Citation
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION TO THE GOVERNMENT OF RWANDA
ON THE ROLE OF FRENCH OFFICIALS IN THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TUTSI
SUBMITTED ON DECEMBER 11, 2017
CONTENTS
I. Executive Summary ................................................................................................................ 3
II. From 1962 – 1994, French Officials Deepened Their Support of the Rwandan
Government Regardless of the Consequences for the Tutsi. .............................................. 7
A. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Fully Aware of the Violence and Discrimination against the
Tutsi in Rwanda, French Officials Expanded Their Support of the Rwandan Government to
Include Military Aid. ....................................................................................................................... 7
B. In the Early 1990s, France Became Rwanda’s Primary Foreign Military Ally in Its War against
the RPF. ......................................................................................................................................... 10
1. During the 1990-1993 War against the RPF, France Provided Direct Military Support to the
Habyarimana Regime. ............................................................................................................. 11
2. During the 1990-1993 War, French Officials Defined the ‘Tutsi’ as the Threat, While
Extremists Promoted Anti-Tutsi Propaganda and Massacred Tutsi. ....................................... 14
C. From 1990 through March 1994, France Was Aware of the Habyarimana Government’s
Involvement in Massacres against the Tutsi and Yet Continued to Provide Arms and
Ammunition. .................................................................................................................................. 17
D. Despite the Massacres in Rwanda, French Officials Strengthened the Rwandan Gendarmerie and
May Have Helped Civilian Militias. .............................................................................................. 28
1. French Officials Developed and Assisted the Rwandan Gendarmerie.................................... 28
2. French Officials May Have Trained and Equipped Civilian Militias. .................................... 29
III. During the Genocide against the Tutsi, French Officials Supported the Interim
Rwandan Government and the Génocidaires. ................................................................... 30
A. French Officials Arrived Early to the Scene of the Wreckage of President Habyarimana’s Plane,
Which Has Since Yielded Little Evidence..................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
B. During the Genocide, French Officials Adopted Their Allies’ Opposition to the Tutsi. ............... 31
C. Extremists Used Institutions Developed by French Officials to Execute the Genocide against the
Tutsi. .............................................................................................................................................. 33
D. French Officials Sheltered and Supported the Interim Rwandan Government.............................. 34
E. French Officials Mischaracterized the Genocide against the Tutsi as a Civil War........................ 36
F. When the Genocide Commenced, French Officials Airlifted Extremists and Their Families to
Safety. ............................................................................................................................................ 37
G. During the Genocide and Even after the Imposition of a UN Arms Embargo, France Facilitated
Arms Shipments to Rwanda........................................................................................................... 38
1
IV. Under the Banner of a Humanitarian Mission, French Officials Used Opération
Turquoise to Support the IRG against the RPF, Even as the Genocide against the Tutsi
Continued............................................................................................................................... 39
V. Since the Liberation of Rwanda, French Officials Have Been Providing Safe Harbor to
Génocidaires and Obstructing Justice. ............................................................................... 45
A. French Officials Helped Provide Safe Passage and Safe Harbor for Génocidaires in Zaire.......... 45
B. French Officials Obstructed the Efforts of the ICTR and the Government of Rwanda to Bring
Genocide Suspects to Justice. ........................................................................................................ 49
VI. Conclusion and Recommendation ....................................................................................... 51
2
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION TO THE GOVERNMENT OF RWANDA
ON THE ROLE OF FRENCH OFFICIALS IN THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TUTSI
In late November 2016, the Government of Rwanda’s Prosecutor General confirmed the
initiation of an investigation into the role of the French government and its officials regarding the
1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.1 In light of that inquiry, the Government of Rwanda has retained
the Washington, D.C. law firm of Cunningham Levy Muse LLP to review and report on the
material available in the public record on the role and knowledge of French officials regarding the
Genocide against the Tutsi.
I.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report summarizes publicly available information about the role and knowledge of
French officials before, during and after the Genocide against the Tutsi. This report, while detailed,
is not an exhaustive presentation of the public record. Where possible, we cite to primary sources
in the record. When reviewing secondary sources, we examine the material cited therein to help
determine the reliability of the secondary source material. We provide a summation of the public
record as to the facts – i.e., what happened and what was known. While much can be observed
about the knowledge or role of French officials, we do not reach final conclusions or judgments,
as an investigation into these matters must go forth and be completed.
In 1998, a French Parliamentary Commission (“the Commission”) attempted to investigate
the role of French officials in Rwanda.2 The information gathered by the Commission comprises
a substantial portion of the public record today about the role of French officials in the Genocide
against the Tutsi. But the Commission’s work was neither fully transparent nor complete. For
example, the Commission kept secret from the public the testimony of certain witnesses and,
without the power to compel testimony, did not interview other critical witnesses.3 The day after
the Commission released its report, French Parliament Member and Commission Vice President
Jean-Claude Lefort issued a press release explaining that he had abstained from signing the report
1
See Ken Karuri, Rwanda Opens Investigation into the Role of French Officials in Genocide, AFRICA NEWS, Nov.
30, 2016, available at https://goo.gl/9wCH3h.
2
Although technically called a “Mission” in France, we are referring to the body as a commission (i.e., “the
Commission”) for purposes of the English version of this report.
3
See Humanitarian?, THE ECONOMIST, Apr. 23, 1998, available at http://www.economist.com/node/161052#print;
see also COMMISSION OF NATIONAL DEFENSE AND THE ARMED FORCES AND COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
RAPPORT D’INFORMATION SUR LES OPÉRATIONS MILITAIRES MENÉES PAR LA FRANCE, D’AUTRES PAYS ET L’ONU
AU RWANDA ENTRE 1990 ET 1994 [INFORMATION REPORT ON MILITARY OPERATIONS CONDUCTED BY FRANCE TO
OTHER COUNTRIES AND THE UN IN RWANDA BETWEEN 1990 AND 1994] [hereinafter MIP], Tome III, Volume 1 & 2,
(Fr.). A non-paginated electronic version of the Report, annexes, and auditions is available at https://goo.gl/u5Xet1.
3
because major and decisive points had yet to be clarified.4 Or, as Mr. Lefort later put it during a
2008 interview, “I believe that the fact-finding mission did not fully accomplish its task of
highlighting the truth.”5
Another serious gap in the public record is the fact that the French government and French
officials continue to withhold documents relevant to their former officials’ role in and knowledge
of the Genocide against the Tutsi. Current and former French officials have first-hand knowledge
that they have not yet publicly disclosed.
Nevertheless, the incomplete public record, including the report of the French
Parliamentary Commission as well as the work of journalists and academics, suggests that French
authorities had knowledge of and participated in events relating to the Genocide. The public record,
however, does not detail the full extent of that knowledge and participation. A fuller investigation
is warranted.
A summary of this report’s observations is as follows:
First, this report will discuss the origins of France’s involvement in Rwandan affairs.
Following widespread government-supported violence against the Tutsi that began in 1959 and
drove thousands of Tutsi into exile, France began supporting the Rwandan government in 1962.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, French support grew and expanded into military assistance, even
as French officials were aware of massacres of Tutsi that took place in the 1960s and 1970s in
Rwanda. By the early 1990s, France had become more involved in and more essential to Rwandan
internal affairs than had any other foreign nation.
Efforts of refugee associations whose interests aligned with the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(“RPF”), the political organization that sought equal rights for all Rwandans, failed to achieve a
peaceful resettlement of Tutsi refugees in Rwanda. When war between the Rwandan government
and the RPF’s military wing, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (“RPA”), broke out in October 1990,
French officials sent soldiers to Rwanda (Opération Noroît) purportedly to protect French citizens
there.6 But President Mitterrand and other French officials initiated and thereafter expanded
Opération Noroît to provide strategic and military support for Rwanda in its war against the RPF.
During this armed conflict, French advisors provided the Rwandan government with strategic and
organizational assistance, hundreds (if not thousands) of soldiers, and millions of dollars’ worth
4
Press Release, Jean-Claude Lefort, Communiqué de Jean-Claude Lefort Député du Val-De-Marne Vice-Président
de la Mission Rwanda [Communiqué of Jean-Claude Lefort Deputy of Val-De-Marne Vice-President of the Mission
Rwanda] (Dec. 16, 1998), available at https://www.lanuitrwandaise.org/revue/notes-du-depute-jean-claudelefort,079.html?lang=fr (Fr.).
5
See Jean-Claude Lefort: “La mission d’information parlementaire est passé à côté d’une vérité qu’il lui fallait
rechercher coûte que coûte” [Jean-Claude Lefort: “The Parliamentary Information Mission Missed a Truth that
Had to Be Sought at All Costs”] LA NUIT RWANDAISE, Apr. 7, 2008 at 230 (Fr.).
6
Although the RPA was the armed wing of the RPF, we will use the term “RPF” to describe their joint efforts.
4
of war-fighting equipment. Senior French officials in Rwanda also joined in the elaboration of
genocide ideology by defining the enemy not as the RPF, but as “the Tutsi,” in parallel to the antiTutsi vitriol then being promoted, with regularity, by the state-sponsored media.
During the early 1990s, French advisors became involved in major Rwandan governmental
and military offices. Information in the public record indicates that French officials helped to
develop key security institutions, core elements of which would later become instruments of the
Genocide against the Tutsi (e.g., many members of the Rwandan Army (“FAR”), including the
Presidential Guard, the paracommando battalion and its CRAP unit (les commandos de recherché
et d’action en profondeur), as well as the Gendarmerie).
Second, this report will review the knowledge of French officials of recurring massacres
of the Tutsi during the early 1990s. Notwithstanding their awareness of this mounting violence,
French officials continued to facilitate the flow of weaponry into Rwanda and into the hands of
the Rwandan regime presiding over these waves of ethnic bloodshed.
On April 6, 1994, at least two French officials gained privileged access (to the exclusion
of the UN peacekeeping forces and others) to the scene of where the plane of Rwandan President
Juvénal Habyarimana crashed after being shot down, taking his life, among others, while flying
home from a regional summit in Dar es Salaam. Little evidence has emerged from the crash site.
Almost immediately after the crash, génocidaires and their controlled radio stations blamed the
RPF and Belgium for shooting down the plane and used it as the rallying cry to begin the Genocide
against the Tutsi, even as the RPF was preparing itself to implement a power-sharing agreement
previously achieved through the Arusha Accords. The securing of the scene under false pretenses
and the failure to share any evidence from it have enabled génocidaires and their allies to continue
to promote unsupported conspiracy theories identifying the RPF and Belgium as being responsible
for shooting down the plane.
In the immediate aftermath of the plane crash, despite their knowledge of the violence
against the Tutsi in Rwanda, French officials nevertheless permitted génocidaires to meet within
the French Embassy in Kigali and, while there, to begin to form the Interim Rwandan Government
(“IRG”), which presided over Rwanda during the Genocide. French officials provided cover for
the IRG, despite their knowledge of the ongoing Genocide against the Tutsi by mischaracterizing
it as a two-sided humanitarian crisis. French officials used these false narratives to answer criticism
of France’s continued support of the génocidaires, including but not limited to the IRG and the
FAR (many of whom participated in the Genocide).
After the Genocide against the Tutsi began, French officials commenced Opération
Amaryllis, a mission to rescue French nationals. In addition to French citizens, Amaryllis evacuated
members of the Habyarimana family, shepherded other extremist leaders out of Rwanda, and
interfered with efforts of the UN peacekeeping forces to protect citizens. The Amaryllis contingent
5
did nothing to save or protect the lives of the Tutsi or opposition politicians who had not already
been murdered within the first few days of the Genocide.
Third, this report will discuss how French officials initiated Opération Turquoise, ten
weeks after the Genocide began, to preserve the remnants of the IRG. Despite that aim, France
persuaded the UN Security Council to approve the operation as a humanitarian mission. But the
internal private communications among French officials, as well as their conduct, show that the
operation’s primary objective was not humanitarian, but rather to prevent the RPF from removing
the IRG.7 As recently as this year, the French press has reported that Hubert Védrine, Secretary
General of Élysée Palace under President Mitterrand, ordered Turquoise troops to rearm the
génocidaires.8
Fourth, this report will discuss the documents and testimony indicating that French
officials provided safe harbor for génocidaires. After the RPF liberated Rwanda and put an end to
the Genocide, French officials enabled génocidaires to flee to Zairian refugee camps (and
elsewhere), where they regrouped, re-armed and continued to threaten and kill Tutsi survivors.
Simultaneously, French officials withheld, impeded and opposed financial aid to the new
Government of Rwanda.
In the years since that time, French officials have interfered with the truth about the
Genocide and justice for its victims by failing to prosecute all but three of the 30 Genocide suspects
known to be within France or to grant requests for their extradition to Rwanda, and by failing to
declassify and release documents related to the Genocide against the Tutsi. French officials have
continued to ignore requests from the Rwandan government and civil society groups for documents
that will shed further light on decisions made and actions taken during the Genocide. Attempts by
French officials to divert public attention away from the role of French officials in the Genocide
and to obstruct efforts to bring génocidaires to justice continue to this day.
In summation: throughout their engagement in Rwanda in the early 1990s and beyond,
French officials were aware of human rights outrages between 1990 and 1994, and yet chose to
deepen French support for the former Rwandan regime. That support continued throughout the
Genocide, and French support for génocidaires did not stop even after RPF forces ended the
slaughter in July 1994. The effort by French officials to conceal their own role in the Genocide
and to undermine attempts to prosecute Genocide suspects continues. Consequently, the public
record lacks the full complement of French government documents or the benefit of testimony
from French officials with knowledge of or involvement in, Rwanda.
7
See, e.g., Interview of Guillaume Ancel by Mehdi Ba, L’histoire mythique de l’opération Turquoise ne correspond
pas à la réalité [The Mythical Story of Opération Turquoise Does Not Correspond to Reality], JEUNE AFRIQUE (Apr.
7, 2014) [hereinafter Interview of Guillaume Ancel by Mehdi Ba] available at https://goo.gl/saFctB (Fr.).
8
Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, Réarmez-les! [Rearm Them!], REVUE XXI, 64-65, July/August/September 2017.
6
France should do all it can to help the people of Rwanda and France learn the full truth. To
this point, however, French officials have continued to interfere with the public’s right to the truth
about the Genocide against the Tutsi.9 French officials have failed to cooperate with Rwanda’s
requests for documents and testimony. French officials have rarely prosecuted or extradited
Genocide suspects. At different moments in time, French officials have also incorporated
revisionist history into documents and, in so doing, have diverted the public’s attention away from
the role of French officials in the Genocide against the Tutsi. These efforts have not only
compromised the truth, they have also frustrated the attainment of justice for the victims.
In light of the public record, the Government of Rwanda’s investigation into the role and
knowledge of French officials in the Genocide against the Tutsi is warranted. The facts must be
understood and brought to light. The investigation should draw from not only the public record,
but also additional original source documents and interviews of witnesses. The investigation
should also evaluate the cooperation of French officials with past inquiries and requests for
information. French cooperation with this investigation is of paramount importance. The French
government has custody of documents, photographs, physical evidence, archives and individuals
with first-hand knowledge of what happened and what was known.
II.
FROM 1962 – 1994, FRENCH OFFICIALS DEEPENED THEIR SUPPORT OF THE
RWANDAN GOVERNMENT REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES FOR THE TUTSI.
The conduct of French officials during the Genocide against the Tutsi cannot be understood
without first examining the history of the French government’s role in Rwanda.
A.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, Fully Aware of the Violence and
Discrimination against the Tutsi in Rwanda, French Officials Expanded
Their Support of the Rwandan Government to Include Military Aid.
French support of Rwanda began in the early 1960s. In July 1962, Rwanda gained
independence from Belgium. Three months later, in October 1962, French officials entered into
an agreement of friendship and cooperation with the Rwandan government, then led by the antiTutsi President Grégoire Kayibanda, under whose leadership Tutsi had been expelled from
Rwanda.10 In December 1962, France and Rwanda signed three cooperation agreements for
9
See, e.g., France-Rwanda: Dominique Bertinotti, la gardienne des archives, JEUNE AFRIQUE, July 10, 2017,
available at https://goo.gl/BKTusj (Fr.).
10
See MIP, Tome I 18-19.
7
economic, cultural, and technical assistance (including assistance with radio broadcasts).11
Throughout the 1960s, France sent to Rwanda “occasional expert missions in varied fields:
agricultural development, road infrastructure, aviation security, urbanization, small
industrialization, etc.”12 The Rwandan government was emerging as a member of Francophone
Africa and was ripe to enter France’s sphere of influence.
Some commentators have explained French commitment in Rwanda as reflective of a
policy to expand and preserve Francophone Africa against Anglophone encroachment.
Commentators have noted its origins in the “Fachoda syndrome,”13 which refers to Fachoda, a
small town in what is now South Sudan where, just before the turn of the 19th century, the British
forced an unconditional withdrawal of the area by the French.14 For French officials, the defeat at
Fachoda amounted to and remained a “public humiliation.”15 As Minister of Justice in 1957,
François Mitterrand expressed this sentiment: “All the trouble we had in French West Africa has
nothing to do with a desire for independence, but with a rivalry between the French and British
blocs. It is British agents who fomented all our troubles.”16
Regardless of the underlying reason, France’s interests in Rwanda overrode concerns that
its policymakers may have had about human rights violations committed by the Kayibanda regime.
From November 1959 to February 1973, massacres left thousands of Tutsi dead and drove
hundreds of thousands of Tutsi into exile, in neighboring Uganda, Burundi, Zaire (now the
Democratic Republic of Congo), and elsewhere.17 For example, French diplomatic cables
apparently detailed how, in response to a December 1963 attack by Tutsi rebels at a military camp
in Gako, elements within the Kayibanda government organized massacres of the Tutsi:
11
See id. at 19.
Id. at 20.
13
See e.g., Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, France-Rwanda: Le Syndrome de Fachoda, LE FIGARO, Jan. 13, 1998, at 4
(Fr.); RONY BRAUMAN, MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES, DEVANT LE MAL. RWANDA: UN GENOCIDE EN DIRECT [BEFORE
THE EVIL, RWANDA: A LIVE GENOCIDE] 18 (1994) (Fr.). The MIP acknowledges the role of the Fachoda Syndrome
in Rwanda, stating “The presence of France in Rwanda would therefore respond to the dual concern of, on one hand,
defending what some have called the “linguistic Maginot Line,” and on the other, to deal with the Anglo-Saxon
influence, by the British originally, and by the United States thereafter.” MIP Tome I 31-32. The MIP went on to
state that France’s interests in Rwanda were not in conflict with the interests of the United States, but it did not deny
the role that language played in its support for the Rwandan government against the English speaking RPF.
