When the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi started, France made no secret where its loyalties lay. The French military flew in ammunition for the genocidal government's armed forces and in the following weeks, a stream of extremist Hutu officials travelled to Paris, including Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, for meetings with President François Mitterrand and the French Premier.

 

Barayagwiza, a founding member of the extremist CDR party and hate radio, RTLM, was Director of Political Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the genocidal government. He was convicted of genocide crimes and died in 2010 in Benin where he was serving 27 years in jail.

 

Even as the mass graves filled across Rwanda, Paris engineered the delivery of millions of dollars' worth of weapons to the genocidal regime from Egypt and South Africa.

 

During the genocide, the ‘Africa cell’ was headed by Mitterrand's son, Jean-Christophe, a close friend of then President Juvénal Habyarimana’s family. He later said that there could not have been a genocide because "Africans are not that organized".

 

Mitterrand did not deny what had happened, but took a view no less racist: "In such countries, genocide is not too important."

 

Racism and white supremacy are what occupied the French president’s thoughts by the time. This ideology is not only found in France’s foreign policy but also in the agenda of many Western countries like the United States, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and Sweden among others.

 

Westerners prioritize the Holocaust but minimize the Genocide against the Tutsi, just because the latter was committed against Africans.

 

On many occasions, politicians from the Global North hesitated to acknowledge the proper term and documented numbers of victims such as the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which claimed the lives of more than one million Tutsi people. They instead call it: “Rwandan genocide which claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people”.

 

It took 24 years for the United Nations, operating under the influence of ‘super powers’, to recognize the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Before 2018, the UN referred to it as the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.

 

The same Global North countries are the safe haven for Rwandan genocide fugitives, roaming freely in their capital cities despite arrest warrants issued by Rwanda’s prosecution.

 

It looks like partial trials favoring genocide suspects and negligence in deporting genocide fugitives to Rwanda are what make those Westerners feel superior.

 

Westerners aim at sponsoring impunity over arresting and punishing genocidaires. The manner in which the case of genocide suspect Félicien Kabuga was handled speaks volumes.

 

Related: Rwanda: Genocide suspect Kabuga to be released; what if he had been a Nazi?

 

Kabuga was a businessman before and during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Nicknamed ‘genocide financier’ for he provided substantial support to the genocide machine in terms of finance, logistics and moral support, Kabuga had been on the run for nearly three decades.

 

The Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals ruled that Kabuga is “unfit to stand trial” due to what is considered to be his deteriorating health.

 

Survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi were shocked that the main genocide financer will not be held responsible for the crimes of genocide.

 

There is no doubt that this decision was politically motivated.

 

It confirmed Mitterand’s statement, that genocide is not important in Africa.