To His Excellency Emmanuel Macron
President of the French Republic
Paris
France-Rwanda: Responding to the Official Narrative
Your Excellency, Mr President,
Some have spoken of a ‘political fault’ on the part of France with regard to the dramatic history of the Rwandan people. Fault? But what are we talking about? Is it the fact that France has established and maintained a fruitful cooperative relationship with Rwanda since the mid-1970s? Is it the fact that it contributed to the security of people and property by supporting the creation of the Rwandan National Gendarmerie at the very beginning of the Habyarimana regime? Was it, strictly speaking, having signed a military cooperation agreement with Rwanda in 1975 and having lent a hand in its defence on the day it was attacked from Uganda in October 1990? Was it, finally, the fact that it went to the aid of the Rwandans at the time of the genocide in 1994 when the rest of the international community was emotionally indifferent and expectant? What kind of political error is this? The Movement for the Republic and Democracy (MRD) has come here to give its share of the truth, and thus to contribute to the unravelling of the truth, which is the only guarantee of the recognition due to glorious France and the reconciliation of the sons and daughters of Rwanda.
A. The honour of a life-saving intervention
From the outset, it must be emphasised that any steps or initiatives taken by France in Rwanda have been in the letter and spirit of the Framework Cooperation Agreement that France concluded with Rwanda in 1975, under the auspices of a right-wing President, Valery Giscard d’Estaing. This agreement, which was largely generous and proactive, provided for increased support in several key sectors of the country’s life, in particular security, with military training, equipment donations, training for officers and non-commissioned officers, etc. It was within this framework that officer cadets and non-commissioned officers from Rwanda were admitted to the best military schools and academies in France, such as Saint-Cyr and Pau.
So how can we reproach President François Mitterrand and the French left for having respected and implemented France’s commitments to the Rwandan people? As far as the Rwandan tragedy of 1990-1994 is concerned, let’s not forget that the entire political class in France, be it the Left, the Right, the Extreme Left or the Extreme Right, were in osmosis, which is why the burning issue of sending a humanitarian military operation to Rwanda – la Turquoise – was unanimously supported.
B. Thousands of human lives saved
In the spring of 1994, while Rwanda was being ravaged by fire and blood, an incongruous situation arose, namely the notorious indifference of the UN Security Council. In fact, during the three weeks of April, the Security Council held several meetings on the case of Rwanda which, due to pressure from the RPF-Inkotanyi and certain powers with unavowed interests in the Great Lakes Region, did not take any decision to come to the aid of the Rwandan people. The UN Secretary-General at the time, the Egyptian Boutros Boutros Ghali, unsuccessfully urged the Security Council which, in the end, only took the scandalous decision to withdraw 75% of UNAMIR’s troops. Thus, the bulk of UNAMIR withdrew at a time when the massacres had been in full swing since the assassination of President Habyarimana on 06 April 1994. It was against this backdrop that the happy consensus emerged in France on the urgent need to come to the aid of the Rwandan people abandoned to their fate. On the Rwandan question, President Mitterrand, who had been forced to cohabit, got on perfectly well with his Prime Minister Edouard Balladur and Foreign Minister Alain Juppé.
Opération Turquoise involved the creation of a neutral humanitarian zone in south-west Rwanda, covering the prefectures of Kibuye, Gikongoro and Cyangugu. The first elements of Opération Turquoise entered via Gisenyi (North-West) and rapidly deployed in the neutral humanitarian zone. Opération Turquoise therefore intervened as RPF infantry pursued the cohorts of peasants fleeing the fighting in the north, west and centre of the country. Considering the massacres perpetrated earlier by RPF attack units as they advanced towards Kigali, there can be no doubt that the RPF was going to commit more widespread massacres in south-west Rwanda to prevent the Hutus from fleeing to Zaire (now the DRC). In an infamous speech, President Kagame regretted not having been able to exterminate all those who were able to flee and find refuge in neighbouring countries, especially Zaire.
France should be proud of Opération Turquoise, which stepped in, with great success, to save lives. In the spring of 1995, Paul Kagame’s army massacred thousands of defenceless civilians in the Kibeho camp for displaced persons, before perpetrating the same horrors in the commune of Kanama at a place known as Grotte de Kanama. These atrocities alone can justify, in hindsight, the decision of the Mitterrand government to come to the aid of the Rwandans.
It should be pointed out that Opération Turquoise set up and secured a vast camp at Nyarushishi, where thousands of Tutsis were able to take refuge and save their lives, thanks to the determination, professionalism and self-sacrifice of the French soldiers. If France had harboured any feelings of hatred and revenge towards post-genocide Rwanda, it would not have pursued its cooperation with the country’s new authorities. We would point out that it was only with France’s reinforced support that vital sectors such as national education, health and rural development were put back on their feet.
