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Untangling Rwanda's genocide investigation
Written by: Kitty Arie
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Kudos to the French press for its coverage of the three ongoing investigations related to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Anyone trying to follow what's going on might be confused, however, because the investigations, though separate, have direct and indirect links which the press likes to exploit. The first is a Paris-based investigation led by Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière into the 1994 crash of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana's plane, the event said to have triggered the genocide. In a ruling three weeks ago Judge Bruguière, working on behalf of the families of the all-French crew who went down with Habyarimana, accused current Rwandan President Paul Kagame of personally giving the order to shoot the plane out of the sky. Not surprisingly, Bruguière is now Kagame's public enemy number one. (Unfortunately for Bruguière the sloppiness of his own ruling, misspellings and mistakes documented in Le Monde, could damage his credibility.) Kagame, ever the fighter, struck back by accusing Bruguière of scapegoating him to distract the public from France's own involvement in the genocide. That takes us to investigation number two: Kigali's investigation into France's complicity in the genocide. It was launched in Kigali a year after Bruguière started digging around. Coincidence? The French papers don't think so. In fact, coverage of the trial often implies that the investigation is revenge for Bruguière's rulings. On the other hand, accusations collected against the French soldiers (who were in Rwanda to train the army under Habyarimana) are ghastly. They have just retained high-profile lawyers. The third investigation is being carried out by the U.N.-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is prosecuting people accused of playing a role in the genocide. Here's a direct link to trial number one: the ICTR has accepted Judge Bruguière's ruling against Kagame as evidence. According to French law, Bruguière can't touch Kagame because he's a sitting head of state. But the United Nations can.
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2 responses to “Untangling Rwanda's genocide investigation”
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15 Dec 2006 15:51:23 GMT
Nice to see someone commenting on French media coverage of important issues
19 Dec 2006 13:21:21 GMT
Bruguiere's accusations constitute nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by the French government to tacitly avert any attention from their own complicity in the genocide. The role played by the French in the death of 800,000 Rwandese was sickening, and their continual unwillingness to assume any responsibility for their actions has detracted even further from their international credibility, if that's even possible. I think the only question that needs to be asked by the French media is, "When will the French learn to stop inflicting their culture on developing countries in their typically misguided, colonial fashion and allow Africa to develop, rather than opening bitter wounds that Rwanda has been trying to heal for the better part of 12 years?"
Get your own affairs in order, France, and once you've accomplished this perhaps you will realize that the rest of the world can live without your meddling.