Rwanda has a pop at France for genocide
Rwanda formally accused senior French officials yesterday of involvement in its 1994 genocide and called for them to be put on trial.
Among those named in a report by a Rwandan investigation commission were former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and late President Francois Mitterrand.
Kigali has previously accused Paris of covering up its role in training troops and militia who carried out massacres that killed some 800,000 people, and of propping up the ethnic Hutu leaders who orchestrated the slaughter.
France denies that and says its forces helped to protect people during a UN-sanctioned mission in Rwanda at the time.
The latest allegations from Kigali came yesterday with the publication of the report by an independent Rwandan commission set up to investigate France’s role in the bloodshed.
“The French support was of a political, military, diplomatic and logistic nature,” the report said. “Considering the gravity of the alleged facts, 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.”
An official at the French Foreign Ministry said that the French government had not yet received any official communication from Kigali and so it could not comment.
Attached to the report was a list of 33 accused French political and military officials.