14
P. M. H. Bell, FRANCE AND BRITAIN, 1900-1940: ENTENTE AND ESTRANGEMENT 3 (Taylor & Francis Group,
1996).
15
Id.
16
MIP, Tome I 31 (quoting Michel Brot, Mitterrand et l’Afrique en 1957: une interview révélatrice [Mitterrand and
Africa in 1957: A Revealing Interview], AFRICAN POLICY, June 1995, at 52 (Fr.)).
17
See e.g., L’extermination des Tutsis [The Extermination of Tutsis], LE MONDE, Feb. 4, 1964, at 16 (Fr.)
(discussing violence against Tutsi from 1959-1962 and systematic killing of Tutsi in 1963-1964); A.J., De sanglants
incidents auraient lieu au Ruanda [Bloody Incidents Taking Place in Rwanda], LE MONDE, Jan. 17, 1964, at 17 (Fr.)
(stating that around 84,000 Tutsi refugees fled Rwanda to Uganda and Burundi); JACQUES MOREL, LA FRANCE AU
COEUR DU GENOCIDE, 1415–1419 (2016). See also MIP Tome I 67 (stating that the latest estimates of political
refugees from Rwanda by the early 1990s were 600,000 to 700,000 refugees).
12
8
Measures were taken for ‘autodéfense civile’ in four southern prefectures. This
entailed each prefect, supported by a government minister, calling meetings with
bourgmestres in order to give necessary orders to peasants on how to combat the
enemy. Three days later, and two days before Christmas, there began an organized
slaughter of Tutsi. There were roadblocks everywhere, manned by civilians. The
radio in Kigali repeatedly broadcast emergency warnings that a Tutsi plot was
under way to enslave Hutu.18
On January 17, 1964, Le Monde described killings with clubs and recounted corpses thrown in
rivers. On February 6, 1964, the same French newspaper quoted British academic Bertrand
Russell, who said that the violence against the Tutsi was the most horrible and systemic
extermination of a people since the Nazis’ extermination of the Jews.19
On July 5, 1973, Juvénal Habyarimana took power in Rwanda. President Habyarimana’s
government continued to require identity cards to specify ethnicity, which enabled the singling out
of the Tutsi for mistreatment.20 Successive French governments nevertheless intensified France’s
support of Rwanda.
On July 18, 1975, France entered into the Military Technical Assistance Agreement
(“MTAA”) with President Habyarimana’s regime, with the stated purpose of providing French
military personnel to organize and train the Rwandan Gendarmerie.21 French officials quickly
expanded their military support of the Rwandan government beyond the Gendarmerie by providing
arms and training to the Rwandan army. For example, a June 15, 1982, memorandum from Guy
Penne, President François Mitterrand’s counsellor on Africa, provided President Mitterrand with
highlights of past and future military assistance, as well as a pronouncement about the coming
years’ anticipated French contributions to Rwanda: “equipment and training of a parachutist unit
and setting up a group of Gendarmerie,” as well as the delivery of “two small ‘Rallye warrior’ type
18
LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 27 (2d ed. 2009) (non-paginated electronic version) [hereinafter Melvern,
A People Betrayed]. See also MOREL, supra note 1, at 1417 (citing Diplomatic Telegram nos. 561 & 565, from
Jean-Marc Barbey, Ambassador of France to Rwanda (Dec. 23, 1963) (Fr.)); GABRIEL PÉRIÈS & DAVID SERVENAY,
UNE GUERRE NOIRE: ENQUÊTE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GÉNOCIDE RWANDAIS (1959-1994) [A BLACK WAR:
INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE (1959-1994)] 130 (2007).
19
See A.J., De sanglants incidents auraient lieu au Ruanda [Bloody Incidents Taking Place in Rwanda], LE MONDE,
Jan. 17, 1964, at 17 (Fr.); Trois mille Tutsis au Congo-Léopoldville lanceraient une attaque suicide contre le
Ruanda [Three Thousand Tutsi Refugees in Congo-Leopoldville Said to Have Launched a “Suicide Attack” against
Rwanda], LE MONDE, Feb. 6, 1964 (Fr.).
20
See MIP Tome I 61-62.
21
See Accord Particulier d’Assistance Militaire du 18 juillet 1975 [Military Technical Assistance Agreement of July
18, 1975] [hereinafter MTAA] art. 1(a), Fr.-Rwanda, July 18, 1975, Journal Officiel de la Republique Française
(“The Government of the French Republic shall place at the disposal of the Government of the Republic of Rwanda
French military personnel whose assistance is necessary for the organization and training of the Rwandan
gendarmerie.”), available at https://goo.gl/9HKtG4 (Fr.).
9
aircraft that will enable onsite training of Rwandan pilots” by 1984.22 The “parachutist unit” (i.e.,
the Paracommando Battalion) and the Gendarmerie would later become instrumental in carrying
out the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.23 Less than a year later, in April 1983, the MTAA was
amended to remove the sentence forbidding French troops from involvement in “the preparation
and execution of war operations.”24
B.
In the Early 1990s, France Became Rwanda’s Primary Foreign Military
Ally in Its War against the RPF.
For two decades, pressure on President Habyarimana to allow the return of Tutsi refugees
intensified, but he denied resettlement to all but the wealthiest of them.25 Indeed, in November
1989, the chairman of a special commission created earlier that year to address the refugee crisis
could only point to 300 negotiated returns since 1986.26 How seriously the commission intended
to help refugees remains in doubt, as two appointees to this commission – Ferdinand Nahimana
and Colonel Théoneste Bagosora – would later be tried and convicted at the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda (“ICTR”) for their respective criminal roles in the Genocide against the
Tutsi.27 Contemporaneous with this commission’s process, the Habyarimana government rebuffed
attempts to resolve the refugee problem through peaceful negotiations.28
On October 1, 1990, the RPF led an offensive from Uganda into Rwanda; its goal was to
force a change in Rwanda that would in turn allow the repatriation of its exiled refugees. The
Government of France responded to the Habyarimana regime’s plea for military assistance and
initiated Opération Noroît, an operation designed to help the Habyarimana regime defeat the
RPF.29 Internal French cables show that senior French officials, in parallel to the anti-Tutsi
22
Memorandum from Guy Penne, African Affairs Advisor to President François Mitterrand 3 (June 15, 1982),
available at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Penne11juin1982.pdf (Fr.).
23
See, e.g., Aloys Ntabakuze v. The Prosecutor, Case No. ICTR-98-41A-A, Judgement, ¶ 165, 234-244, (May 8,
2012), available at http://unictr.unmict.org/sites/unictr.org/files/case-documents/ictr-99-46/appeals-chamberjudgements/en/120508.pdf; The Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and
Sentence, ¶ 801 (Dec. 18, 2008), available at http://unictr.unmict.org/sites/unictr.org/files/case-documents/ictr-9841/trial-judgements/en/081218.pdf.
24
See MIP Tome I 29 & Tome II 86-89.
25
See MIP Tome I 72.
26
Id.
27
Id.
28
Meeting minutes, Second Meeting of the Rwanda/Uganda Inter-Ministerial Committee on Rwandan Refugees in
Uganda 3 (Nov. 17, 1989), available at https://goo.gl/vf3Xaq.
29
See MIP Tome I 137-138 (stating that Colonel Gilbert Canovas recalled that “his work had consisted…of
providing expertise and advice to the Chief of Staff to the Rwandan army and to his team,” and as such he had
“assisted in the development of the defense plans for the city of Kigali” and participated in the most threatened
border regions, Gisenyi, Ruhengeri, Byumba, Mutara Lake region, in “the planning work aimed at strengthening
military presence and equipping them with reaction capability”); Bernard Loth, Rwanda combats, prev Intervention
francaise au Rwanda, la deuxieme en Afrique depuis janvier [Rwanda Fighting, French Intervention in Rwanda, the
10
propaganda being promoted in the Rwandan media at the time, also defined the threat to their allies
in Rwanda not as the RPF, but as “the Tutsi.”
1.
During the 1990-1993 War against the RPF, France Provided
Direct Military Support to the Habyarimana Regime.
Within days of the October 1, 1990, RPF incursion, President Habyarimana asked the
Government of France for assistance.30 He spoke to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, who was the son
of the French President and also, from 1986 to 1992, the person in charge of the President’s “Africa
Cell,” which was then the policy making group in charge of Africa for the Élysée. Gérard Prunier
was present for this phone call, which took place at the Élysée Palace, and has reported that the
younger Mitterrand reassured the Rwandan President, “adding with a wink: ‘We are going to send
him a few boys, old man Habyarimana. We are going to bail him out. In any case, the whole thing
will be over in two or three months.’”31 On October 4, 1990, 300 French troops landed in Kigali
and secured the airport.32 The same day, hundreds of Belgian paratroopers joined their French
counterparts.33 Thus, Opération Noroît began.
As President Habyarimana’s forces lost ground to the RPF,34 French officials responded.
Speaking years later, Secretary-General to the President, Hubert Védrine, clarified the purpose of
French intervention: France wanted to avoid a foreign country overthrowing the Government of
Rwanda.35 Records indicate that French officials did not want another “Fachoda,” in which an
African country under France’s sphere of influence would fall to “Anglophone powers”: When
serving as the French Chief of the Defense Staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade reportedly viewed the
RPF as part of an “Anglo-Saxon conspiracy.”36 According to French journalist Patrick de SaintExupéry, a high-ranking French official admitted: “The Fachoda complex, the Francophone
Second in Africa since January], AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Oct. 5, 1990 (Fr.) (reporting that France had sent 300
soldiers to Rwanda); HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, RWANDA/ZAIRE: REARMING WITH IMPUNITY 3 (1995) [hereinafter
Rearming with Impunity]. A non-paginated electronic version of this Report is available at https://goo.gl/AusiBn.
30
See MIP Tome I 181-182.
31
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 100-101 (1997) (discussing author’s
eyewitness observations).
32
See MIP Tome I 128; Bernard Loth, Rwanda combats, prev Intervention francaise au Rwanda, la deuxieme en
Afrique depuis janvier [Rwanda Fighting, French Intervention in Rwanda, the Second in Africa since
January], AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Oct. 5, 1990 (reporting that France has sent 300 soldiers to Rwanda).
33
Cf. U.S. Department of State internal memorandum on Rwanda (Oct. 5, 1990) available at https://goo.gl/JLk8vA
(stating Belgium was deploying 600 paratroopers in Rwanda); with Patrick de Saint-Exupery, France-Rwanda: Le
Syndrome de Fachoda, LE FIGARO, Jan. 13, 1998 (stating Belgium was deploying 400 paratroopers in Rwanda).
34
For instance, France’s Ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres noted in an internal cable: “President
Habyarimana feels he can no longer handle the situation on his own.” Cable regarding situation in Rwanda (Oct. 7,
1990), in MIP Tome II 131, available at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Martres7octobre1990.pdf (Fr.).
35
See MIP Tome III, Vol. 1 208 (Hubert Védrine Audition).
36
Sam Kiley, French Influence Salvaged Amid Ruins of Rwanda, THE TIMES, Aug. 22, 1994.
11
against the Anglophone vision, the speeches about the RPF insurgents characterized as Khmer
Noirs of Africa, our enemies. . . . All that is true.”37 As President Mitterrand told his cabinet with
respect to Rwanda: “We are at the edge of the English-speaking front. . . . ”38 Mr. Védrine also
posited that President Mitterrand backed President Habyarimana with military support to reassure
other African regimes they could rely on French security guarantees:
[President Mitterrand] considered that letting, anywhere, one of these regimes be
overthrown by a faction, especially if it was a minority and supported by the army
of a neighboring country, would be enough to create a chain reaction that would
jeopardize the security of all countries linked to France and would undermine the
credibility of the French pledge.
In the analysis of President Mitterrand, what mattered most was the overall
reasoning, there was no particular strategic application point, neither in Rwanda
nor in Chad. He believed, like his three predecessors, that France had signed a
commitment to security, and that if it was not able to provide assistance in a case
where a friendly state was invaded by an armed country, its security guarantee was
worthless.39
But when Opération Noroît began, French officials informed the public that the purpose
of the operation was to protect French expatriates in Rwanda. In a televised statement, on October
6, 1990, French Prime Minister Michel Rocard said: “We have sent troops to protect French
citizens and nothing more.”40 By the end of Opération Noroît, however, French military support
of Rwanda appears to have expanded far beyond the protection of French citizens, such that,
according to an October 1993 memorandum from General Christian Quesnot to President
Mitterrand, RPF units considered French officials and troops to be the RPF’s “enemies.”41
The expansion of France’s military support and strategic advice began within days of the
war’s commencement. On October 11, 1990, Defense Attaché Colonel René Galinié
recommended sending French advisers into the field, northeast of the combat zone, to “educate,
organize and motivate troops that had been ossified for thirty years and who had forgotten the
basic rules of battle.”42 Five months later, in an April 30, 1991 report, Deputy Defense Attaché
Colonel Gilbert Canovas recommended that the Rwandan government recruit more soldiers,
37
Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, France-Rwanda : Le Syndrome de Fachoda [France-Rwanda: the Fashoda Syndrome],
LE FIGARO, Jan. 13, 1998 (Fr.) (ellipsis in the original).
38
Meeting minutes from French cabinet meeting (Jan. 23, 1991), available at https://goo.gl/3HRqnA.
39
MIP Tome I 33-34.
40
MIP Tome III, Vol. 2 235 (Michel Rocard Audition) (quoting Rocard’s October 6, 1990, TF1 television
interview).
41
Memorandum from General Christian Quesnot to President François Mitterrand (Oct. 11, 1993), available at
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB461/docs/DOCUMENT%2042%20-%20English.pdf.
42
See MIP, Tome I 137-138.
12
reduce the training period for new recruits, and station groups of soldiers in civilian disguise in
areas along the Ugandan border to neutralize the rebels.43
In addition to advice, French officials supplied the FAR with modern mortars, armored
vehicles, and other vehicles, along with ammunition and rockets.44 French officials also provided
and helped maintain helicopter-gunships, which fired upon RPF fighters.45 According to jokes at
the time, the only thing Rwandan soldiers did was pull the trigger.46
Information in the public record also indicates that French military support included the
development of battle plans and the commanding of artillery bombardments on the battlefield.47
Marcel Gatsinzi, a senior officer in the FAR at that time, later provided a commentator with the
following characterization of French military escalation in Rwanda:
[In October 1990,] French troops were deployed in the capital Kigali initially to
evacuate French citizens, but remained for three years. During this time, apart from
assisting through arming and training the exponential growth of the Rwandan army
(forces armees rwandaises [FAR], which grew from 5,200-strong in 1990 to 35,000
in 1993), they maintained a visible presence in the city – manning checkpoints and
carrying out joint patrols with the FAR, and played a less visible support role at the
front – commanding artillery bombardments and, on at least one occasion,
conducting a bombardment (at Byumba, far from where there were any French
citizens to protect, in October 1990).48
As the French Parliamentary Commission observed, the French military
continuously participated in the development of battle plans, provided advice to
the chief of staff and to the sectors’ commands, proposed restructuring and new
tactics. It dispatched advisers to instruct the FAR in the use of sophisticated
43
See id. at Tome I 138 & 157.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ARMING RWANDA: THE ARMS TRADE AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN THE RWANDAN
WAR 15-16 (1994) [hereinafter HRW, Arming Rwanda], available at https://goo.gl/YF1HtM; see MIP Tome III,
Vol. 1 133 (Jean-Christophe Mitterrand Audition).
45
See HRW, Arming Rwanda, supra note 44, at 16.
46
Jean Chatain, Accablantes responsabilités françaises [Overwhelming French Responsibility], L'HUMANITÉ, June
17, 1994, at 17 (Fr.).
47
See MIP Tome I 170-171; DIDIER TAUZIN, JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS [I DEMAND
JUSTICE FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 75-76 (2011) (stating that Tauzin prepared the February 25, 1993 order to
stop the RPF advance in the Rulindo Sector with Jean Michel Chereau, the head of the Military High Command, and
recounting how French officers commanded the FAR in artillery bombardments against the RPF that successfully
broke their momentum to Kigali).
48
Mel McNulty, France’s Role in Rwanda and External Military Intervention: A Double Discrediting, 14 INT’L
PEACEKEEPING 3, 32 (1997) (citing 1996 interview with Col. Marcel Gatsinzi); see also MIP Tome I 175
(acknowledging that the rules of behavior for French soldiers manning checkpoints permitted the delivery of
suspects to the Rwandan Gendarmerie).
44
13
weapons. It taught techniques of laying traps and mining, suggesting for that
purpose the most appropriate locations.49
After the initial retreat of the RPF, French forces remained in Rwanda and broadened their
assistance through Military and Instruction Assistance Detachments (“DAMI”). On March 15,
1991, French officials told the FAR they would send the DAMI to northern Rwanda, for what was
initially reported as a temporary presence to train and supervise the Rwandan military, to protect
French nationals in the region and to assess the security situation.50 The DAMI grew to include
three components: (1) a Panda DAMI created on March 20, 1991, in charge of training the FAR;
(2) an artillery component formed in 1992; and (3) an engineering component added in 1993.51
According to an April 1991 U.S. reporting cable, all FAR troops, which by that point numbered
21,000, were expected to undergo two-week intensive combat training that included the use of
mortars and “special combat operations.”52 The cable went on to note that French paratrooper
trainers formerly attached to an elite paracommando battalion had helped train a reconnaissance
commando unit that was patterned on a French model.53 Thus, French forces in Rwanda, then
numbering 219,54 trained, armed, and assisted Habyarimana’s military in an effort to push back
the RPF. DAMI Colonel Bernard Cussac also stated that he, accompanied by DAMI Lieutenant
Colonel Gilles Chollet, had participated in the interrogation of RPF prisoners.55
2.
During the 1990-1993 War, French Officials Defined the ‘Tutsi’
as the Threat, While Extremists Promoted Anti-Tutsi
Propaganda and Massacred Tutsi.
From the outset of Opération Noroît, senior French officials characterized the Tutsi (not
just the RPF) as the threat to the Rwandan government. For example, on October 7, 1990, France’s
Ambassador to Rwanda, Georges Martres, wrote in a cable to Paris:
The aggression confronting [Habyarimana] is based on a political project for
national unity of Tutsis and Hutus that would undoubtedly lead to Tutsi
domination…. The political choice is crucial for Western powers who help
Rwanda, particularly Belgium and France.
