FRANCE:Rwanda's accusations that France was actively involved in the 1994 mass killing of ethnic Tutsis are "unacceptable", the French foreign ministry said yesterday.
According to a 500-page report commissioned by the Rwandan justice ministry and released on Tuesday, French soldiers were involved in the planning and execution of the genocide. The report's authors called for 13 French officials and 20 military officers to be prosecuted.
"One must wonder about the objectivity of the mandate given to this 'independent commission charged by the Rwandan authorities to assemble the proof showing the implication of the French state in the Rwandan genocide of 1994'," said Romain Nadal, a French foreign ministry spokesman.
The two-year investigation by the commission also accuses French forces in Rwanda of crimes against humanity and of using a UN-sanctioned haven for refugees to help those responsible for the 100 days of mass slaughter to escape justice.
The report is the latest salvo in a bitter struggle between France and Rwanda's Tutsi leadership to pin responsibility for the genocide on each other. Two years ago a prominent French judge accused Paul Kagame, Rwanda's president today but in 1994 the leader of Tutsi rebels fighting the Hutu government, of ordering the assassination of the then president, Juvenal Habyarimana, which kickstarted the killing. The accusation outraged Mr Kagame, whose Rwandan Patriotic Front went on to defeat the Hutu extremist regime that organised the murder of Tutsis.
The Rwandan commission named 13 French political leaders - including François Mitterand, who died in 1996; former prime ministers Édouard Balladur and Dominique de Villepin; and former foreign ministers Alain Juppé and Hubert Védrine - it says played a role in arming Hutu extremists. It says they also helped cover up Paris's role. "The French support was of a political, military, diplomatic and logistic nature," the report says.
It cites official papers abandoned by the defeated Hutu regime that investigators said proved France made large weapons shipments to the former Rwandan army and trained members of the Interahamwe militias who carried out the genocide.
The report details how French soldiers were involved in frontline operations against Mr Kagame's forces. In some cases they commanded artillery and flew helicopter gunships. It accuses some of those soldiers of crimes.
"French forces directly assassinated Tutsis and Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis . . . French forces committed several rapes on Tutsi survivors," the report says.
The Rwandan justice ministry said: "[We ask] authorities to undertake all necessary actions to bring the accused French political and military leaders to answer for their acts before justice." - ( Guardian service)