• English Site
• > World
• > Rwanda

Rwandan Genocide

Commission Publishes Allegations Against France

Rwanda's government has released a report into France's alleged role in the 1994 genocide on Tuesday. It accuses senior French political and military officials of involvement in the mass murder -- a charge Paris denies.

The commission set up to investigate France's alleged role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide published its report on Tuesday and names senior French officials in connection with the mass murder, something that is unlikely to please Paris.

Those named by the report include former French Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin and late President Francois Mitterand.

"The French support was of a political, military, diplomatic and logistic nature," the report said. The commission named 33 French political and military officials, Reuters reports. "Considering the gravity of the alleged facts," the report reads according to Reuters, "the Rwandan government asks competent authorities to undertake all necessary actions to bring the accused French political and military leaders to answer for their acts before justice."

Most will not be surprised at the scathing tone of the report on the French involvement in the events of the summer of 1994. At a news conference last Thursday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame reiterated his claims that Rwanda had proof incriminating France. The 500-page report was submitted to the government last November but its details are only being published now.

The commission spent nearly two years investigating France's alleged role in the genocide which saw some 800,000 people killed in just 100 days in 1994. It heard testimonies from genocide survivors, researchers and reporters.

Kagame's government has repeatedly accused France of arming and training the Hutu extremists, the Interhahamwe, who perpetrated the genocide -- a charge France denies.

Rwanda broke off diplomatic relations with Paris in 2006 after a French judge implicated Kagame, former leader of the Tutsi rebels, in the downing of then President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane in 1994. The incident unleashed the mass killings of members of the Tutsi minority.

smd/afp/reuters