49
MIP Tome I 171.
See Cable regarding DAMI implementation (Mar. 15, 1991), in MIP Tome II 178, available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/TaixDami15mars1991.pdf (Fr.); MIP Tome I 145, 153, 157 & 165.
51
See MIP Tome I 146-148.
52
See Cable from U.S. Embassy in Kigali to U.S. Secretary of State, in Washington D.C. 2 (Apr. 9, 1991)
[hereinafter French Special Ops Apr. 1991 Cable], available at https://goo.gl/MxfZ4W.
53
See id.
54
See id. at 3.
55
See MIP Tome I 176-177 & Tome II 23-24.
50
14
Either they consider primarily the foreign nature of the aggression to which an
increased military engagement on their part is necessary to deal with it. Or they
take into account the domestic support enjoyed by this movement [RPF] even if it
could only develop with Ugandan support, and even if it is anticipated that after the
apparent phase of national unity, it may result in the takeover of power by the Tutsi
or at least by the mestizo class….56
In additional reports to President Mitterrand, senior French officials in Rwanda, such as
Ambassador Martres, Admiral Jacques Lanxade (then Chief of the Military Staff of the President
and later Chief of the Defense Staff) and Claude Arnaud (a senior advisor to the President),
described the threat as the “Tutsis.”57 These and other officials continued to refer to Rwanda’s
threat as “Tutsi” in correspondence to Paris.58
French officials adopted this language in government memoranda and communications in
parallel to the propaganda machine stirring ethnic hatred in Rwanda. The anti-Tutsi crusade
56
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cable from Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda (Oct. 7, 1990), available
at MIP Tome II 131, available at https://goo.gl/6Z3rcH (Fr.) (the word “mestizo” is used to refer to a person of
mixed ethnicity and was used in Rwanda to refer pejoratively to a mixed class of both Tutsi and Hutu). This cable
refers to additional diplomatic telegrams (e.g., Diplomatic Telegrams 447 & 510), which the French government has
yet to release to the public and/or Rwanda. According to the French Parliamentary Report, Ambassador Martres
wrote this cable. See MIP Tome I 141-142.
57
See, e.g., letter from Admiral Jacques Lanxade to President Francois Mitterrand (Oct. 11, 1990) (describing the
RPF as “The Tutsi forces” and “Tutsi”), available at https://goo.gl/pkR1gB (Fr.); letter from Claude Arnaud (a
senior advisor to the president) to President Francois Mitterrand (Oct. 18, 1990) (stating that Rwanda has been
attacked by “refugees of Tutsi origin” and describing the RPF as “Tutsi rebels”), available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Arnaud19901018.pdf (Fr.); cable from Ambassador Georges Martres to President
Francois Mitterrand (Oct. 24, 1990) (reporting on the RPF as “Tutsi who are looking to take power”), available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Martres24octobre1990.pdf (Fr.).
58
See, e.g., letter from Admiral Jacques Lanxade to President Francois Mitterrand (Jan. 2, 1991) (referring to “Tutsi
incursions” and “Tutsi forces”), available at https://goo.gl/ajGtwE (Fr.); Minutes, Meeting at Élysée Palace (Jan. 23,
1991) (quoting President Mitterrand as having said that “[t]he Ugandan Tutsi are moving to conquer Rwanda, it’s
worrying”), available at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/ConseilRestreint23janv1991.pdf (Fr.); letter from Admiral
Jacques Lanxade to President Francois Mitterrand (Feb. 3, 1991) at 1-2 (referring to a “New Ugando-tutsi offensive”
and describing the RPF as “Ugando-tutsi forces”), available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Lanxade3fevrier1991.pdf (Fr.); letter from Admiral Jacques Lanxade to President
Francois Mitterrand (Apr. 22, 1991) (referring to the RPF as “Ugando-tutsi rebels”), available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Lanxade19910422.pdf (Fr.); letter from General Christian Quesnot to President
Francois Mitterrand (May 23, 1991) (referring to the RPF as “Ugando-tutsi rebels”), available at
https://goo.gl/pgw5ei (Fr.); letter from General Jean-Pierre Huchon to President Francois Mitterrand (Nov. 20, 1991)
(referring to the RPF as “Tutsi” or “Tutsi forces”), available at https://goo.gl/K1DLjK (Fr.); letter from General
Christian Quesnot to President Francois Mitterrand (Feb. 13, 1993) (describing the RPF attacks in Rwanda as
“Ugandan-tutsi offensive”), available at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Quesnot13fevrier1993.pdf (Fr.); letter from
Dominique Pin (a senior advisor to the president) and General Christian Quesnot to President Francois Mitterrand
(Feb. 23, 1993) (stating that the “victory of the Tutsi ethnicity, which directs the RPF, would undoubtedly lead to a
Hutu ethnic uprising, which could have dramatic consequences”), available
at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/QuesnotPin23fevrier1993.pdf (Fr.); Minutes of Fr. Council of Ministers, Part C on
the Situation in Rwanda (Mar. 3, 1993) (referring to a “revolt by the Tutsi minority, supported by Uganda against
the Hutu majority”), available at https://goo.gl/nig6BP (Fr.).
15
reached its “first ideological highpoint”59 in December 1990, with the publication in Kangura, a
Rwandan newspaper, of an article entitled “Appeal to the Conscience of the Hutu.”60 Although
much of Kangura was in Kinyarwanda, this particular article was published in French.61 It stated:
“[I]n October 1990, Rwanda was the object of an external attack mounted by Tutsi extremists
supported by the Ugandan army. These aggressors, counting on the action of infiltrators in the
country and the complicity of the internal Tutsi . . . [,] hoped to conquer the country. . . . ”62 The
“Hutu Ten Commandments,” a set of rules of conduct set out in the article, “conveyed contempt
and hatred for the Tutsi ethnic group, and for Tutsi women in particular as enemy agents”63 by,
inter alia, stating that any Hutu man who marries a Tutsi woman is a traitor, and that all Tutsi are
dishonest in their business dealings.64
On December 17, 1990, Ambassador Martres reported to Paris on the Kangura article:
“The radicalization of the ethnic conflict can only intensify. The newspaper Kangura, mouthpiece
of Hutu extremists, just published an issue resurrecting the ancient hatred against Tutsi feudalism:
the ‘Hutu commandments.’”65 On the back page of this particular issue of Kangura was a fullpage photo of President Mitterrand captioned “A true friend of Rwanda.”66 We are unaware of any
public information suggesting that France condemned the publication of the “Hutu Ten
Commandments” or distanced itself from being a “true friend” to the anti-Tutsi efforts.
French officials, likewise, appear to have been well aware of the broadcasts emanating
from the radio complement to Kangura: Radio Rwanda and, later, Radio-Télévision Libre des
Mille Collines (“RTLM”). Radio Rwanda had been the Rwandan government’s state radio station
and reflected its anti-Tutsi position. In April 1992, in the midst of peace negotiations, the radio
station began to moderate its rhetoric.67 Hutu hard-liners thereafter created RTLM, which,
according to information in the public record, began broadcasting either in April or July 1993.68
RTLM aired racially discriminatory messages in both Kinyarwanda and French; thus, French
59
DANIELA KROSLAK, THE FRENCH BETRAYAL OF RWANDA 76 (2008).
See Appel a la conscience des Bahutu [Appeal to the Conscience of the Hutu], KANGURA, No. 6, Dec. 1990, at 67, available at https://goo.gl/NFMcCghttps://goo.gl/NFMcCg (Fr.).
61
See id.
62
See id. at 6.
63
The Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Trial Judgement (Dec. 3, 2003) ¶ 152,
available at http://unictr.unmict.org/sites/unictr.org/files/case-documents/ictr-99-52/trial-judgements/en/031203.pdf.
64
Appel a la conscience des Bahutu [Appeal to the Conscience of the Hutu], KANGURA, No. 6, Dec. 1990, at
8, available at https://goo.gl/NFMcCghttps://goo.gl/NFMcCg (Fr.).
65
Cable from French Ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Dec. 19,
1990), in MIP Tome II 139 (discussing Diplomatic Telegram 740, which Ambassador Martres sent on Dec. 17,
1990) (Fr.), available at https://goo.gl/PJ9amL (Fr.). See also MIP Tome I 141.
66
KANGURA, No. 6, Dec. 1990, at 20, available at https://goo.gl/NFMcCghttps://goo.gl/NFMcCg (Fr.).
67
ALISON DES FORGES, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, LEAVE NONE TO TELL THE STORY 68 (1999) [hereinafter Leave
None].
68
Cf. MIP Tome I 291 (stating that RTLM began broadcasting in April 1993); with Prosecutor v. Ferdinand
Nahimana, et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 342 (Dec. 3, 2003) (stating that RTLM began
broadcasting in July 1993).
60
16
officials listening to RTLM would have had no difficulty understanding the message of RTLM.69
For example, RTLM broadcasters equated Rwandan Tutsi with the RPF and referred to both as
“inyenzi,” the Kinyarwanda term for cockroach.70 RTLM described the Tutsi as aggressors who
sought a coup that would represent “victory in the struggle of power they [had] waged for a long
time.”71 One RTLM broadcast warned:
Ah . . . those who have, there are people who have slender children, who are born
of a few families (whose mothers are Tutsi), now they are members of the RPF.
There are men who marry Tutsi women because of their beauty and who claim to
be members of the [Coalition pour la Défense de la République (“CDR”), a Hutu
Power political party,] we tell them that this is not possible, we cannot admit it, we
know the side towards which you lean.72
Indeed, the virulent message was so clear that in early 1994, prior to the Genocide, the Commander
of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda (“UNAMIR”), Canadian Lieutenant-General Roméo
Dallaire, repeatedly asked for the capability to jam RTLM’s broadcasts inciting violence against
Tutsi and describing ways to kill, but the requests were denied.73
C.
From 1990 through March 1994, France Was Aware of the Habyarimana
Government’s Involvement in Massacres against the Tutsi and Yet
Continued to Provide Arms and Ammunition.
As extremists massacred Tutsi during the early 1990s,74 not only did French media make
French officials well aware of these atrocities, so too did French government cables. In parallel to
the massacres, the Rwandan government expanded its crackdown and brutality against the Tutsi.
For example, in October 1990, the Rwandan government arrested and detained an estimated
10,000 persons it claimed were supporters of the RPF.75 Yet French officials, in Paris and Rwanda,
continued to support the regime responsible for the mass killings and arrests, and to facilitate the
shipment of armaments to Rwanda.
69
See MIP Tome III, Vol. 1 306 (French Ambassador Jean-Michel Marlaud Audition).
See, e.g., transcript of RTLM Broadcast 25-26 (Jan. 4, 1994), available at
http://migs.concordia.ca/links/documents/RTLM_04Jan94_fr_K024-9406-K024-9452.pdf (Fr.).
71
Id.
72
Transcript of RTLM Broadcast 10 (Jan. 1, 1994) (parenthetical in original) (on file with CLM LLP).
73
ROMÉO DALLAIRE, THE MEDIA IN DICHOTOMY, in THE MEDIA IN THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE, edited by ALLAN
THOMPSON 18 (2007).
74
See, e.g., FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DES DROITS DE L’HOMME (“FIDH”), ET AL., RAPPORT DE LA COMMISSION
INTERNATIONALE D’ENQUETE SUR LES VIOLATIONS DES DROITS DE L’HOMME AU RWANDA DEPUIS LE 1ER OCTOBRE
1990 [REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF INVESTIGATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN RWANDA
SINCE OCTOBER 1, 1990] [hereinafter FIDH Report] 20 (1990), available at https://goo.gl/jEkh4G (Fr.).
75
See MIP Tome I 81 & Tome III, Vol. 1 27 (Andrés Guichaoua Audition).
70
17
French officials knew that Rwandan officials encouraged the killing of Tutsi civilians, and
that the violence against civilians had accelerated in response to the RPF invasion. For example,
on October 13, 1990, Colonel René Galinié, the French Defense Attaché, reported that “Hutu
peasants,” organized by President Habyarimana’s political party, the Mouvement Révolutionaire
National pour le Développement (“MRND”), “has intensified the search for suspected Tutsis in
the foothills; massacres are reported in the region of Kibilira, 20 kilometres northwest of Gitarama.
The risk of the generalization of this confrontation, already reported, seems to be becoming
concrete.”76 Galinié’s cable went on to explain that 90% of the population supported President
Habyarimana’s regime and stated that the MRND “conducts cunning propaganda directed at old
historical and ethnic motivations, which remain powerful in an isolated country without
information (no newspapers, no television, subservient radio broadcasting).”77 Other French
officials were similarly aware of the Rwandan government’s designs for its Tutsi citizens:
“General Jean Varret, former head of the Military Cooperation Mission from October 1990 to
April 1993, indicated to the French Parliamentary Commission how, when he arrived in Rwanda,
FAR Colonel Rwagafilita had explained the Tutsi issue to him: ‘they are very few, we will
liquidate them.’”78
President Paul Kagame later described what Paul Dijoud, Director of African and Malagasy
Affairs at the Foreign Ministry, told him in January 1992, during a meeting in Paris – namely, that
“if we [i.e., the RPF] didn’t stop, even if we managed to take Kigali, we wouldn’t find our people
there because they would all have been massacred!”79 Accordingly, Kagame inferred that
“[Dijoud] must have had some knowledge that the genocide was about to happen.”80
Two years earlier, French Ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres similarly
acknowledged the risk of genocide. On October 15, 1990, he warned Paris of a coming Rwandan
genocide against the Tutsi: “[the Tutsi population] is still counting on a military victory. A military
victory, even partial, would allow them to escape genocide.”81 On October 24, 1990, a joint report
by Ambassador Martres and Defense Attaché Galinié noted that concessions by the Habyarimana
government to the RPF (whom the authors referred to as “Tutsi invaders”) could “result in all
likelihood in the physical elimination of Tutsis in the interior of the country, 500,000 to 700,000
people, by the 7,000,000 Hutus.”82
76
Cable from Colonel René Galinié 1(Oct. 13, 1990), available at https://goo.gl/rj7eJH (Fr.).
Id. at 2.
78
See MIP Tome I 292 (emphasis in original).
79
FRANÇOIS SOUDAN, KAGAME: THE PRESIDENT OF RWANDA SPEAKS 51 (2015).
80
Id.
81
Cable from French Ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres to the Ministry of French Foreign Affairs 1 (Oct. 15,
1990), in MIP Tome II 133, available at https://goo.gl/Zp17VS (Fr.).
82
Cable from French Ambassador Georges Martres (Oct. 24, 1990), in MIP Tome II 134, available at
https://goo.gl/MYQhSH (Fr.).
77
18
As reported in a December 19, 1990, cable from Ambassador Martres, a joint report
prepared by the ambassadors of France, Belgium, and Germany, along with a European Economic
Community representative in Kigali, warned that the ethnic violence created an “imminent risk of
escalation with adverse consequences for Rwanda and the entire region.”83 As discussed more
fully below, despite these warnings, French officials continued to aid the Habyarimana
government, and the Habyarimana government continued to participate in massacres of Tutsi. By
contrast, the Belgian government decided to suspend its military assistance in October 1990 and
to withdraw its troops from Rwanda by November 1990.84
Researchers have concluded that approximately 2,000 Tutsi were massacred between
October 1990 and January 1993.85 Consider, for example, the following account from the Bugesera
massacre in March 1992:
Another witness, a soldier himself, who was posted to Gako at the time of the
attacks, declared that Colonel Musonera, the commander of the sector, received a
telegram on March 8 from the Rwandan army headquarters ordering him to provide
the operation to kill the Tutsi with a company (about 150 soldiers). The operation
started the next day, March 9. . . . During the day, the men of this company were
dressed in civilian clothes and were guided by local residents who pointed out the
homes of Tutsi. They were preceded by a patrol of soldiers in uniform who
disarmed and dispersed Tutsi who had gathered to defend themselves. . . .86
A second soldier:
declared that he could identify latrines where victims who were still alive had been
thrown. . . . and a place in the marsh near Rilima where about 50 people in hiding
had been killed by grenades.87
Ambassador Martres was aware of the March 1992 Bugesera massacre and the
involvement of Rwandan officials:
Severe attacks of Hutu peasants against Tutsis started on March 6 in Bugesera. . . .
Soldiers seem to have done little to disarm the population. . . . For several months
now, extremist movements, have developed . . . and, supported by the Kangura
journal, they call for the Hutu nation to gather around the ideal of the former
83
Cable from French Ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Dec. 19,
1990), in MIP Tome II 139 (Fr.)., available at https://goo.gl/rgz8Jy (Fr.).
84
See MIP Tome I 83; Le dispositif militaire francais au Rwanda “demeure inchange” [French Military Device in
Rwanda “Remains Unchanged] AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Oct. 29, 1990; U.S. Department of State internal
memorandum on Rwanda (Oct. 29, 1990) available at https://goo.gl/56KfFA.
85
See Leave None, supra note 67, at 87.
86
See FIDH Report, supra note 74, at 47.
87
Id.
19
Parmehutu, which had as its main goal the defence of the majority population
against the ethnicity which constituted the old feudal class.
These extremists . . . primarily come from the hardliner group of the [MRND] . . .
Abuses had already been carried out for several months in Bugesera, at the
instigation of the mayor of Kanzenze, who is known for his extremism.88
Ambassador Martres’ cable went on to note that the spark for the massacre was disinformation
spread on Rwanda’s official radio station, Radio Rwanda.89
Massacres of Tutsi continued throughout 1991, 1992, and up until the Genocide. French
officials were aware of massacres at this time, as well as the role of the Habyarimana government
and its military in them. Despite this knowledge, French officials maintained their support of the
Rwandan military and funneled weapons into Rwanda.90 In fact, France often approved of, or
delivered, weapons or other military assistance soon after massacres of Tutsi occurred. For
example:
•
January 1991 – March 1991
Massacres. In early 1991, Rwandan officials orchestrated several killings of the Bagogwe,
which refers to a pastoral Tutsi subgroup in Bigogwe, in the Northwest of the country.91
The best-known of these attacks occurred on the morning of February 5, 1991, when
“soldiers organized Hutu crowds to search out and attack Tutsi. More than 300 Tutsi and
members of opposition political parties were killed.” 92
French Military Assistance. Despite the Bigogwe killings in early 1991, France reinforced
its Military Assistance Mission, on March 21, 1991, with additional soldiers from the
Panda DAMI.93
88
Cable from Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda, to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1-3 (Mar.
