Uncovering France’s Role in Rwanda: Controversies, Denials, and Complicity Revisited

2024-04-21 08:23:08

So much nervousness, indignation, even anger! Thirty years following the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, it is enough, once more and once more, to mention the role of France in Rwanda for some to draw the knives. On the eve of the commemorations, the “elements of language” distilled by the Elysée, April 4spoke of an absence of “will» of France of «Stop» the genocide when she had the “possibility“. And even if ultimately, Emmanuel Macron’s speech, three days later, on April 7, no longer contains this sentence, certainly following intense pressure, the controversy will continue. Particularly with the reaction of the François-Mitterrand Institute, whose current president, Jean Glavany, will demand clarifications. But in turn, his press release will be modified. Because like a fatal slip of the tongue, a sentence actually seemed to go in the direction of the remarks he claimed to denounce. Return to a sequence revealing a persistent malaise, with the historian Vincent Duclert, whose commission mandated by Macron, concluded in 2021 with “heavy and overwhelming responsibilities” for France in Rwanda. And this, from the rise of the dangers (from 1990 to 1994).

France’s role in Rwanda, thirty years following the Tutsi genocide, still arouses controversy and passionate reactions. How do you explain it?

As for the most recent controversies, on April 4, there were statements attributed to the Elysée, then the President’s video speech three days later on April 7, the day the commemorations of the genocide began. Some saw between these two media moments a backpedaling on the part of Emmanuel Macron. I don’t see any setback there. Because if we stick to the text of April 7, which refers to that pronounced by the president on May 27, 2021, we remain within the framework of a “overwhelming responsibility» of France, as also highlighted in 2021, the report of the commission of historians that I chaired. The presidential speech of April 7 actually integrates all the analyzes on France’s involvement which allowed us to move from denial to the reality of a compromise. But thanks to this controversy, we have above all witnessed the resurgence of a company of denial which nevertheless seemed to be in decline since 2021…

There was in particular the indignant letter from Jean Glavany, the current president of the François-Mitterrand Institute…

Jean Glavany, who replaced Hubert Védrine at the head of this institute, published a press release on April 7 to protest once morest the words attributed to the President concerning this lack of will on the part of France to stop the genocide. We can already be surprised by the style. This former socialist minister nevertheless addresses the highest representative of the State and directly calls on him to clarify his position. In the process, he describes “alleged» the overwhelming responsibility of France alongside the regime which orchestrated the genocide. How can we not see an obstinacy in denial? A refusal to take into account the results of historical research? There is a final point that is even more disturbing, a sentence, which in the initial version of the press release seems to have escaped its author…

What does this sentence say?

In the first version of the press release, Glavany writes astonishingly that in 1990 “only France knew that a genocide in Rwanda was possible“. This is an incredible admission. In 1990, France officially intervened in Rwanda to protect its nationals following the irruption in the north of the country of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), made up of opponents of the regime, and the children of Tutsi refugees who had fled Rwanda. during the first massacres in 1959. If we are to believe Glavany, France therefore already knew in 1990 that a genocide was possible? Indeed, already at that time the Tutsis remaining in the country were intentionally massacred and constantly threatened. If France was aware of this, what did it do? Did she warn the UN and her partners? Many people have noticed this compromising little sentence. It will be discreetly modified, replaced a few days later by a more vague sentence on “mass massacres since independence“. The notion of “genocide” disappears. How can we rewrite press releases that concern major moments in our common history? This correction following publication is revealing of the methods of the François-Mitterrand Institute: on Rwanda, we accept “alternative truths”, a constant rewriting of reality.

Does this change also reveal a form of panic among those who are still trying to clear France of any role in the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda?

There is certainly always this fear of seeing a practice of power identified and denounced under the Fifth Republic, and more precisely under François Mitterrand. The fear that, based on specific examples, an entire system will be revealed, which has compromised institutions and affected the moral identity of the Republic. An opaque practice of power which led France to be held partly responsible for the last genocide of the 20th century. However, the crime of genocide is imprescriptible.

