … this is a political move.’13
The quest for truth and justice have become more difficult as time has passed since 1994. The government of Paul Kagame has increasingly attracted political enemies – some disgruntled Rwandans who have found previous lucrative avenues closed off to them; some western media expecting a fully fledged working democracy and open media to have sprung up within a few years of the genocide in a country with no history of such governance and a media that until a few years before was assisting genocide not reconciliation. It has meant that the truth about the genocide, its organization, planning, participants and proponents – as well as the complicity of international governments with the genocidal regime – has been pushed to the sideline. Instead the debate has been moved onto one issue alone – the responsibility for the plane crash. The smokescreen of Bruguière will clear eventually – and Marc Trevidic’s eventual findings will help move it aside sooner rather than later, but political antagonism towards the Kagame government should not alter the truth of what happened in 1994. Whatever the views on Rwanda today, the involvement of certain French political and military figures in a moment as dark as any in human history, cannot be swept aside however politically convenient and expedient.
Outside the Nyamata church a few kilometres from Kigali, a small boy sits on a wall in silence after school surrounded by the few goats he tends. It is his favourite spot and he comes to be alone with his thoughts and feelings. Cassius witnessed what Dante would not have imagined when the Interahamwe surrounded this church in April 1994 and butchered the 5000 people inside – including his beloved Papa and Maman.
Every day I go there. … Every day I look at the holes in the walls, I go to the shelves, I look at the skulls, the bones which were once all those people who were killed around me. In the beginning I felt a tendency to cry on seeing these skulls without names and without eyes looking at me. But little by little you get used to them. I stay sitting for a long moment, and my thoughts go off in the company of all those before me. I force myself not to think of particular faces when I look at the skulls, because if I venture to think of someone I know, fear catches up with me. … The sight and smell of these bones causes me pain and, at the same time, soothes my thoughts though they trouble my head.14
A sign in Kinyarwanda hangs above the doorway of the church. It reads simply, ‘If you had understood yourself and you had understood me you would not have killed me.’ The West failed to understand that a Rwandan life mattered as much as one in London, New York or Paris. It failed to see beyond the politics of genocide to the human tragedy of the crime. The cynicism displayed by Mitterrand and his government in supporting a regime of killers for four bloody years has left it with a great responsibility for the genocide. Meanwhile, Madame de l’Akazu sits safely in her comfortable Parisian house cloaked in a secure French political cocoon that mocks the Rwandan dead. Given that it has taken France half a century even to begin to come to terms with its role in the deportation of 100,000 Jews to the death camps under its Vichy regime and in the Algerian War of Independence, it is not surprising to find its politicians and military shying away from admitting their failures and responsibilities in the Rwandan genocide. It remains a stain on the tricolour and a nation that rightly still makes proud reference to its values of liberté, fraternité and equalité.
On 16 July 1995, the then newly inaugurated president Jacques Chirac spoke at the first annual Memorial Day for the Jews deported and murdered under the Vichy regime.
On this day [in 1942] France, the country of light, and the rights of man, land of welcome and refuge, carried out an irreparable act. Abandoning its word, it delivered its protected people to their torturers. These dark hours have sullied our history forever and are an insult to our past and our traditions … we must recognize the faults of the past and the faults committed by the state.
During his presidential trip to Algeria on 19 December 2012, Francois Hollande admitted the brutal and unjust methods and massacres used by the French military to put down the independence movement, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands. ‘He promised a new start must be supported by a base and this base is truth...Nothing is built in secretiveness, forgetting, denial.’15
One day the people of Rwanda will know the full truth about the genocide that destroyed their country, and so many innocents with it. It can only be hoped a French government will assist with that positive mission for truth. No future, indeed, can come of secretiveness, forgetting and denial.