9, 1992), in MIP Tome II 166, 166-167 [hereinafter Martres Mar. 9, 1992 Cable] available at
https://goo.gl/NVGvxE (Fr.).
89
See id. at 4.
90
Authorizations of exportation of weapons (by the CIEEMG-Interministerial Commission for the Study of Exports
of War Material) from France to Rwanda for the period between 1987-1994 (year-number of authorizations-value in
millions of francs) are as follows: 1987-4- 50M; 1988-3-19M; 1989-4-116M; 1990-16-191M; 1991-11-48M; 199217-122M; 1993-6-44M; 1994-1-1M. See MIP Tome I 178-179. The following are the numbers of Export
Authorization of war material (AEMG) from France to Rwanda for the period between Jan 1, 1990 – April 6, 1994
(year-number of authorizations-value in millions of francs): 1990-13-9M; 1991-9-5M; 1992-33-90M; 1993-23-32M;
1994-6-0.4M. See MIP Tome I 179-180.
91
FIDH Report, supra note 74, at 26-29.
92
HRW, Arming Rwanda, supra note 44, at 12.
93
MIP Tome I 356.
20
•
November 1991 – December 1991
Massacres. Throughout the evening of November 7 and into November 8, 1991, “Tutsi
families were attacked in their homes in the Rwankuba sector of Murambi commune.”94
During the attacks, “one 85-year old woman was killed, three girls were repeatedly raped,
at least a dozen adults were injured by machetes or were severely beaten, and dozens of
homes were pillaged. . . . Survivors commented that as the aggressors attacked them with
machetes and sticks, they insulted the victims for being Tutsi.”95
French Military Assistance. On December 18, 1991, a month after the Murambi attacks,
the French General Air Force Office received an export license for replacement parts for
Gazelle, Alouette, and Ecureuil helicopters to be exported on April 8, 1992.96 On January
27, 1992, the French government granted an export license for the three Gazelle
helicopters, which French officials exported on April 22, July 1, and October 1, 1992.97
•
February – March 1992
Massacres. In February and March 1992, Tutsi were massacred in Bugesera, where the
editor of Kangura had spread rumors about “the danger of ‘Inyenzi’ infiltration and
attacks,” and Radio Rwanda had incited the slaughter of Tutsi by “five times broadcast[ing]
the ‘news’ that a ‘human rights group’ in Nairobi had issued a press release warning that
Tutsi were going to kill Hutu, particularly Hutu political leaders, in Bugesara.”98
Sometimes referred to as “rehearsals” for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the
Rwandan government organized attacks on Tutsi, in March 1992, that left almost 300 dead
in Bugesera.99 Soldiers in civilian dress attacked Tutsi.100 Reports also indicated that the
perpetrators included members of the Presidential Guard and soldiers from Camp Kanombe
in Kigali.101
During the first week of March 1992, extremists attacked Kibilira, wherein they killed five
people, destroyed 74 Tutsi houses, and forced 1,200 to flee Kibilira, where the government
previously had organized massacres of Tutsi in October 1990.102
94
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, TALKING PEACE AND WAGING WAR 15 (1992).
Id.
96
See MIP Tome I at 183-84.
97
See id. at 183.
98
Leave None, supra note 67, at 58 & 88-89.
99
Id., supra note 67, at 90; see Toll of Tribal Fighting in Rwanda “Could Be 300”: Rights Group, AGENCE FRANCEPRESSE ANGLAIS, Mar. 8, 1992 (reporting as many as 300 deaths and the displacement of 6,000 Tutsi).
100
See id. at 90; see also FIDH Report, supra note 74, at 47.
101
See FIDH Report, supra note 74, at 47.
102
See id. at 22.
95
21
French Financial and Military Assistance. Notwithstanding these events, in March 1992,
Rwanda purchased from Egypt $6 million of armaments (including plastic explosives,
landmines, and mortar shells),103 and documents suggest a French role in the transaction.
Human Rights Watch found credible allegations that Crédit Lyonnais bank (nationalized
by the French government) guaranteed the transaction,104 although the President of Crédit
Lyonnais denied these allegations.105
Further, on May 4, 1992, France delivered to Rwanda, via the Thomson-CSF company,
equipment for encrypted communications, hundreds of transceivers (some of which were
portable), and four high-security digital telephone sets.106
•
July 1992 – August 1992
Cease-Fire Followed by French Military Assistance. The signing of a cease-fire between
the Rwandan government and the RPF in July 1992 and commencement of peace
negotiations in Arusha did not stop the flow of French weapons and materials.107 Thus, on
August 12, 1992, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs determined that the terms of the
cease-fire agreement should not impact the sale of 2,000 105mm shells, 20 12.7mm
machine guns, and 32,400 rounds to Rwanda.108
•
August 1992 – February 1993
Massacres. Supporters of the MRND and the CDR massacred Tutsi and burned their
homes in Kibuye Prefecture, in the west of Rwanda, between August 20 and 25, 1992.109
Political leaders connected to Habyarimana’s MRND party and the extremist CDR party
used the youth wings of the respective parties (i.e., the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi)
and FAR soldiers to participate in the massacres.110 On August 26, 1992, a few days after
Habyarimana and the RPF agreed to a cease-fire, France and Habyarimana amended the
103
See MIP Tome I 178-180; see also HRW, Arming Rwanda, supra note 44, at 14-15.
See HRW, Arming Rwanda, supra note 44, at 14-15.
105
See MIP Tome I 186.
106
See id. at 184.
107
Id.
108
Id.
109
See ASSOCIATION RWANDAISE POUR LA DÉFENSE DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE ET DES LIBERTÉS PUBLIQUES,
REPORT SUR LES DROITS DE L’HOMME AU RWANDA SEPTEMBRE 1991 – SEPTEMBRE 1992, [RWANDAN
ASSOCIATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND PUBLIC FREEDOMS, REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN
RWANDA, SEPTEMBER 1991 – SEPTEMBER 1992] 245-264 (Dec. 1992) (Fr.); Leave None, supra note 67, at 80; U.S.
Department of State, Rwanda: Threading a Needle, in AFRICAN TRENDS 1, 12 (Sept. 18, 1992), available at
https://goo.gl/MisZGA (declassified State Department publication, released in part).
110
See ROMÉO DALLAIRE, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL 211 (2003) [hereinafter Dallaire].
104
22
1975 MTAA, which previously had restricted French military cooperation to the
Gendarmerie and further extended that cooperation to the FAR.111
Then, in December 1992, for the third time in just over two years, Tutsi villagers were
massacred at Kibilira.112 Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi led the attacks in conjunction
with local officials.113 There were also reports of participation by the Presidential Guard in
civilian clothes.114 The killers targeted both Tutsi and Hutu members of opposition
parties.115
French Military Assistance. According to the French Parliamentary Commission, French
officials continued to provide arms to Rwanda in February 1993:
Thus, in February 1993, after the Noroît detachment had just been
reinforced . . . , the Army Chief of Staff reminded the defense attaché that
he was responsible for “ensuring that the Rwandan army does not find itself
in a stock shortage of sensitive ammunition . . . and that deliveries to the
FAR of military equipment be made in the utmost discretion.”
In fact, in the timeline laid down in his end of mission report, Colonel
Philippe Tracqui, commander of the Noroît detachment for the period from
February 8, 1993 to March 21, 1993, noted “Friday, February 12, 1993:
landing of a DC8 50 with a 12.7mm machine gun plus 100,000 cartridges
for the FAR. Wednesday, February 17, 1993: landing of a Boeing 747 with
discrete unloading by the FAR of 10 mm shells and 68 mm rockets
(Alat).”116
Based on reports of the massacres discussed above, between January 7 and 21, 1993, a
group of human rights organizations led a fact-finding mission in Rwanda. The organizations, led
by the International Federation of Human Rights (“FIDH”), did not release their final report,
known as the “FIDH report,” until March 8, 1993. French officials, however, were aware of the
organizations’ work and findings in advance of the final report: A January 19, 1993, cable from
Ambassador Martres to Bruno Delaye, advisor on African Affairs to President Mitterrand, reported
on information provided by Jean Carbonare of the organization, Survie et Développement, which
collaborated on the FIDH report.117 According to the cable, Mr. Carbonare told Ambassador
111
See Amendment to MTAA, Aug. 26, 1992, in MIP 91-94 Tome II (Fr.)
See FIDH Report, supra note 74, at 22.
113
See id. at 26.
114
See id. at 26.
115
See id. at 23.
116
MIP Tome I 184-85.
117
See Cable from Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda, to Bruno Delaye, Head of the Africa Desk in
the Office of the President 1 (Jan. 19, 1993), available at https://goo.gl/Nf46mz (Fr.).
112
23
Martres that President Habyarimana had ordered the massacres, while meeting with numerous top
officials (including Colonel Bagosora).118 Ambassador Martres elaborated: “During this meeting,
the operation would have been planned, including the order to carry out a systematic genocide
using, if necessary, military strength and involving local populations in the massacres, probably to
create a sense of national solidarity in the fight against the Tutsi enemy.”119 Ambassador Martres
accepted that the report contained serious criticism against President Habyarimana and
acknowledged that “the report that the mission will deliver … will only add horror to the horror
we already know.”120
On February 11, 1993, Belgium signaled that it would cut aid to Rwanda.121 But the
revelations of human rights abuses at the hands of Rwandan officials failed to move key French
officials. On March 3, 1993, only a few days before the release of the final FIDH report, General
Christian Quesnot, concerned with the RPF’s continued advance,122 made the following
recommendations to President Mitterrand:
1 - as a first priority, to demand a strong and immediate change in the media
information about our policy in RWANDA, notably emphasizing:
•
•
•
The democratic advancement in RWANDA for the past two years: a multiparty
system, opposition Prime Minister, etc. . . .
the Ugandan aggression,
the serious human rights abuses of the RPF: systematic massacre of civilians,
ethnic purification, displaced populations, . . .
2 - continue to put pressure on the Rwandan authorities to present a united front in
the negotiations and for the Rwandan army to feel solidly supported in the defense
of national territory,
3 - to help the Rwandan army even more to maintain strong and sufficiently
equipped units between the French security apparatus and the [RPF] aggressors,
4 - to maintain, at a minimum, our current military apparatus.123
118
See id.
Id.
120
Id.
121
See Belgium Signals It Will Cut Its Substantial Aid to Rwanda, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ANGLAIS, Feb. 11, 1993.
122
See Memorandum from General Christian Quesnot, Chief of Military Staff, to President François Mitterrand 1
(Mar. 3, 1993), available at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Quesnot3mars1993.pdf (Fr.). (“The RPF has resumed its
offensive . . . . Our military and technological aid to the Rwandan forces has still not reversed the balance of power,
neither has it achieved the political objectives decided on October 22, which seems more serious to me.”).
123
Id. at 1-2.
119
24
Clearly aware of media criticism of President Habyarimana, a top priority for General Quesnot
appears to have been to lay the blame on the RPF, whom he referred to as “the aggressors.”124 His
communication made no mention of human rights abuses by the Rwandan government and did not
recommend pressure upon Rwandan authorities to curb them.
The next day, March 4, 1993, Senator Guy Penne, previously a counselor to President
Mitterrand on African Affairs, advised Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy to suspend cooperation
with Rwanda and limit French troops to protecting expatriates and humanitarian pursuits.125 That
advice went unheeded.
On March 8, 1993, FIDH et al. released its report in Paris and Brussels, which concluded
that “massive, systematic” human rights violations had been committed in Rwanda since October
1, 1990, “with the deliberate intention to attack a specific ethnic group.”126 The English version of
the report was released the same month. Among the findings quoted in the English version’s
“Introduction and Summary of Findings,” and supported in the body of the French version (which
did not include a summary of findings), were:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
There were “massive, systematic” human rights violations being committed in
Rwanda since October 1, 1990, “with the deliberate intention to attack a specific
ethnic group.”
The Rwandan government has killed or caused to be killed about 2,000 of its
citizens.
The majority of the victims have been Tutsi, and they have been killed and
otherwise abused for the sole reason that they are Tutsi.
Authorities at the highest level, including the President of the Republic, have
consented to abuses.
Officials and state agents have been responsible for carrying out attacks at the local
level. In some cases, they have even informed Hutu that killing Tutsi is part of
umuganda, the obligatory communal labor ordinarily done for the public good.
The FAR killed civilians during attacks on the Bagogwe and in Bugesera. It
slaughtered hundreds of others in the course of a military operation in Mutara. The
Rwandan army staged fake military assaults, one on the capital of Kigali and one
on its own camp at Bigogwe, to provide a pretext for killing or arresting Tutsi and
supposed opponents of the government.
The Rwanda military has assassinated or summarily executed civilians designated
by civilian authorities.
The Rwandan army has killed RPF soldiers after their surrender.
124
Id.
Letter from French Senator Guy Penne to Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy (Mar. 4, 1993), available at
https://goo.gl/Nd5896 (Fr.).
126
FIDH Report, supra note 74, at 90.
125
25
•
In clear violation of Rwandan law, the President and government of Rwanda have
tolerated and encouraged activities of armed militia attached to the political parties.
Within recent months, the militia have taken over from the government the leading
role in violence against Tutsi and members of the political opposition, effectively
“privatizing” the violence.127
The release of the FIDH report was well reported in French media.128
On the day the Commission made its work public, Belgium recalled its ambassador from
Rwanda for consultation and said it might reconsider its civilian and military cooperation with the
country.129 The French foreign ministry summoned the Rwandan ambassador for an explanation;
however, the AFP reported: “French Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Daniel Bernard
stressed that unlike the former colonial power Belgium, France [has] had no intention of reviewing
its cooperation policy with Rwanda after the report on massacres and mass graves by the
International Human Rights Federation (FIDH).”130
Likewise, following the release of the FIDH report, French Ambassador Jean-Michel
Marlaud attempted to deflect accusations against the Rwandan government by stating, “There are
violations by the Rwandan Army, more because of a lack of control by the government, rather than
the will of the government.”131
After the release of the FIDH report, French arms dealers supplied armaments to Rwanda,
reportedly with the approval of French officials. For example, in May 1993, the Rwandan
government entered into a $12 million arms deal for weapons and ammunition from a French
company, DYL Investments, that was subject to French regulations.132 In addition, according to
reports, the French consul in Goma justified allowing shipments of French and eastern European
arms as “fulfilling private French contracts agreed before the wholesale murder of civilians was
127
FÉDÉRATION INTERNATIONALE DES DROITS DE L’HOMME (“FIDH”), ET AL., REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL
COMMISSION OF INVESTIGATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN RWANDA SINCE OCTOBER 1, 1990, English
Version, 3-4 (1990), available at https://goo.gl/64zXGE.
128
See, e.g., RWANDA: selon une commission d'enquête internationale des violations “systématiques” des droits de
l'homme ont fait plus de 2,000 victimes en deux ans [RWANDA: According to an international commission of
inquiry, “systematic” violations of human rights have created more than 2000 victims in two years], LE MONDE,
Mar. 10, 1993 (reporting on a Paris press conference by FIDH President, Daniel Jacoby, who had stated that the
Rwandan government was implicated “at a very high level of responsibility” in killing of 2000 civilians since the
beginning of the civil war in October 1990); Au Rwanda, les massacres ethniques au service de la dictature [In
Rwanda, Ethnic Massacres at the Service of the Dictatorship], LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE, Apr. 1993, 18-19,
available at https://goo.gl/t7Ad8r (Fr.); Interview of Jean Carbonare, NEWS ANTENNA 2, 1993, available at
https://goo.gl/SGQpx9 (Fr.); Remy Ourdan, Les yeux fermés [Closed Eyes], LE MONDE, Apr. 1, 1998 (Fr.).
129
See Belgium Recalls Its Ambassador from Rwanda, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ANGLAIS, Mar. 8, 1993.
130
See Rwandan Ambassador Called in Over Rights Violations, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ANGLAIS, Mar. 11, 1993.
131
See Stephen D. Goose & Frank Smyth, Arming Genocide in Rwanda, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Sept.-Oct. 1994,
available at https://goo.gl/H5dy1K.
132
See Letter from Colonel Cyprien Kayumba, Duty Officer at the Ministry of Defense, to the Minister of Defense
of Bukava (Dec. 26, 1994), in MIP Tome II 563, 566 (Fr.); Letter from Paul Barril to Dominique Lemonnier, CEO
of DYL Invest (July 13, 1994), in MIP Tome II 575, 575-576 (Fr.); see also MIP Tome II 581-589.
26
sparked by the deaths of the Rwandan president and his Burundian counterpart on April 6.”133 As
one journalist has stated, “It is unlikely the shipments could have gone ahead without, at the least,
the tacit approval of the French authorities which have, until now, been Rwanda’s main weapons
supplier.”134
On January 25, 1994, Human Rights Watch (“HRW”) issued an open letter to President
François Mitterrand in which the organization claimed that France was “the major military
supporter of the government of Rwanda . . . providing combat assistance to a Rwandan army guilty
of widespread human rights abuses, and failing to pressure the Rwandan government to curb
human rights violations.”135 The letter charged that France’s military assistance to Rwanda was
tantamount to direct participation in the war.136 Although one report claimed that officials within
the French Ministry of Cooperation were preparing a response to the HRW letter,137 the French
government does not appear to have responded.138
The French Parliamentary Commission accordingly found:
Faced with procrastination by Rwandan authorities and concerned about the
stability of states and regional security, France never made the decision to suspend
all cooperation, or even to decrease the level of its civil and military aid. Thus,
President Juvénal Habyarimana was able to convince himself that “France . . .
would be behind him regardless of the situation, and he could do anything militarily
and politically.”139
133
See Chris McGreal, Paris Stands by as Arms Pour Through Eastern Zaire, THE GUARDIAN, June 23, 1994
[hereinafter Paris Stands by as Arms Pour Through Eastern Zaire], available at https://goo.gl/WVTXLS; see also
ANDY STOREY, STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR STATE POWER IN RWANDA 36 n.27 (2010) (stating
it is “unlikely the French government was unaware of this arrangement.”); see also Rearming with Impunity, supra
note 29, at 4 (“The French consul in Goma at the time, Jean-Claude Urbano, has justified the five shipments as a
fulfillment of contracts negotiated with the government of Rwanda prior to the arms embargo.”). Jean-Claude
Urbano intended to sue Human Rights Watch over its reporting but did not follow through. See Memorandum from
Defense Officer of the Ministry of Cooperation to the Minister of Cooperation (Sept. 1, 1994), LAURE CORET &
FRANÇOIS-XAVIER VERSCHAVE, L'HORREUR QUI NOUS PREND AU VISAGE: L'ÉTAT FRANÇAIS ET LE GÉNOCIDE [THE
HORROR THAT STRIKES US IN THE FACE: THE FRENCH STATE AND THE GENOCIDE] (2005) [hereinafter Roussin
Memorandum] 126, available at https://goo.gl/neQHqe (Fr.).