Since the publication of your commission’s report in 2021, it is therefore always the specter of “complicity» of France which comes back to haunt certain leaders of the time…

Who knows if, on the basis of accumulating information, the prosecution or civil parties will not one day initiate direct proceedings for complicity in genocide once morest certain French officials of the time? It is not for historians like me to decide, only justice can decide. But it is interesting to note how those who are constantly offended, and perhaps fear this accusation of complicity, are the first to constantly wave it like a red rag, thus contributing to the radicalization of the debate. However, the observation is there: for years, the French government was in denial of the genocide, and by extension of its own involvement in this tragedy.

Why has the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) created on November 8, 1994 never addressed this question of France’s involvement?

From a criminal perspective, the ICTR was unable to investigate the period preceding the genocide. And this is a desire of France, at the time, in the Security Council. Under French pressure, the mandate of the ICTR will only cover the year 1994. Which is, moreover, contradictory with the very idea of ​​a genocide which is necessarily planned and prepared. The commission’s report also showed how France prevented the ICTR’s investigation period from covering the preparatory period for the genocide. There was indeed manipulation of an international tribunal. We demonstrated it and no denial followed.

What remains to be found in this history of dangerous connections between France and Rwanda?

Three main periods deserve historical investigation. First of all, the period before 1990. How was this private, privileged relationship between Mitterrand and Habyarimana established? And even before, with the France of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, just following Habyarimana’s coup d’état in 1973. Were French networks involved? Then comes the period 1990-1993. France’s unconditional commitment to the regime, which is preparing the genocide, is now well established. But we still need to put together all the alerts to better understand Paris’s knowledge of its preparation. Finally, for the 1994 period, that of the genocide and its outcome, the question of the perpetrators of the attack once morest President Habyarimana’s plane on April 6, 1994, the day before the genocide began, remains to be explored in greater depth. Historical and judicial research has progressed. And now the trail of Hutu extremists who would have wanted to get rid of a leader suspected of abandoning them is emerging. But who are they precisely? The genocide was already underway, well before April. With a whole series of murders and massacres, which intensified from January 1994. The attack of April 6, 1994 was only the final trigger point of a process already in progress. And then there are also all the questions regarding the choices of Paris during the genocide. In particular the reception of representatives of the genocidal government: we are the only country in the world to have accepted it. Why did we also contribute to rearming the soldiers of the defeated genocidal army when it, retreating before the advance of the RPF, crossed the border with Zaire, today the Democratic Republic of Congo? And to what extent?

Is there not an element of irrationality in the way this issue was handled by the French authorities and in particular Mitterrand’s entourage?

When we see the lightness with which the François-Mitterrand Institute modifies its own press releases, it is tempting to suggest an element of irrationality. When you read the interview with General Christian Quesnot, the former chief of staff of François Mitterrand, who declared in July 2021 to the weekly Obs, that the Elysée received “alert, credible, accurate” on a risk of genocide, but that it was not “President Mitterrand’s line“, so yes we can wonder regarding the irrational part, but above all the historical unconscious. The weight of the colonial representations of a France which for so long drew its legitimacy, as a great power, from the influence, from the domination that it exercised in Africa. The unconscious also of the Algerian war, of the persistent feeling of revenge to be taken. In Rwanda, thirty years later, French leaders considered the RPF rebels their enemies. And by extension their supposed accomplices: the Tutsis from within. As in Algeria, we have seen the same patterns of insurrectional war authorized by the Elysée resurface. In my book, I study this “Algerian temptation”. Behind these passionate excesses, there is another rationality, that of a power policy, of a desire to respond to the supposed Anglo-American threat to “our” Africa, of the weight of “reserved” areas in our republican system. : the army, diplomacy and especially Africa. A whole takeover by the President’s personal staff who proposed a new way of holding countries by sending special forces, turning a blind eye to the excesses of the regimes in place, without reporting to anyone. At the time all this might unfortunately seem rational, a mixture of unconscious fantasy and uncontrolled power.

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