C. Disproportionate reprisals
Speaking of disproportionate reprisals, let us first recall the Mucyo commission that was set up in 1999 to ‘investigate France’s role in the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda’. But in this case, the commission’s work was flawed from the outset, because all the premises were wrong. In particular, at the Commission’s first meetings, it was clear that precise and formal instructions had been given by those in power in Kigali for conclusions to be drawn in favour of France’s involvement in the genocide. It was out of the question to find any justification or extenuating circumstances for France’s intervention in Rwanda at a time when the RPF was demanding the immediate departure of all UN soldiers. The Mucyo report was a monumental insult to France, which in 1998 had sent its own investigators as part of the Quilès Commission, whose report clearly established that France had not committed any wrongdoing by going into Rwanda.
The Rwandan government broke off diplomatic relations in November 2006 when anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière published his preliminary report on the attack of 6 April 1994 that killed Rwanda president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi president Cyprien Ntaryamira, a report that incriminated people close to President Kagame… It will be recalled that this breakdown in diplomatic relations was accompanied by a ban on the French language and the closure and demolition of the French Cultural Centre.
Still on the subject of reprisals, we should also mention the attempt to incriminate President Mitterrand’s collaborators, which took the form of the slanderous denunciation of more than 30 former high-ranking officials in the Balladur government, solely in order to damage their honour and the honour of the whole of France. And what was France’s attitude?
In a bid to appease the intransigent Kagame government, France allowed itself to be compromised, to say the least. Rwanda’s shock entry into the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) was surprising, to say the least, given that it had previously banned the French language from schools, the administration and public life, before closing and razing to the ground the French Cultural Centre. Subsequently, Rwanda even competed for and won the leadership of the OIF, whose Secretary General was the very famous Louise Mushikiwabo who, when she was Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, spent most of her time vilifying France, calling it an accomplice in the genocide of the Tutsis. Did she not declare ‘total and perpetual war on France’ if it ‘preferred to continue denying its role in the genocide of the Tutsis?” Subsequently, Paul Kagame’s Rwanda was elected by France as the protector of its interests in Africa. This was the case with the Rwandan army’s intervention in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mozambique, which astute observers saw as a proxy war.
D. The risks of an unholy alliance.
What interest does the France of freedom and enlightenment have in allying itself with the despot Paul Kagame? The Kagame system that reigns over Rwanda is built on three (3) pillars: lies, divisionism (divide ut imperas) and terror.
To describe Paul Kagame as a ‘liar’ is a misnomer. The man claims to have stopped the genocide when it was he who provoked and accelerated it in order to take Rwanda easily. He claims to have developed Rwanda when in fact there is a real gulf between the capital Kigali and deepest Rwanda. Kagame is certainly a divisionist: he has provoked a veritable humanitarian tsunami by undertaking all these wars supposedly to help the Tutsi community. He has deliberately trapped the Rwandan community by instituting a kind of ‘original sin’ against the Hutu ethnic group. And when we say that this man is a terrorist, we need only think of the attack he perpetrated on 6 April 1994 against the plane carrying the Rwandan Head of State HABYARIMANA Juvénal and the Burundian Head of State NTARYAMIRA Cyprien, an act unanimously considered to be the detonator of the genocide in Rwanda.
Today, all informed observers point to more than 15 million deaths on Congolese soil alone since the first invasion of the Congo by Paul Kagame’s army in 1996. In Rwanda, people have continued to be murdered, to go missing, to be tortured in prisons and other secret places where summary executions are carried out. All the reports from serious organisations are unanimous: the Paul Kagame system uses murder as a state method.
In view of the above, Your Excellency, how can France elect Paul Kagame’s Rwanda as the protector of its language, its culture and its economic and strategic interests in Africa? In truth, France’s choice of Paul Kagame, the greatest criminal ever to hold the office of a Head of State, only encourages him to redouble his misdeeds. The recurrent murders in Mozambique and CAR bear witness to this. Moreover, the red carpet that Paris has rolled out for Paul Kagame has already helped to reinforce anti-French sentiment in Africa.
In light of the above, the MRD would like to make the following recommendations:
1. Listen to the leaders of Operation Turquoise and then rehabilitate the French army, instead of siding with the networks of falsificationist detractors who are now taking the French government to court. In fact, Turquoise accomplished its mission with honour and dedication despite the perfidy of the RPF and the cowardice of the international community.
2. To reassure the Congolese people, now victims of Rwandan aggression, and to restore the image of the OIF by publicly condemning Paul Kagame’s Rwanda and calling for severe sanctions against him for the crimes committed in the Congo.
Done in Washington DC, this 29th day of October 2024
Mrs Christine Coleman
President of MRD
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