134
Paris Stands by as Arms Pour Through Eastern Zaire, supra note 133.
135
Frank Smyth, Rwanda’s French Connection, THE VILLAGE VOICE, May 3, 1994, available at
https://goo.gl/3d1skp [hereinafter Smyth]; France: Mitterrand Fils Encore!, AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL, Feb. 4, 1994, at
8 [hereinafter Africa Confidential].
136
Monah Esipisu, Human Rights Group Urges Arms Ban on Rwanda, REUTERS, Jan. 25, 1994; Africa Confidential,
supra note 135, at 8.
137
Africa Confidential, supra note 135, at 8.
138
Smyth, supra note 135.
139
MIP Tome I 36 (quoting testimony from former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman
Cohen).
27
D.
Despite the Massacres in Rwanda, French Officials Strengthened the
Rwandan Gendarmerie and May Have Helped Civilian Militias.
In the midst of these massacres, public information shows that France increased its support
for Rwandan institutions, core elements of which would later participate in the Genocide against
the Tutsi.140
1.
French Officials Developed and Assisted the Rwandan
Gendarmerie.
Through the MTAA of 1975, French officials helped develop the Rwandan Gendarmerie.
That assistance intensified during the early 1990s. In November 1990, Rwandan officials asked
French officials to continue with their development of the Rwandan Gendarmerie and, within it,
the judicial police.141 Internal communications from 1991 show that French officials were assisting
the Gendarmerie prepare for the defense of Kigali, and that the Gendarmerie would benefit from
tactical assistance, led by Col. Canovas.142
French advisors also assisted the Gendarmerie in the investigation of acts of “terrorism.”
Yet, two French reports on the subject (one dated June 1, 1992 and the other dated June 1993)
suggest that DAMI advisors to the Gendarmerie were more interested in finding evidence of crimes
supposedly committed by the RPF than in putting an end to the mass murder of Tutsi.143 While
both reports acknowledged the lack of conclusive evidence for the laying of mines and explosive
attacks on taxis in Kigali, the 1993 report, in particular, accused the RPF.144
Neither report entertained an investigation into the well-reported massacres that were
continuing to unfold across the country. Instead, they referred to “ethnic violence” in passing, and
140
See generally LAURE DE VULPIAN AND THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE: RWANDA, 1992-1994
RESPONSABILITÉS DE L’ÉTAT FRANÇAIS DANS LE GÉNOCIDE DES TUTSI [TURQUOISE SILENCE: RWANDA, 1992-1994
RESPONSIBILTY OF THE FRENCH STATE IN THE TUTSI GENOCIDE] 65 (2012) [hereinafter Vulpian & Prungnaud];
France Said to Train Rwandans Before ’94 Genocide, NYTIMES, Apr. 23, 2005, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/23/world/europe/france-said-to-train-rwandans-before-94-genocide.html;
AFRICAN RIGHTS, DEATH, DESPAIR AND DEFIANCE 55 (1995).
141
See Memorandum from Colonel Leonidas Rusatira 2 (Nov. 17, 1990), available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Rusatira17novembre1990.pdf (Fr.).
142
See Cable from René Galinié to Jacques Ruelle, Head of the DMAT/Gendarmerie 1 (Feb. 18, 1991), available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/GalinieRuelle18fevrier1991.pdf (Fr.).
143
RÉPUBLIQUE RWANDAISE GENDARMERIE NATIONALE, ETUDE SUR LE TERRORISME AU RWANDA DEPUIS 1990
[STUDY ON TERRORISM IN RWANDA SINCE 1990] (1993) (hereinafter Etude sur le terrorisme), available at
https://goo.gl/HBv6yV (Fr.)
144
See Etude sur le terrorisme, supra note 143, at 508 (Fr.) (“We can assert that the sponsor of most of the attacks is
the RPF”).
28
accused the RPF of inciting massacres to destabilize the Habyarimana regime.145 The theory that
the RPF sought to incite massacres against its own people found no support in the
contemporaneous FIDH report, which instead noted numerous instances of participation by the
Gendarmerie in the massacres of Tutsi.146
2.
French Officials May Have Trained and Equipped Civilian
Militias.
Over time, while the violent atmosphere in Rwanda boiled, information in the public record
suggests that French officials may have trained and equipped civilian militias. Thierry Prungnaud,
a former member of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, for example, told France
Culture radio that in 1992 he saw “French military members training Rwandan civilian militias to
shoot a gun. . . . [T]here were about 30 militants being taught how to shoot in Akagera park.”147
These militias organized and operated in similar fashion to the Interahamwe and
Impuzamugambi, who were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people during
the Genocide against the Tutsi. They were trained (not necessarily by the French) to see the Tutsi
as the enemy, “cockroaches” who deserved to die.148 In the months preceding the Genocide against
145
See, e.g., ACTES DE TERRORISME PERPÉTRES AU RWANDA DEPUIS DECEMBRE 1991, at 6 (Fr.) (“a significant part of
these actions are to be imputed to the RPF which implements them from Burundi, possibly via Zaire. They aim to
destabilize the country and discredit the president of the Republic with public opinion and donors (provoking for
example ethnic massacres)”); see also Etude sur le terrorisme, supra note 143, §§ VII & VIII (Fr.) (concluding
“evidence clearly shows that the Rwandan Patriotic Front is behind those attacks” and specifically suggesting that in
Bugesera the RPF had committed “attacks on soldiers at Gako camp in order to provoke trouble and an
indiscriminate ethnic crackdown.”).
146
See FIDH Report, supra note 74, at 53 (Fr.) (“The Rwandan Armed Forces, among whom we include the
gendarmerie, are cited in several chapters of this report as perpetrators of particularly grave human rights
violations.”).
147
France Said to Train Rwandans before ’94 Genocide, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 23, 2005, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/23/world/europe/france-said-to-train-rwandans-before-94-genocide.html; see also
MIP Tome I 369 (discussing testimony of Venuste Kayimahe, who named two French soldiers who he observed
training militias in Kigali, and also the testimony of the two soldiers, who denied the accusation) & 370 (discussing
Gerard Prunier’s recollection of French soldiers’ training of militias); AFRICAN RIGHTS, DEATH, DESPAIR AND
DEFIANCE 60 (1995) (“About 8000 [I]nterahamwe sufficiently trained and equipped by the French army await the
signal to begin the assassinations among the residents of the city of Kigali and its surroundings.”); Vulpian &
Prungnaud, supra note 140, at 66, 78-80 (2012).
148
In the ICTR prosecution of Augustin Ndindiliyimana, a witness (“GFC”) testified that the trainees at the
Mukingo Commune office in 1993 were told “that Tutsis were mean, Tutsis-Inyenzi, and that it was the Tutsis who
had attacked us and that we should chase them away,” and that the authorities gave the trainees weapons and told
them they would be posted at roadblocks to pursue the Tutsi enemy. Prosecutor v. Augustin Ndindiliyimana et al.,
Case No. ICTR-00-56-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 354 (May 17, 2011), available at
http://unictr.unmict.org/sites/unictr.org/files/case-documents/ictr-99-50/trial-judgements/en/110517.pdf; see also
Genocide Survivor Can’t Forgive, BBC News, Apr. 7, 2006 (quoting Genocide survivor who claimed that she
encountered “many Interahamwe, men who had been trained to kill the Tutsis,” and referred to Tutsi as “Inyenzi” or
29
the Tutsi, French officials received reports about the conduct of the Interahamwe and other
extremists. On January 12, 1994, the Directorate-General for External Security (“DGSE”),
France’s foreign intelligence service, informed the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs that
elements within the Interahamwe were attempting to provoke reactions from RPF soldiers
stationed at the Rwandan parliament (“CND”) in order to use the reactions as a pretext for killing
the Tutsi in Kigali.149
III.
DURING THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TUTSI, FRENCH OFFICIALS SUPPORTED THE
INTERIM RWANDAN GOVERNMENT AND THE GÉNOCIDAIRES.
On March 30, 1994, a week before the Genocide against the Tutsi began, UNAMIR
Commander, Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, discovered that the French Government had
learned of his reports about French involvement with extremist forces and, in reaction to them, had
tried to remove him from his command. He explained:
France had written the Canadian government to request my removal as force
commander of UNAMIR. Apparently someone had been reading my reports and
hadn’t liked the pointed references I had made to the presence of French officers
among the Presidential Guard, especially in light of the Guard’s close links to the
Interahamwe militias. The French ministry of defence must have been aware of
what was going on and was turning a blind eye. My bluntness had rattled the French
enough for them to take the bold and extremely unusual step of asking for my
dismissal. It was clear that Ottawa and the DPKO were still backing me, but I made
a mental note to keep a close watch on the French in Rwanda, to continue to suspect
their motives and to further probe the presence of French military advisers in the
elite RGF units and their possible involvement in the training of the
Interahamwe.150
When the Genocide against the Tutsi began on April 7, 1994, some French officials were
immediately aware that the level of violence would exceed all previous massacres. According to
cockroaches), available at https://goo.gl/YbkpK3; see also cable from Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire,
UNAMIR Force Commander, to United Nations, Department of Peace Keeping Operations (Jan. 11, 1994) (noting
that while the official purpose of the Interahamwe stationed in Kigali was to protect the city against the RPF, one of
their trainers had been ordered to register all the Tutsi in Kigali and suspected it was for extermination
purposes), available at http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?e=d-01000-00---off-0RW2-00-1--0-10-0---0---0prompt-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-1000---50-about---00-3-1-00-0-0-11-1-0utfZz-800&a=d&cl=CL1.6.1&d=HASHac5d200ba6db810c1d0329.1.
149
See Memorandum from Pierre-Henri Bunel, French intelligence officer 228 (Jan. 12, 1994), in MIP Tome II 228,
available at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Bunel12janvier1994.pdf (Fr).
150
Dallaire, supra note 110, at 209-210.
30
the French Parliamentary Commission report, General Quesnot conceded that they knew what was
taking place and what was about to unfold: “[W]hen President Habyarimana was assassinated, …
politicians and military men … immediately understood that we were heading towards massacres
that were completely different from those that had taken place previously.”151 Indeed, on the
morning of April 7, 1994, the Genocide started with mass killings of Tutsi and moderate politicians
(including Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyama, the official authorized to lead the Rwandan
government following President Habyarimana’s assassination).152
A.
French Officials Arrived Early to the Scene of the Wreckage of President
Habyarimana’s Plane, Which Has Since Yielded Little Evidence.
The French-trained Presidential Guard denied UNAMIR and others access to the site of the
plane crash,153 and Major Aloys Ntabakuze (convicted génocidaire and commander of the FAR
paracommando battalion) claimed he had sent a platoon to the site.154 As UNAMIR and others
were denied access to the site of the plane crash, at least two French officials (Lt. Col. Grégoire de
Saint-Quentin and a subordinate) arrived early to the scene of the plane crash, where they searched
for evidence,155 and did not properly secure the site in order to preserve evidence. With the deaths
of the French pilots and crew on the downed Falcon 50 (a French plane), which itself was a gift
from the French government to President Habyarimana, it would be expected that the French
government would investigate the matter in real time. France, however, has never disclosed either
an investigation report or any physical evidence from the crash site.
B.
During the Genocide, French Officials Adopted Their Allies’ Opposition to
the Tutsi.
As the Genocide against the Tutsi continued, French officials accepted some of the
extremist myths and ethnic hatred that helped provoke mass murders of Tutsi.
When the Genocide began on April 7, 1994, extremist radio immediately helped foment
the Genocide by broadcasting accusations that the RPF and Belgium had shot down the plane and
151
MIP Tome III, Vol. 1 344 (General Christian Quesnot Audition).
See generally Dallaire, supra note 110, ch. 10.
153
See MIP Tome I 247; Letter from Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, Commander of UNAMIR, to Jean
Kambanda, Prime Minister of Rwanda, in MIP Tome II 244 (Fr.).
154
The Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 830 (Dec. 18,
2008).
155
See Fact sheet by the French Ministry of Defense 3 (July 7, 1998), available at https://goo.gl/aEthso (Fr.); MIP
Tome I 247-248.
152
31
advising civilians to alert authorities to the presence of Tutsi.156 In an April 7, 1994, cable to
President Mitterrand, Bruno Delaye (head of the Africa Cell in Élysée Palace) reported the same
narrative heard on extremist radio stations that the RPF had shot down the Falcon 50.157 Yet, on
April 11, 1994, a DGSE cable dismissed “the hypothesis” that the RPF shot down the plane as
“not satisfactory,” as the DGSE wrote that the missiles had launched from the edge of Camp
Kanombe, controlled by the Rwandan military, and – because of the many roadblocks – by
personnel already within the confines of the airport’s security perimeter.158
Nevertheless, French officials did not correct the public misinformation about the plane
crash and, at least at one point, internally blamed the “the Tutsi” for the mass killings that ensued.
On April 13, 1994, the French Chief of the Defense Staff Admiral Jacques Lanxade, when asked
by President Mitterrand whether the massacres would spread, predicted: “They are already
considerable. But at this moment it is the Tutsi who will massacre the Hutu in Kigali.”159 On April
19, 1994, General Quesnot told a reporter that Ugandan President Museveni, through his support
of the RPF, “wants to create a Tutsiland,” but will fail because “an ethnic majority of 90 per cent
will not accept domination of a Tutsi ethnic minority.”160 General Quesnot, in the same interview,
likened the RPF to the “Khmers Noirs.”161
156
See, e.g., transcript of RTLM Broadcast (Apr. 9, 1994) (on file with CLM) (Fr.); see also Letter from Baron H.
Dehennin, Belgian Ambassador to the UK, to Mr. A.M. Goodenough, CMG, Superintending Under-Secretary,
African Department (Southern), Foreign and Commonwealth Office (May 3, 1994), in The Linda Melvern Rwanda
Genocide Archive, The Hugh Owen Library, University of Wales.
157
See Memorandum from Bruno Delaye, Head of the Africa Desk in the Office of the President, to President
François Mitterrand (Apr. 7, 1994), available at
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB461/docs/DOCUMENT%2020%20-%20French.pdf (Fr.).
158
JEAN FRANÇOIS DUPAQUIER, POLITIQUES, MILITAIRE, ET MERCENAIRES FRANÇAIS AU RWANDA: CHRONIQUE
D’UNE DÉSINFORMATION 349 (2014) (quoting from DGSE cable 18502/N).
159
Transcript of Restricted Council Meeting 2 (Apr. 13, 1994) (on file with CLM LLP) (Fr.).
160
Interview by Françoise Carle with General Christian Quesnot 3 (Apr. 29, 1994), available
at http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/ageofgenocide/Session%204%20Documents%20(with%20list).pdf (Fr.).
161
Id. at 2.
32
C.
Extremists Used Institutions Developed by French Officials to Execute the
Genocide against the Tutsi.
At the same time as French officials were aware of the increasing violence against the
Tutsi, Rwanda’s powder keg of ethnic hatred exploded. Within a matter of hours after the plane
was shot down, extremists used institutions or means previously developed or aided by French
officials to begin the mass killings of the Tutsi. For example:
•
The Lists: The Rwandan Gendarmerie was trained and organized by French officials
over time. With their assistance, the Gendarmerie entered the names of people under
surveillance into a computer database.162 Colonel Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the
Rwandan Gendarmerie chief of staff, requested from Lt. Col. Robardey that “the
personnel from the judicial police and the Groupement be trained in order to exploit
this tool to the maximum.”163 It has been reported that on the evening of April 6, 1994,
after the plane was shot down, extremists began to use lists to identify and target people
to be killed.164 But it is not clear from the public record whether these lists were the
same lists generated by the Gendarmerie.
•
Radio: When the Genocide against the Tutsi began, RTLM and other radio stations,
broadcasting in French and Kinyarwanda, blamed Tutsi for the shoot down of the
president’s plane and encouraged the Rwandan people to rise up and kill “the enemy”
– i.e., the Tutsi.165 During the first days of the Genocide, French officials permitted
RTLM co-founder Ferdinand Nahimana to use the French Embassy in Kigali as a place
of refuge for his family.166
•
FAR and Presidential Guard: The IRG’s efforts in April and May 1994 to exterminate
the Tutsi employed many members of the FAR and the Presidential Guard trained by
embedded French officials.167
162
See Letter from Lt. Col. Michel Robardey to Augustin Ndindiliyimana, Chief of Staff of the Gendarmerie, (Oct.
14, 1992), available at https://goo.gl/VXbpKc (Fr.); see also letter from Colonel Augustin Ndindiliyimana to
Lieutenant Colonel Michel Robardey (Oct. 28, 1992) [hereinafter Ndindiliyimana Oct. 28, 1992 Letter], available
at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/NdindiliyimanaChefCrcd28octobre1992.pdf (Fr.).
163
Ndindiliyimana Oct. 28, 1992 Letter, supra note 162.
164
See FRANÇOIS GRANER, LE SABRE ET LA MACHETTE: OFFICIERS FRANCAIS ET GENOCIDE TUTSI [THE SWORD AND
THE MACHETE: FRENCH OFFICERS AND TUTSI GENOCIDE] 71 (2014) (citing PHILIPPE BREWAEYS, RWANDA 1994:
NOIRS ET BLANCS MENTEURS [RWANDA 1994: BLACK AND WHITE LIARS] 157 (2013) and CAPITAINE THIERRY
JOUAN, UNE VIE DANS L’OMBRE [A LIFE IN THE SHADOW] 186 (2012)).
165
See, e.g., MIP Tome I 291; see, e.g., transcript of RTLM Broadcast (Apr. 9, 1994) (on file with CLM LLP) (Fr.);
transcript of RTLM Broadcast (June 4, 1994) (on file with CLM LLP) (Fr.).
166
See MIP Tome III, Vol. 1 31-32 (André Guichaoua Audition).
