AU commends exhaustive fact finding report on role of France in Genocide against the Tutsi

Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission

The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Amb Moussa Faki Mahamat, on Monday, April 20 commended the exhaustive fact-finding report on the role of France in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, commissioned by the Government of Rwanda in 2017 from the law firm of Levy Firestone Muse LLP, and released on April 19 after submission to the Rwandan Cabinet.

The Chairperson’s statement on the Muse Report in relation to the 1994 Genocide observed that the new report builds on Rwanda’s Mucyo Report of 2007, with a new focus on the French political officials who “enabled a foreseeable genocide” in Rwanda in 1994.

The Muse Report follows on the Duclert Report commissioned by the French Government, which found that France bore “heavy and overwhelming responsibilities” in the most tragic event in contemporary African history, whose effects continue to mark our Continent, reads part of the Chairperson’s statement. "Dignity rests on truth, respect and mutual recognition," AUC Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat said.

"The Chairperson of the African Union Commission salutes the political courage of President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and President Emmanuel Macron of France for these moves toward a more shared understanding, which merit the endorsement of Africa as a whole."

The Muse report sheds light on the fact that the French government was neither blind nor unconscious about "the foreseeable genocide."  The report details how, from 1991 to 1992, the French Government increased its support as the Habyarimana regime dehumanized and massacred the Tutsi.

It details how, between January and March 1993 and later, ignoring a devastating human rights report exposing the Rwandan Government, the French Government reached the pinnacle of its intervention in the war against the RPF which was fighting to prevent the Genocide.

As the RPF military came closer to ending the Genocide, it is noted, then French President Francois Mitterrand denied France’s responsibility for the Genocide and claimed that he could not have foreseen it.  "This was false. In the four years preceding the Genocide, no State worked more closely with the Habyarimana government than did France."

Beginning in October 1990, French officials in Rwanda informed Mitterrand and his top aides in Paris that the Rwandan government was massacring Tutsi as reprisals for RPF attacks, it is noted.  Soon after the arrival of French troops, French officials became aware of the dehumanization, vilification, and killing of Tutsi. As former French Ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres would later reflect, “The genocide was foreseeable as early as then [October 1990], even if we couldn’t imagine its magnitude and atrociousness.”

On October 24, 1990, the defense attaché at the French embassy in Rwanda, Colonel René Galinié, warned of “the physical elimination of the Tutsi within the country, 500,000 to 700,000 people.”

In January 1993, it is noted, a consortium of international human rights groups reported to French officials in Rwanda and Paris on its fact-finding mission in Rwanda and detailed government-run death squads and anti-Tutsi massacres.  "The French Ministry of Defense disregarded an internal warning from April 1993 to leave Rwanda to avoid being further implicated in the anti-Tutsi massacres and systemic discrimination.

Beginning in October 1990, hundreds of French officials—military and civilian—deployed in Rwanda "were privy to the hate media outlets (printed and broadcast in French), the use of ethnic IDs, the use of roadblocks to harass Tutsi, the sexual assault of Tutsi women, the torture inflicted on Tutsi by the Gendarmerie", and the growing violence of the militias and the military.

It is noted thay the French government knew the CDR and other extremists had designs to murder the Tutsi. In January 1994, three months before the start of the Genocide, the French government received a warning from an informant, relayed through the United Nations that the Interahamwe planned to slaughter Tutsi en masse.  "Despite the information available to French officials that foreshadowed the Genocide, the French government did not alter its policy in Rwanda."

Since the Genocide, the French Government has covered up its role, distorted the truth, and protected génocidaires, the report reveals. French officials, starting with President Mitterrand, have disclaimed any responsibility for the Genocide. During a September 1994 interview, Mitterrand insisted that “our responsibility is nil.”

Most importantly, the new report, unlike most others before, address the quarter century after the Genocide. It details and examines the continued cover-up, obstruction and false narratives promulgated by the French government since 1994.

The Report is drawn from a range of both primary and secondary documentary sources, including transcripts; reports and studies by governments, non-government organizations and academics; diplomatic cables; documentaries and other videos; contemporaneous news articles; and other such resources. The authors met with hundreds of individuals and interviewed more than 250 witnesses including Rwandans who were in country during the Genocide, individual or private French officials, diplomats, UN officials and international organisations' staff during the 90s.

While the Rwandan government placed no restrictions on the researchers' efforts, there was no cooperation from French officials and government.