167
See Memorandum from the Rwandan Ministry of National Defense 8 (Jan. 1, 1993), available
at https://goo.gl/5AF9fN (Fr.) (showing that Lt. Col. Grégoire de Saint-Quentin, among others, was embedded with
the FAR); Memorandum from the Rwandan Ministry of National Defense (Mar. 5, 1994), available
at https://goo.gl/No1dTE (Fr.) (showing that Saint-Quentin was still embedded with the FAR as of March 5, 1994);
33
•
Roadblocks: In 1993, French officials manned roadblocks.168 At the roadblocks, French
and Rwandan officials checked identification cards to determine an individual’s
ethnicity.169 When the Genocide began, génocidaires manned the roadblocks, where
thousands of Tutsi were identified and slaughtered.
D.
French Officials Sheltered and Supported the Interim Rwandan
Government.
When, on April 8, 1994, génocidaires (including ministers in the Habyarimana
government) met to constitute a new Rwandan government, they did so inside the French Embassy
in Kigali.170 According to French Ambassador Jean-Michel Marlaud, the Rwandan ministers at
this meeting made a variety of commitments, e.g., replacing government ministers and regaining
control of the Presidential Guard.171 Ambassador Marlaud added that while these ministers
purported to reaffirm their commitment to the Arusha Agreements, they refused to proceed with
standing up the Broad Based Transitional Government (“BBTG”), which the RPF and multiple
political parties had agreed to establish as part of the Arusha process.172 Around eight o’clock that
evening, the French Embassy was informed of the appointment of a President and of an IRG – i.e.,
not the BBTG.173
MIP Tome I 369 (reporting that the Presidential Guard benefited from the presence of DAMI officers under the
command of Lieutenant Denis Roux); Vulpian & Prungnaud, supra note 140, at 74; France Said to Train
Rwandans Before ’94 Genocide, NYTIMES, Apr. 23, 2005, available
at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/23/world/europe/france-said-to-train-rwandans-before-94genocide.html (stating that Thierry Prungnaud had been sent to train the Presidential Guard); AFRICAN RIGHTS,
DEATH, DESPAIR AND DEFIANCE 55 (1995) (stating that members of the Presidential Guard based at Kanombe
barracks in Kigali and trained by the French participated in the training of local militias); Prosecutor v. Aloys
Ntabakuze, Case No. ICTR-98-41A-A, Judgement, ¶245-250 (May 8, 2012), https://goo.gl/kMHgXB.
168
See MIP at Tome I 172 (citing MSF official Jean-Hervé Bradol Audition); id. at Tome I 175-176.
169
See Kigali, AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE-ANGLAIS, Mar. 3, 1993 (“French troops accompanied by Rwandan soldiers
are manning roadblocks on the outskirts of the capital. The French soldiers were checking identification papers of
Rwandans travelling to and from Kigali on Wednesday.”); ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY, RWANDA: THE
PREVENTABLE GENOCIDE 76 (2000) (“French soldiers were deployed, manning checkpoints and scrutinizing identity
cards far from where any French citizens were known to be living, but very close to the RPF zone of control. A
Dutch physician working in Rwanda for Doctors without Borders, often found French soldiers manning checkpoints
in the countryside.”) (citations omitted); HRW, Arming Rwanda, supra note 44, at 24 (“The Arms Project observed
French soldiers manning checkpoints just north of Kigali on the roads to Ruhengeri and Byumba. They were armed
with 5.56mm FAMAS automatic rifles, as well as Wasp 58 assault rocket launchers and other infantry support
weapons. Like Rwandan army troops, French troops demanded identification from passing civilians.”).
170
See MIP Tome III Vol.1 296 (Ambassador Jean-Michel Marlaud Audition).
171
See id.
172
See id.
173
See id. at 296-297.
34
French officials recognized the IRG and received its officials in Paris. This
acknowledgement and acceptance of the IRG and its officials was particularly noteworthy because
at the time, only Egypt had agreed to do the same, while other states, such as Belgium and the
United States, refused.174 On April 27, 1994, on their way to a UN meeting in New York, Jerome
Bicamumpaka (interim foreign minister) and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza (the leader of the CDR)
met in Paris with Bruno Delaye (head of the Africa Cell in the Élysée) and the Office of the French
Prime Minister.175 Delaye defended these meetings and stated, “you cannot deal with Africa
without getting your hands dirty.”176
Also, according to a May 16, 1994, correspondence from Lt. Col. Ephrem Rwabalinda to
the Rwandan Minister of Defense, Augustin Bizimana, and the Rwandan Army Chief of Staff,
Augustin Bizimungu, General Jean-Pierre Huchon (the military head of the French Ministry of
Cooperation) had confirmed during a meeting in France that encrypted communications systems
for General Bizimungu and General Huchon to use for communications between Rwanda and Paris
had been sent to Kigali.177 Rwabalinda’s communication added that General Huchon believed it
was “necessary to provide without delay all the evidence proving the legitimacy of the war waged
by Rwanda in order to return international opinion in favor of Rwanda.”178 Rwabalinda had
explained that the French were unable to provide direct military assistance at that time because of
adverse public opinion against the Rwandan regime.179
According to contemporaneous press reports, French officials continued to funnel weapons
to Rwanda in defiance of a United Nations Security Council (“UNSC”) arms embargo put into
place during the Genocide against the Tutsi, on May 17, 1994.180
174
See Leave None, supra note 67, at 25.
See MIP Tome I 316; Press Release, Human Rights Watch/Africa, Representatives of Rwanda’s Genocidal
Government Expected in New York; Militia Groups Ordered to Halt the Slaughter during Kigali Visit by UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights 13 (May 11, 1994), available at
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB472/pdf/nz2597.pdf; Patrick Saint-Exupery, France-Rwanda: un
génocide sans importance… [France-Rwanda: An Unimportant Genocide], LE FIGARO, Jan. 12, 199 (Fr.) 8. See also
Leave None, supra note 67, at 285-86 (stating the IRG officials also met with President Mitterrand and French
Minister of Foreign Affairs Alain Juppé).
176
Patrick Saint-Exupéry, France-Rwanda : un génocide sans importance… [France-Rwanda: An Unimportant
Genocide], LE FIGARO, Jan. 12, 1998 (Fr.).
177
See, e.g., letter from Lt. Col. Ephrem Rwabalinda, Advisor to the Chief of Staff, Rwandan Armed Forces, to
Augustin Bizimana, Rwandan Minister of Defense, and Augustin Bizimungu, Chief of Staff, Rwandan Army 2-3
(May 16, 1994), available at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/RapportRwabalinda16mai1994.pdf (Fr.).
178
Id.
179
Id.
180
See MIP Tome I 186.
175
35
E.
French Officials Mischaracterized the Genocide against the Tutsi as a Civil
War.
On April 11, 1994, Le Parisien published an article under the headline “C’est un véritable
génocide” (“It is a true genocide”) and characterized the situation on the ground in Rwanda as a
genocide against the Tutsi.181 As the Genocide raged, however, French officials regarded the state
of affairs in Rwanda as a two-sided humanitarian crisis brought on by an armed conflict.182 These
mischaracterizations subverted the truth of a wholesale slaughter of non-combatant civilian Tutsi
perpetrated by government forces and militias.
These mischaracterizations were made both internally within France and on an
international stage. At this time, in 1994, Rwanda held one of ten rotating seats on the UNSC. In
late April 1994, after the Genocide began, the Rwandan and French representatives to the UNSC
“sought to amend [the] opening [paragraphs of a draft statement being composed by the UNSC]
to remove [the] assertion that Government forces were responsible for the bulk of the killings” in
Rwanda.183 Notwithstanding those suggestions from Rwanda and France, the UNSC presidential
statement on Rwanda, on April 30, 1994, represented that the killings occurred “throughout the
country, especially in areas under the control of members or supporters of the armed forces of the
interim Government of Rwanda.”184
Although few governments accurately characterized events in Rwanda as a genocide while
it was occurring,185 French officials mischaracterized the situation as a civil war or a double181
Bruno Fanucchi, C’est un véritable génocide [It Is a True Genocide], LE PARISIEN, Apr. 11, 1994, available
at https://goo.gl/9k2NM3 (Fr.).
182
See, e.g., MIP Tome III, Vol. 1 210 (Hubert Védrine Audition) (characterizing a genocide instead as a “terrible
confrontation” and indicating that a “ceasefire” could resolve the situation in Rwanda).
183
Cable no. C04395 from New Zealand Representative to the U.N. Security Council in New York, to New Zealand
U.N. Security Council Representative office in Wellington 2 (May 2, 1994), available
at http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB472/pdf/nzc04395.pdf.
184
Statement, President of the Security Council, U.N.S.C. Statement S/PRST/1994/21 1 (Apr. 30, 1994), available
at http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/PRST/1994/21.
185
The Czech Republic, along with New Zealand, was an outlier in this respect. According to former Czech
Ambassador to the U.N. Karel Kovanda, by April 25, 1994, she understood that the Genocide was not simply a
humanitarian catastrophe, but rather “the deliberate extermination of one ethnic group.” In her correspondence to the
Czech government in Prague, she noted that “[t]his is a matter of clear genocide committed by governmental and
presidential units of the Hutu against the Tutsi.” On April 28, 1994, the Czech delegation introduced a draft
Presidential statement to the Security Council which stated that “[t]he Security Council reaffirms that the systematic
killing of any ethnic group, with the intent to destroy it in whole or in part, constitutes an act of genocide.…” Karel
Kovanda, The Czech Republic on the UN Security Council: The Rwandan Genocide, in Genocide Studies and
Prevention 193, 204 (August 2010). In an April 25, 1994, cable, New Zealand’s UNSC representative sought an
investigation of what was happening in Rwanda, “at the very least to open a file in which the evidence of the MSF
[Médcins Sans Frontiers] could be deposited so that over the longer term action is taken to have the perpetrators of
this genocide held responsible[.]” Cable no. C04362 from New Zealand Representative to the U.N. Security Council
in New York, to New Zealand U.N. Security Council Representative office in Wellington 3 (April 25,
1994), available at https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB472/docs/Document%2011.pdf.
36
genocide,186 particularly in April 1994, as they helped establish, support and advise the IRG, while,
as discussed below, simultaneously witnessing the Genocide against the Tutsi and continuing to
provide armaments to Rwanda.
F.
When the Genocide Commenced, French Officials Airlifted Extremists
and Their Families to Safety.
On April 8, 1994, French officials initiated Opération Amaryllis, whereby French officials
evacuated French citizens and 394 Rwandans, including President Habyarimana’s widow (Agathe
Kanziga, a member of the extremist group, the Akazu), her three children and two grandchildren,
RTLM co-founder Ferdinand Nahimana and his family, 40 MRND members, and other
extremists,187 while refusing to evacuate either Tutsi or opposition politicians. French officials
commenced and conducted this operation, even as they stated in the official order for Opération
Amaryllis, issued on April 8, 1994, that the Presidential Guard had begun to eliminate members of
the opposition and the Tutsi.188
On the morning of April 9, 1994, 190 French soldiers reportedly flew into Kigali
International Airport, occupied it, and installed artillery and anti-aircraft weapons.189 Later that
day, 400 additional French troops landed at the airport.190 On the evening of April 10, 1994,
Lieutenant-General Dallaire spoke with an adviser to the UN Secretary General and “hit him with
all of [Dallaire’s] anger over the French and Belgian actions, including the fact that the French
were shooting from [UNAMIR] vehicles, which they had stolen from the airport.”191
186
See Transcript of Restricted Council Meeting 2 (Apr. 13, 1994) (“[The massacres] are already considerable. But
at this moment it is the Tutsi who will massacre the Hutu in Kigali.”), available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/ConseilRestreint13avril1994.pdf (Fr.); Memorandum from Admiral Jacques Lanxade
1 (July 2, 1994), available at https://goo.gl/oZQDB7 (Fr.).
187
See ANDRÉ GUICHAOUA, LES CRISES POLITIQUES AU BURUNDI ET AU RWANDA (1993–1994) [THE POLITICAL
CRISES IN BURUNDI AND IN RWANDA (1993-1994)] Annex 83 (2000), available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/ListeEvacuesParFrance12avrilGuichaouaAnnexe83.pdf; MIP Tome I 260.
188
Order for Operation Amaryllis (Apr. 8, 1994), in MIP Tome II 344 (Fr.).
189
Melvern, A People Betrayed, supra note 18, at 141.
190
Id.
191
Dallaire, supra note 110, at 289.
37
G.
During the Genocide and Even after the Imposition of a UN Arms
Embargo, France Facilitated Arms Shipments to Rwanda.
On May 3, 1994, General Quesnot sent the following message to President Mitterrand, in
order to persuade the highest levels of French government of the need to arm the IRG and the
FAR, a month into the Genocide against the Tutsi:
As it stands, the FAR are lacking in munitions and military equipment. But the Quai
d’Orsay, noting the public opinion and the necessity to not feed the conflict,
believes it necessary to support the American proposal of a weapons and
ammunition embargo destined for Rwanda. This embargo will not extend to
Burundi, where it is appropriate to stabilize the situation in order to, in particular,
be able to use it as a humanitarian relay.192
Three days later, on May 6, 1994, General Quesnot sent the following warning to President
Mitterrand:
On the ground, the RPF refuses all cease-fire and will very shortly attain its war
objectives: the control of all the eastern part of Rwanda, including the capital, in
order to ensure a territorial continuity among Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda.
President MUSEVENI (sic) and his allies will have therefore created a “Tutsiland”
with Anglo-Saxon help and with the objective complicity of false intellectuals, who
are remarkable intermediaries for a Tutsi lobby, to which part of our state apparatus
is sensitive.193
In the same May 6, 1994, cable to President Mitterrand, General Quesnot expressed his concerns
about France losing influence with its other allies in Africa, in the event France lost control of
Rwanda:
Through the Rwandan tragedy and the de facto abandonment of years of FrancoRwandan cooperation, would it be possible to guarantee other friendly African
countries that analogous situations will not lead to an identical reaction of
withdrawal? Barring the use of a direct strategy in the region which could be
politically difficult to implement, we have the means and intermediaries for an
indirect strategy that could re-establish a certain equilibrium.194
192
Letter from General Christian Quesnot to President François Mitterrand 2 (May 3, 1994) available at
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Quesnot3mai1994.pdf (Fr.).
193
Letter from General Christian Quesnot to President François Mitterrand 1 (May 6, 1994) available at
https://goo.gl/qT6vVf (Fr.).
194
Id. at 2.
38
On May 17, 1994, the UNSC embargoed arms going to Rwanda. Despite that, public
reports concluded that French officials and individuals helped rearm the génocidaires through
deliveries into Zaire.195 In a May 1995 report titled, “Rearming with Impunity: International
Support for the Perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide,” HRW found:
Arms flows to the FAR were not suspended immediately by France after the
imposition of the arms embargo on May 17, 1994. Rather, they were diverted to
Goma airport in Zaire as an alternative to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, where fighting
between the FAR and the rebel RPF as well as an international presence made
continued shipments extremely difficult. Some of the first arms shipments to arrive
in Goma after May 17 were supplied to the FAR by the French government. Human
Rights Watch learned from airport personnel and local businessmen that five
shipments arrived in May and June containing artillery, machine guns, assault rifles
and ammunition provided by the French government. These weapons were taken
across the border into Rwanda by members of the Zairian military and delivered to
the FAR in Gisenyi. The French consul in Goma at the time, Jean-Claude Urbano,
has justified the five shipments as a fulfillment of contracts negotiated with the
government of Rwanda prior to the arms embargo.196
IV.
UNDER THE BANNER OF A HUMANITARIAN MISSION, FRENCH OFFICIALS USED
OPÉRATION TURQUOISE TO SUPPORT THE IRG AGAINST THE RPF, EVEN AS THE
GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TUTSI CONTINUED.
By mid-June 1994, it became apparent that the Genocide’s perpetrators were losing the war
and the RPF would soon control the country. In a May 22, 1994, letter to President Mitterrand,
IRG President Theodore Sindikubwabo requested “material and diplomatic support” from the
French government, as “Uganda’s support for the Rwandan Patriotic Front was massive and
decisive.”197 “Without your urgent help,” the President of the IRG appealed to President
Mitterrand, “our assailants are likely to realize their plans. . . . ”198 The public record suggests that
France initiated and executed Opération Turquoise in order to support the nearly defeated IRG
and keep its influence over Rwanda, but masked that purpose from the public. Though French
officials portrayed the operation as a humanitarian mission to the public and the UNSC, the public
record includes information that soldiers who participated in the mission were ordered to rearm
the IRG.
195
See MIP Tome I 186.
See Rearming with Impunity, supra note 29, at 4.
197
Letter from President Théodore Sindikuwabo to President François Mitterrand 1 (May 22, 1994), available at
https://goo.gl/jVCsvv (Fr.).
198
Id.
196
39
Opération Turquoise, which would begin on June 23, 1994, became a way for France to
intervene in Rwanda under the guise of a humanitarian effort.
French journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupéry recently reported that a highly placed French
officer who reviewed the French archives on Rwanda confirmed the existence of a note directing
French soldiers to obey the order to rearm the génocidaires.199 The officer told Saint-Exupéry that
there were several documents discussing soldiers who did not understand the order and did not
want to obey it.200 According to Saint-Exupéry, the French officer reported that in the margins of
one of the documents was a handwritten note saying that it was necessary to “stick to the fixed
directives, so rearm the Hutu.”201 According to the officer, the note was written by Hubert Védrine,
Secretary General of the Élysée under President Mitterrand.202
Saint-Exupéry’s recent revelations support the suspicions held at the inception of
Opération Turquoise by other countries about French intentions. For example, in late May or early
June 1994, French officials asked the United States to join a military operation in Rwanda; the
United States declined, because (in part) it was not interested in helping France slow the advance
of the RPF or to prop up the IRG.203 Some of the UNSC member states saw through the purported
humanitarian justification for the redeployment of French troops in Rwanda and abstained from
supporting the measure.204 New Zealand’s representative to the UNSC, in a June 17, 1994, cable,
informed his government in Wellington that the French representative to the UNSC had confided
that French intervention would help the FAR.205 A member of the US Mission to the UN also
shared that assessment.206 By June 21, 1994, the New Zealand representative had learned that
“French military advisers [had] remained in the country and [had] been training some of the Hutu,”
and subsequently recommended that New Zealand not support the resolution.207 According to the
New Zealand representative: “The evidence [had continued] to mount that this [was] a badly
conceived operation with questionable motivation.”208
199
Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, Réarmez-les! [Rearm Them!], REVUE XXI, 64-65, July/August/September 2017.
Id at 64.
201
Id.
202
Id. at 60 & 64.
203
See Leave None, supra note 67, at 669-670 (citing interview).
204
U.N. SCOR, 49th Sess. 3392d mtg., S/PV.3392, vote on S/RES/929, available
at http://unbisnet.un.org:8080/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=voting&index=.VM&term=sres929.
205
Cable no. C04641 from New Zealand Representative to the U.N. Security Council in New York, to New Zealand
U.N. Security Council Representative office in Wellington 3 (June 17, 1994), available at
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB472/pdf/nzc04641.pdf
206
See id. at 4 & 5.
207
Cable no. C04652 from New Zealand Representative to the U.N. Security Council in New York, to New Zealand
U.N. Security Council Representative office in Wellington 3 (June 21, 1994), available at
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB472/pdf/nzc04652.pdf.
208
See id. at 5.
200
40
Once Opération Turquoise began, a report from the New York Times confirmed the
skepticism of the UNSC representatives who had expressed reservations about the French
operation’s purpose:
The French move to set up the safe zone and stop the rebel army, which was
approved by President Francois Mitterrand, represents a substantial change in its
mission. Until now, the French have said they are neutral. But in protecting a region
that contains Government forces but no rebel troops, France has effectively come
to the rescue of the beleaguered Hutu-dominated Government.209
UNAMIR Commander, Lieutenant-General Dallaire, was more than skeptical of
Opération Turquoise; he openly opposed it. Lieutenant-General Dallaire did not learn of France’s
plan for Opération Turquoise until June 17, 1994, and he registered his objections, in person, to
President Mitterrand’s representative Bernard Kouchner.210 Of France’s intentions at this time,
Lieutenant-General Dallaire has commented that France, under the guise of a humanitarian
mission, was attempting to enable the IRG to hold onto part of Rwanda and to maintain its
legitimacy.211 “As far as I was concerned, they were using a humanitarian cloak to intervene in
Rwanda, thus enabling the [FAR] to hold onto a sliver of the country and retain a slice of
legitimacy in the face of certain defeat,” Lieutenant-General Dallaire wrote.212 The French
“humanitarian” operation weakened UNAMIR’s impact in Rwanda. Lieutenant-General Dallaire
sent Francophone African UNAMIR peacekeepers home, as the presence of Turquoise troops (who
previously had advised the FAR) endangered the neutral status of French-speaking UNAMIR
peacekeepers and thus put them in harm’s way.213
Additionally, statements by French soldiers who participated in Opération Turquoise
likewise contradicted France’s “humanitarian” justification for the operation. For example,
Colonel Jacques Rosier, a Turquoise commander, reportedly summed up the purpose of the
mission at the time: “The RPF is going to be very surprised. We won’t call this Dien Bien Phu,
we’ll call it Austerlitz.”214 In recounting his experience in Opération Turquoise, Guillaume Ancel,
a former French Army officer, stated, “[t]he initial order that I received around the 24th of June
was very clear: prepare a raid on the Rwandan capital, Kigali, which was then almost entirely
under the control of the RPF.”215 Ancel’s unit was charged with guiding fighter jets to clear a
corridor to allow troops to capture Kigali before anyone had time to react.216 That plan, however,
209
Raymond Bonner, French Establish a Base in Rwanda To Block Rebels, N.Y. TIMES, July 5, 1994, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/05/world/french-establish-a-base-in-rwanda-to-block-rebels.html.
210
Dallaire, supra note 110, at 422.
211
See id. at 425.
212
See id.
213
Id. at 427-428.
214
Michela Wrong, France Promises to Halt Rwandan Rebel Advance, REUTERS, July 4, 1994.
215
Interview of Guillaume Ancel by Mehdi Ba, supra note 7.
216
Id.
41
was superseded by further instructions.217 While Ancel has said that French soldiers, including
himself, carried out humanitarian missions to protect would-be victims of the Genocide,218 he has
also said that at the outset France characterized Turquoise as a humanitarian mission to
“camouflage” its true purpose, which was “to fight the RPF, the Tutsi soldiers who menaced the
Rwandan government, France’s ally. . . . ”219
Ancel also recounted that he personally carried out orders to rearm génocidaires who had
fled to Zaire and to shield that fact from the media:
[W]e confiscated tens of thousands of small arms from the Hutus who crossed the
border, mainly pistols, assault rifles and grenades. All these weapons were stored
in sea containers at the Foreign Legion base at Cyangugu Airport. Around mid-July
we saw a column of civilian trucks arriving, and I was instructed to load the
containers of weapons on these trucks, which then took them to Zaire and handed
them over to the Rwandan government forces. It was even suggested to occupy the
journalists during this time to prevent them from realizing what was happening.
When I told the commander of the Legion of my disapproval, he told me that the
staff major felt it was necessary to show the Rwandan army that we (the French)
had not become its enemies so that it would not turn against us.220
Indeed, when Opération Turquoise began, Rwandan forces believed France was there to
save them.221 Individual FAR soldiers, militia members, and civilians greeted Turquoise soldiers
with “welcome French Hutu” signs.222 So, too, RTLM broadcasted the news that French soldiers
came to help fight the RPF.223 French officials also declined to stop the hate propaganda that
RTLM and Radio Rwanda broadcasted; they did not jam broadcasts, but rather let them continue
from Gisenyi in the French-controlled humanitarian zone, where broadcasts continued until July
217
Id.
Id.
219
Guillaume Ancel, Génocide rwandais : pourquoi l’armée française a tardé à intervenir à Bisesero [Rwandan
Genocide: Why the French Army Delayed Intervening in Bisesero], LE MONDE, Feb. 17, 2016 available at
http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2016/02/16/rwanda-pourquoi-l-armee-francaise-a-tarde-a-intervenir-abisesero_4866453_3212.html (Fr.).
220
See Interview of Guillaume Ancel by Mehdi Ba, supra note 7.
221
See, Dallaire, supra note 110, at 426.; Cable from Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, UNAMIR Commander, to
Kofi Annan, Head of U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations 2 (June 17, 1994, 1039h); Cable from
Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, UNAMIR Commander, to Kofi Annan, Head of U.N. Department of
Peacekeeping Operations 2 (June 17, 1994, 2153h); Cable from Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, UNAMIR
Commander, to Kofi Annan, Head of U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations 2 (June 20, 1994); Cable from
Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, UNAMIR Commander, to Kofi Annan, Head of U.N. Department of
Peacekeeping Operations 2 (June 25, 1994).
222
PHILIP GOUREVITCH, WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES 155
(1998) [hereinafter Gourevitch].
223
See Dallaire, supra note 110, at 437.
218
42
16 or 17, 1994.224 French officials defended their decision to allow the radio station and its vitriolic
broadcasts on the grounds that the IRG was still recognized as a legitimate government; that
jamming the broadcasts was not within the UN Turquoise mandate; and that France could not
lawfully restrict free speech rights.225
Some Turquoise officers and soldiers had previously been deployed in Opération Noroît,
where they were exposed to the prevalent anti-Tutsi sentiment and likely were predisposed to
believe that the génocidaires were their allies.226 As Thierry Prungnaud, a former member of the
Gendarmerie National Intervention Group who took part in Opération Turquoise, wrote in his
book, Silence Turquoise, of Colonel Jacques Rosier: “Rosier’s vocabulary is not nuanced.
According to him, the Tutsi are ‘invaders’ who ‘kill’ ‘all the others,’ which means the Hutus, both
civilians and soldiers.”227
The existing material within the public record, regarding the knowledge and conduct of
French troops at Bisesero and Murambi where thousands of Tutsi were killed, likewise has raised
questions about the purpose of Opération Turquoise; the orders given to French troops on the
ground; and the communications between the French military command and the civilian
government leadership.228 With so much written in the French news media about the events in late
224
See Les extremists de “Radio Machette” [The extremists of “Radio Machette], LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE, Mar.
1995 [hereinafter Les extremists de “Radio Machette”] (Fr.) (citing U.S. diplomatic sources expressing surprise at
France’s decision not to prioritize destruction of RTLM transmitters and citing a response from Defense Minister
François Léotard that jamming the RTLM broadcast was not part of the military’s mandate); see also Leave None,
supra note 67, at 520 (stating that French agents were only moved to destroy some of the RTLM radio stations after
the station began using propaganda hostile to French forces); see also Gabriel Périès & David Servenay, Une guerre
noire: Enquête sur les origines du génocide rwandais (1959-1994) [A Black War: Investigating the Origins of the
Rwandan Genocide (1959-1994)] 336 (2007) (citing authors’ Feb. 16, 2006 interview with Gen. Lafourcade, who
said his request to shut down RTLM broadcasts was denied by the État-major).
225
See Les extremists de “Radio Machette,” supra note 224; ANDREW WALLIS, SILENT ACCOMPLICE: THE UNTOLD
STORY OF FRANCE’S ROLE IN THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE 173 (2014); Morel, supra note 17, at 1247; Radio Mille
Collines épargnée? [Radio Mille Collines Spared?], LE MONDE, July 31, 1994 (Fr).
226
See MIP Tome 1 292 (citing General Varret’s testimony).
227
Vulpian & Prungnaud, supra note 140, at 103; see also AFP, Génocide Rwanda: l’armée française mise en cause
[Rwandan Genocide: The French Army Called into Question], LE VIF, Dec. 1, 2015, https://goo.gl/DZDMur (Fr.)
(citing a Turquoise soldier as stating, “in particular [Colonel Jacques] Rosier, gave us the line that it was the Tutsis
who were killing the Hutus” and reporting that Rosier had denied making the statement).
228
See, e.g., Michel Peyrard, Nos reporters découvrent les morts vivants de Bisesero [Our Reporters Discovered the
Living Dead of Bisesero], PARIS MATCH, July 14, 1994, available at https://goo.gl/8nVqJ1 (Fr.); Sam Kiley, Troops
Ignore Killing French ‘Turned Blind Eye’ to Tutsi Massacre, THE TIMES, Apr. 3, 1998, available at
https://goo.gl/526Lqt; Vincent Hugeux, Dix ans après le génocide, Retour à Bisesero [Ten Years after the Genocide,
Return to Bisesero], L’EXPRESS, Apr. 13, 2004, available at https://goo.gl/AXwkZA (Fr.); Memorandum from
Capitaine de frégate Marin Gillier, June, 30 1998, in MIP Tome II 400 (Fr.); Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, Un accueil
sous les vivas [A Welcome Under Visas], LE FIGARO, June 27, 1994 (Fr.); Sam Kiley, UN Dithers on Rwanda
Rescuer as Tutsi Hails French Troops, LONDON TIMES, June 27, 1994, available at https://goo.gl/94Fzo1;
Prosecutor v. Kayishema, Case No. ICTR-95-1-T, Testimony of Patrick de Saint-Exupery 131 Nov. 18, 1997;
Patrick de Saint-Exupery, Rwanda : Les assassins racontent leurs massacres [Rwanda: the Assassins Recount Their
Massacres], LE FIGARO, June 29, 1994, available at https://goo.gl/g1LT9d (Fr.); Benoît Collombat, Rwanda : les
documents qui accusent la France [Rwanda: Documents Accusing France], France Inter, November 30, 2015,
43
June 1994 at Bisesero, one might expect the French government to have reviewed its actions and
issued an internal after-action report. However, no such report has been disclosed to the public or
shared with the Rwandan government. It is also reasonable to assume that the French government
might hold correspondence, internal memoranda, calendars, diaries or documentation showing
who received the much publicized June 27, 1994, fax from Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Remy Duval,
which discussed the pleas of Tutsi in Bisesero for assistance from the French, and what was said
internally with regard to it. While the subject of much controversy, there is information in the
public record to suggest that the French military did not immediately return to Bisesero, after the
June 27, 1994, fax was sent, and any French government documentation regarding internal
communications on the matter should be disclosed to the public.
In its 1995 report, HRW recommended that France “[f]ully [] disclose the nature of French
military and security assistance and arms transfers to the Rwandan government after May 17, 1994,
including following that government’s departure from Rwanda in July 1994, in light of the fact
that such actions have supported a force that is widely recognized as having committed
genocide.”229 In fact, France’s continuing support in defiance of the embargo is the basis for a
recently lodged civil complaint in France. On June 29, 2017, three associations initiated a case
against BNP Paribas, alleging complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.230
BNP Paribas is the successor to the Banque Nationale de Paris (“BNP”), which was a French
state-owned bank until it was privatized in 1993.231 The complaint is based on the bank’s
authorization of two money transfers, totaling more than $1.3 million, “from the BNP account of
the National Rwanda Bank (BNR in French) to a Swiss UBP bank account,” in June 1994 for the
purchase of 80 tons of arms by the IRG.232 Citing a statement by Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, the
associations have alleged that the weapons were delivered to militia in Gisenyi, Rwanda, for use
available at https://goo.gl/DMzTGD (Fr.); Jacques Morel, La découverte, l’abandon puis le sauvetage des Tutsi
survivants de Bisesero, relates [The Discovery, the Abandonment, the Rescue of the Tutsi Survivors of Bisesero]
RFI, Feb.9, 2011, available at https://goo.gl/o3L4Tj (Fr.); Dominque Garraud, Le nettoyage ethnique continue dans
les montagnes rwandaises, [The Ethnic Cleansing Continues in the Rwandan Mountains] LIBÉRATION, June 29,
1994, available at https://goo.gl/ekxaCN (Fr.); Raymond Bonner, Grisly Discovery in Rwanda Leads French to
Widen Role, N.Y. TIMES, July 1, 1994, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/01/world/grisly-discovery-inrwanda-leads-french-to-widen-role.html; Corine Lesnes, Une semaine après le « feu vert » de l’ONU à
l’intervention française au Rwanda M. Léotard craint de nouvelles difficultés pour le dispositif [One Week after the
UN’s “GreenLight” for Intervention in Rwanda M. Léotard Feared further Difficulties for “Turquoise”] LE
MONDE, July 1, 1994, available at http://francegenocidetutsi.org/LeMondeLesnesLeotard1juillet1994p4.pdf
(Fr.); GÉNÉRAL JEAN-CLAUDE LAFOURCADE, OPÉRATION TURQUOISE RWANDA 105 (1994) (Fr.).
229
Rearming with Impunity, supra note 29, at 10.
230
See Press Release, Sherpa et al., Rwandan Genocide: Sherpa, CPCR and Ibuka France Launched a Complaint
Against BNP Paribas on the Basis of Complicity in a Genocide, in Crimes Against Humanity and in War Crimes
(June 29, 2017) [hereinafter Sherpa Press Release], available at https://goo.gl/QLcGLK.
231
BNP took over Paribas in 1999 and merged with the Paribas group in 2000. See History of the Group, BNP
PARIBAS, https://goo.gl/PH26KM (last visited July 20, 2017).
232
Sherpa Press Release, supra note 232.
44
in perpetrating the Genocide.233 According to the complaint against BNP, these transactions
violated the UNSC arms embargo of May 17, 1994.234
Recently, on June 30, 2017, a reporter asked Olivier Gauvin, the French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs’ Press Secretary:
Is it true that the Presidency of the Republic ordered during Opération Turquoise
in 1994 to rearm those responsible for the Tutsi massacres in Rwanda? Did the
French authorities know in June 1994 that the 1.3 million dollars released by the
BNP at the French central bank’s request were going to be used to buy arms for the
Rwandan government despite the embargo imposed by the U.N. (which is the
subject of a complaint by three NGOs)?235
Mr. Gauvin replied: “We have no comment on these allegations.”236
V.
SINCE THE LIBERATION OF RWANDA, FRENCH OFFICIALS HAVE BEEN PROVIDING
SAFE HARBOR TO GÉNOCIDAIRES AND OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE.
A. French Officials Helped Provide Safe Passage and Safe Harbor for
Génocidaires in Zaire.
French officials helped open a path for the génocidaires to flee Rwanda for Zaire. Once in
Zaire, they enjoyed material support from French officials in refugee camps. By contrast, French
officials denied aid to the post-IRG government in Rwanda, thereby giving comfort to the
génocidaires, who were plotting revenge and an overthrow of the new government.
As the RPF victory seemed assured, civilians flooded the Turquoise Zone, after
government leaders and RTLM broadcasts warned people to flee from the advancing RPF.237
Militia members and FAR soldiers also gathered in the Turquoise Zone.238 Some of the soldiers
brought with them artillery, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, and anti-tank weapons.239 Yet in late July
233
See id.
See id; S.C. Res. 918, para. 13, U.N. Doc. S/RES/918 (May 17, 1994), available at
http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/918(1994).
235
Quai d’Orsay: Déclarations du sous-directeur de la presse et agenda du ministre, de la ministre chargée des
affaires européennes et du secrétaire d’Etat [Quai d'Orsay: Declarations by the Deputy Director of Press and the
Minister’s Agenda, the Minister for European Affairs, and the Secretary of State], LAMINUTE.INFO, June 30,
2017, available at https://goo.gl/CgJuyT (Fr.).
236
Id.
237
See Leave None, supra note 67, at 685.
238
See MIP Tome I 343-347.
239
See Melvern, A People Betrayed, supra note 18.
234
45
1994, French General Lafourcade sent UNAMIR Commander, Lieutenant-General Dallaire, a
memorandum confirming that French officials would not disarm FAR soldiers and militias who
entered the Turquoise Zone, unless they posed a risk to the refugees there.240
During the first two weeks of July 1994, with French assistance, the mass exodus of
Rwandans, including génocidaires, into Zaire began.241 By mid-July, over one million refugees
fled across the border to Zaire.242 French troops permitted ex-FAR soldiers to pass through the
Turquoise Zone with impunity,243 and the French military transported ex-FAR to Zaire.244 Many
retreating FAR soldiers forced whole populations to follow them in their flight.245 As a result,
génocidaires (some still armed), civilians, and even victims of the Genocide ended up taking
shelter together in the refugee camps established within Zaire, with the génocidaires using the
cover of these camps to hide and plot an overthrow of the newly established Rwandan
government.246
In July 1994, explaining that arrests fell outside of “our mandate,” French officials declined
to arrest and detain génocidaires in Rwanda or Zaire.247 Further, Turquoise soldiers did not attempt
to disarm FAR and militia members in the camps.248 Although an August 18, 1994, memorandum
from the French Foreign Ministry reported that militias and ex-FAR members were disarmed in
the Turquoise Zone, the French Parliamentary Commission found that this statement was not
correct.249 Turquoise soldiers did not attempt to disarm FAR in the region north of the Zone, so
long as the weapons were not used in the Zone itself.250 They did confiscate weapons from civilians
who had manned roadblocks.251 But French officials allowed some civilians to keep a minimum
number of weapons when the camp administrators (who most frequently were bourgmestres and
240
See Dallaire, supra note 110, at 457; see also MIP Tome I 345.
See MIP Tome I 334; Letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Hogard to General Gerard Mourgeon (Oct. 23,
1998), in MIP Tome II 537 (Fr.).
242
See id. at Tome I 334; See Florence Aubenas, De Kigali a Gisenyi. Le grand exode des Hutu [From Kigali to
Gisenyi, the Hutu Grand Exodus], LIBÉRATION, July 11, 1994 (Fr.).
243
See Leave None, supra note 67, at 688.
244
See Chris McGreal, French Accused of Protecting Killers, THE GUARDIAN, Aug. 27, 1994, available at
https://goo.gl/pQA3LB.
245
SARAH KENYON LISCHER, DANGEROUS SANCTUARIES: REFUGEE CAMPS, CIVIL WAR, AND THE DILEMMAS OF
HUMANITARIAN AID 79 (2005) [hereinafter Lischer]; see also Florence Aubenas, La longue marche vers Kigali [The
Long March Back to Kigali], LIBÉRATION, Aug. 2, 1994 (Fr.); Special Rapporteur of the U.N. Commission on
Human Rights, Report on Violation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Any Part of the World, with
Particular Reference to Colonial and Other Dependent Countries and Territories, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1995/12 (Aug.
12, 1994).
246
See Rearming with Impunity, supra note 29, at 2; Raymond Bonner, Army Routed from Rwanda now Intimidates
Its Refugees, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 2, 1994, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/02/world/army-routed-fromrwanda-now-intimidates-its-refugees.html?emc=eta1.
247
MIP Tome I 344.
248
See MIP Tome II 447.
249
See MIP Tome I 345-346.
250
See id. at Tome I 346.
251
See id.
241
46
other localized leaders of the Genocide) said it was necessary for those civilians to help ensure
police control and protect against raiders.252
By permitting génocidaires to keep their weapons, French soldiers allowed attacks from
across the Zairean border, against the Tutsi and the post-IRG government.253 French officials took
other steps to arm and protect the génocidaires by, among other things, delivering confiscated FAR
arms to Zairian authorities, despite knowing that Zaire was providing arms support to the retreating
Rwandan forces.254 Finally, French officials continued to provide military training to “Hutu militia
and military personnel” hailing from Rwanda and Burundi at a French military facility in the
Central African Republic.255
Meanwhile, as French soldiers protected the génocidaires and other extremists in Zaire and
elsewhere, French officials refused to recognize and respect the new Rwandan government. For
example, when, in September 1994, Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu rose to address a
conference on Rwanda in The Hague, the French Ambassador to the Netherlands walked out “in
a clear show of animosity.”256 According to a November 26, 1994, report in the Economist: “[t]he
French argue that Rwanda’s new government is illegitimate and tainted.”257 In November 1994,
French officials refused to invite both Rwanda and Uganda to a Franco-African summit at
Biarritz,258 a move that other African states reportedly questioned.259 Bruno Delaye, an advisor to
President Mitterrand, reportedly tried to justify France’s attempt to exclude Rwanda from Biarritz
by stating that the new Rwandan government was “going to collapse any minute.”260 As an
alternative explanation for excluding Rwanda, Alain Juppé stated that Rwanda was “aggressive”
towards France.261
In the Fall of 1994, the EU considered providing emergency aid to the post-Genocide
Rwandan government, but France tried to block the aid package.262 Such foreign aid was critical
to Rwanda, as the IRG had looted the Rwandan treasury during the Turquoise intervention.
Emissaries of the former Rwandan government stole assets from the Rwandan embassy in
252
See id. at Tome I 346-347.
Ian Martin, Hard Choices after Genocide, in MORAL DILEMMAS IN HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION 157, 171
(Moore, ed., 1998).
254
See Rearming with Impunity, supra note 29, at 5.
255
Id.
256
See Wallis, supra note 225, at 185 (citing Billets d’Afrique, no. 15, Oct.1994).
257
Abandoned Rwanda, THE ECONOMIST, Nov. 26, 1994.
258
See ARTHUR J. KLINGHOFFER, THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION OF GENOCIDE IN RWANDA 85 (1998). See also
note from Bruno Delaye, Head of the Africa Desk in the Office of the President, to President François Mitterrand
(Oct. 24, 1994).
259
See Howard W. French, At French-American Conference, Dictators Got the Attention, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 9, 1994,
available at http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/10/world/at-french-african-conference-dictators-got-theattention.html.
260
See Klinghoffer, supra note 258, at 85.
261
See id.
262
See Melvern, A People Betrayed, supra note 18.
253
47
Kenya.263 Some stolen property would have been much more obvious to the Turquoise soldiers
who were supervising the refugee streams. For example, UNHCR workers recalled seeing FAR
tanks and warplanes parked at the Bukavu Airport.264 Others saw refugees driving Rwandan public
transport buses and at least one gold Mercedes around the camps.265
Information in the public record also shows that in the months that followed the Genocide
against the Tutsi French officials continued to support génocidaires. On August 3, 1994, the UN
Secretary General suggested that the international community should coordinate with UNAMIR
to identify within the camps perpetrators of the Genocide against the Tutsi, with an eye to bringing
them to justice.266 But instead, French soldiers escorted and released suspected génocidaires in
Zaire.267 Between July and September 1994, French military helicopters evacuated Bagosora,
along with Interahamwe leader Jean-Baptiste Gatete, and other ex-FAR troops and militia
members, out of Goma.268
On September 1, 1994, a French officer sent a memorandum to Michel Roussin, French
Minister of Cooperation, in which the officer requested visas for former Habyarimana and IRG
officials living in Zaire at the time.269 The officer’s memorandum further stated: “a favorable
outcome might perhaps be given to some of them at first . . . [to] preserve the future.”270 Those
officials listed in the memorandum included, but were not limited to:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Jérôme Bicamumpaka, Minister of Foreign Affairs;
Mathieu Ngirumpatse, Secretary-General of the MRND;
Pierre-Claver Kanyaru, Ambassador to Kampala;
Augustin Bizimungu, Minister of Defense;
Jean-Damascène Bizimana, Ambassador to the United Nations;
Agnès Ntamabyariro, Minister of Commerce during the genocide;
Stanislas Mbonampeka, Minister in the Government of Rwanda in Exile; and
James Gasana, Minister of Defense under Habyarimana.271
Many of these officials have since been arrested, and some have been convicted, for having
participated in the Genocide against the Tutsi.272 So complete was French protection of the
263
See Rearming with Impunity, supra note 29, at 2 n.13.
See Lischer, supra note 245, at 79 (citing interview with UNHCR official, Geneva, July 15, 1999).
265
See id. (citing interview with Eleanor Bedford, U.S. Committee for Refugees, Washington, D.C., Nov. 2, 1999).
266
See U.N. Secretary-General, Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Rwanda, ¶ 29 & 31, U.N. Doc.
S/1994/924 (Aug. 3, 1994).
267
See Rearming with Impunity, supra note 29, at 4.
268
See id.
269
See Roussin Memorandum, supra note 133, at 1.
270
Roussin Memorandum, supra note 133, at 1.
271
Id.
272
See, e.g., Mathieu Ngirumpatse, TRIAL INTERNATIONAL (June 16, 2016), available at https://goo.gl/R6VJwi
(stating that Karemera and Ngirumpatse were convicted of genocide, among other crimes, in 2011); Jérôme
264
48
génocidaires, “by the time the French troops left in August [1994], not a single génocidaire had
been turned in, either to the United Nations or to the newly established government.”273
B.
French Officials Obstructed the Efforts of the ICTR and the Government
of Rwanda to Bring Genocide Suspects to Justice.
French officials appear to have protected their Rwandan allies who committed genocide,
despite the French government’s obligations to the contrary. Article I of the Genocide Convention,
to which France is a party, requires State parties to undertake to prevent and to punish the crime
of genocide.274 In his address to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Genocide against the
Tutsi, ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Jallow stated: “suspected génocidaires . . . must, in accordance
with the requirements of international law, be prosecuted by the host countries or extradited to
Rwanda to stand trial.”275 Thus, when French courts denied extradition for genocide for reasons
other than a judicial finding of inadequate evidence supporting a prima facie case, French
prosecutors were obligated under international law to undertake national prosecutions. Instead, the
country now harbors dozens of individuals suspected of committing genocide.276 Jallow has
reportedly said that, on balance, “the French judiciary had been slow to proceed with Rwandan
cases.”277 France has only brought a handful of suspects to trial in the past 23 years,278 despite its
courts’ refusal to return to Rwanda accused génocidaires,279 such as Agathe Habyarimana,280
Bicamumpaka TRIAL INTERNATIONAL (June 7, 2016), available at https://goo.gl/rLE3qt (stating that although
acquitted due to insufficient evidence, Bicamumpaka was accused of conspiracy to commit and complicity in
genocide, and tried at the ICTR); Augustin Bizimungu TRIAL INTERNATIONAL (June 16, 2016), available at
https://goo.gl/qaijyF (stating that Bizimungu was arrested on August 12, 2002, in Angola and was convicted by the
ICTR in 2011); Karwera Arrested in France for Genocide, RWANDA NEWS AGENCY, Oct. 18, 2013, available at
https://goo.gl/WcfnY5 (Fr.) (stating that Karwera Mutwe was not arrested until 2013).
273
ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY, RWANDA: THE PREVENTABLE GENOCIDE ¶15.74 (2000).
274
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide art. 1, Jan. 12, 1951, S. Exec. Doc. O,
81-1 (1949), 78 U.N.T.S. 277.
275
Justice Hassan B. Jallow, Statement on the Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide 4
(Apr. 10, 2014), available at https://goo.gl/ErxhZb.
276
See, e.g., Maïa de la Baume, Toiling to Bring Rwanda Genocide Suspects to Justice, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 10,
2014, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/world/africa/toiling-to-bring-rwanda-genocide-suspects-tojustice.html.
277
Melvern, A People Betrayed, supra note 18.
278
See Kim Willsher, Rwanda Former Spy Chief Pascal Simbikangwa Jailed over Genocide, THE GUARDIAN, Mar.
14, 2014 [hereinafter Rwanda Former Spy Chief Pascal Simbikangwa Jailed over Genocide], available
at https://goo.gl/j471QE; see also Lisa Bryant, History Hangs over Rwandan Genocide Trial in France, VOICE OF
AMERICA, May 10, 2016, available at https://goo.gl/DER2FW.
279
See France Rejects Rwandan Extradition Request, AL JAZEERA, Sept. 28, 2011 [hereinafter France Rejects
Rwandan Extradition Request], available at https://goo.gl/gVAD3Y; see also Rwanda Former Spy Chief Pascal
Simbikangwa Jailed over Genocide, supra note 280.
280
See France Rejects Rwandan Extradition Request, supra note 281.
49
Pierre Tegera,281 Claude Muhayimana,282 and Innocent Bagabo.283 Nor has France complied with
the ICTR’s requests that it prosecute Genocide suspects found in France, such as Father Wenceslas
Munyeshyaka of the St. Familles church in Kigali and Laurent Bucyibaruta, the Gikongoro prefect,
both of whom were indicted by the ICTR in 2005.284 Indeed, the European Court of Human Rights
admonished France for the unacceptably slow pace in the prosecution of Father Munyeshyaka, a
failure that particularly denied justice to his victims.285 The few individuals brought to justice in
French courts were tried and convicted in no small part because of the work of a non-governmental
organization that gathered evidence and witnesses for the trial.286
By contrast, numerous other States have prosecuted genocide suspects and cooperated with
both the ICTR and Rwandan prosecutorial authorities. Canada, for example, has extradited three
suspected génocidaires (including Léon Mugesera) to Rwanda, and has prosecuted two persons in
its national courts.287 In November 2016, the Netherlands extradited two accused génocidaires to
Rwanda – one accused of being a leader of the Interahamwe militia (Jean-Claude Iyamuremye),
and the other of compiling lists of Tutsi to be killed and attacking victims around Kigali (JeanBaptiste Mugimba).288 In July 2014, Denmark extradited Emmanuel Mbarushimana, who has been
accused of leading massacres in Butare.289 Norway extradited several génocidaires to Rwanda
including Charles Bandora in 2013.290 In that same year, Norway prosecuted génocidaire Sadi
Bugingo for his participation in the Genocide and sentenced him to more than 21 years in prison.291
Likewise, the United States has returned to Rwanda accused génocidaires Leopold Munyakazi,292
281
See James Karuhanga, French Court Turns down Another Extradition Request, THE NEW TIMES, Apr. 11, 2014,
available at https://goo.gl/umWPHQ.
282
See France to free Rwandan Genocide Suspect, Kigali Request for Extradition Earlier Rejected, MAIL &
GUARDIAN AFRICA, Apr. 4, 2015, available at https://goo.gl/Gd9yP8.
283
See France: l'Avis Favorable à une Extradition Vers le Rwanda Annulé [France: The Favourable Decision for
an Extradition to Rwanda Vacated], AFP, Oct. 16, 2015 (Fr.).
284
See Prosecutor v. Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, Case No. ICTR-2005-87-I, Decision on the Prosecutor’s Request for
The Referral, (Nov. 20, 2007), available at https://goo.gl/ooENV5; Prosecutor v. Laurent Bucyibaruta, Case No.
ICTR-2005-85-I, Decision on the Prosecutor’s Request for the Referral, (Nov. 20, 2007), available
at http://unictr.unmict.org/sites/unictr.org/files/case-documents/ictr-05-85/trial-decisions/en/071120.pdf.
285
See Affaire Mutimura v. France, Eur. Ct. H.R. 12 (2004), available at https://goo.gl/QncEUW (Fr.).
286
See, e.g., Fighting for Rwanda's Justice in France, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, Apr. 6, 2014, available at
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/06/299503308/frances-rwandan-genocide-hunter-dafr.
287
See Canada-Rwanda Relations, High Commission of Canada in Kenya, https://goo.gl/CZ815r (last visited May
29, 2017).
288
See Landelijk Parket, Rwandan Genocide Suspects Extradited to Rwanda, OPENBAAR MINISTERIE, Nov. 12,
2016, available at https://goo.gl/craFeq.
289
See James Karuhanga, Denmark Extradites Genocide Suspect, THE NEW TIMES, July 4, 2014, available
at https://goo.gl/RcYRUC.
290
See Solrun F. Faull, Charged with Genocide and Being Extradited to Rwanda, NORWAY TODAY, June 24, 2016,
available at https://goo.gl/aPYwDa.
291
See id.
292
See U.S. Extradites Baltimore Professor to Rwanda to Stand Trial for Genocide, NBC NEWS via REUTERS, Sept.
28, 2016, available at https://goo.gl/FmxbP8http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-extradites-baltimoreprofessor-rwanda-stand-trial-genocide-n656401.
50
Enos Kagaba,293 Marie Claire Mukeshimana,294 and Jean-Marie Vianney Mudahinyuka.295 As it
closed, the ICTR returned Genocide suspects to Rwanda as well.296 Meanwhile, by failing to
prosecute dozens of genocide suspects, or return them to Rwanda or the ICTR (when it was open),
French officials persistently denied justice to the Rwandan people, a denial that continues today.
VI.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Based on the public record alone, senior French officials were aware of and aided the
actions and goals of both the Habyarimana government and the génocidaires who seized power
after at the inception of the Genocide against the Tutsi. Also, French officials have continued to
interfere with efforts to achieve truth and justice for the victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi.
Accordingly, a complete investigation into the full extent of the knowledge, conduct and
complicity of French officials is warranted.
France should fully cooperate with the Government of Rwanda’s investigation. There is no
doubt that French archives are filled with documents and materials without which the full history
of this era will never be known. For decades, French military and civilian officials regularly and
expansively reported on Rwandan matters to the government in Paris. Many of the materials were
classified as secret and withheld from public disclosure. No doubt, good reasons attached to some
of the decisions to classify and withhold. Now, almost a quarter century after the Genocide, those
decisions serve little purpose.297
293
See Press Release, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Human Rights Violators & War Crimes Center
Significant Human Rights Case Accomplishments 2003 to 2013, at 1 (Dec. 2, 2013), available
at https://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/releases/2013/131202washingtondc3.pdf.
294
See Press Release, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE deports convicted Rwandan to serve
sentence for role in 1994 genocide (Dec. 21, 2011), available at https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-deportsconvicted-rwandan-serve-sentence-role-1994-genocide.
295
See Press Release, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE Deports Rwandan Wanted for Committing
War Crimes during 1994 Genocide, (Jan. 29, 2011), available at https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-deportsrwandan-wanted-committing-war-crimes-during-1994-genocide#wcm-survey-target-id.
296
See Judge Vagn Joensen, Final Report on the Completion Strategy of the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda, Address to the United Nations Security Council (Dec. 9, 2015), available at https://goo.gl/RUKtmD.
297
To date, the French government has denied requests to declassify and disclose many key documents related to the
Genocide against the Tutsi. As recently as September 15, 2017, the French Constitutional Council denied access to
François Mitterand’s archives to François Graner, a researcher with an interest in the role of French officials in
Rwanda. See Rwanda genocide: France keeps 1990s archives secret, BBC, Sept. 15, 2017, available at
https://goo.gl/BoJJen. This rejection came more than two years after French President François Hollande decided to
declassify documents in the Mitterrand archives but released only an inconsequential subset of relevant documents;
see also France's Hollande to declassify Rwanda genocide documents: source, REUTERS, April 7, 2015, available at
https://goo.gl/xPypvn.
51
Finally, we urge the Government of Rwanda to seek France’s cooperation in this endeavor.
To this end, France should make available its archives, documents, physical evidence and officials
(current and former). Any investigation by the Government of Rwanda should evaluate what
occurred in the 1990s, as well as what has happened since then, including France’s cooperation
with this investigation into French complicity in the Genocide.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert F. Muse
Joshua A. Levy
Daren H. Firestone
Margaret E. Whitney
Yannick B. Morgan
Cunningham Levy Muse LLP
December 11, 2017
52
