France sticks to bloody policy

Date: 11th-December 2006
By ANDREW WALLIS
The New Times

As human rights reports detailing Habyarimana’s French-trained forces’ massacres of Tutsi civilians were published, Paris focused only on the RPF. Marcel Debarge promised not to ignore the reports of the government-instigated massacres, but then did so, never publicly denouncing the regime in Kigali and saving his venom instead for the RPF. The 64-year-old Debarge, the minister of cooperation, encapsulated the confused and highly ambiguous French position.
In an interview with Le Monde on 17 February 1993 he announced that ‘France has supported the Arusha negotiations which have led to an agreement between the government and the opposition to create a transition cabinet. ... In any case, the World Bank and the other donors keep their representatives in Kigali only because of our military presence which need I remind you - is only there to protect our citizens.’ It was in effect a ‘have my cake and eat it’ argument. According to Debarge, France was helping to mediate the Arusha agreement (to which it had assigned a solitary very junior diplomat). Meanwhile, its multimillion dollar military help protected French citizens and allowed aid projects to continue.
In fact, according to Debarge, French efforts in Rwanda benefited everybody. He omitted to mention the massacres, now in full swing, that the government his soldiers were keeping in power were carrying out, or indeed the financial scams siphoning off millions of dollars of foreign aid money into the coffers of the Akazu. Prejudice against the ‘anglophone’ RPF blinded any French policy reassessment. An African strategic expert confided, ‘it is not possible to tolerate this attack from Uganda, 18 million people against Rwanda with only seven million. The Belgians have abandoned their old colony, and they are alone.
But, thanks to us, the Rwandan army is able to hold off the Coup.’ Remarkably, such views did not include the white Western French as ‘invaders’, only the RPF, who though mostly from Uganda were actual Rwandans forced into exile. It was the RPF that was seeking a return to its homeland, not the French who were merely asserting their neocolonial rights to intervene as and when it suited them in a foreign land - without even a UN mandate.
Ten days after his remarks to Le Monde, Debarge was in Kigali. On 28 February, the man tasked with finding a peaceful solution told the Rwandan opposition parties that they should make a ‘common front’ with Habyarimana against their ‘enemies’. It was a simplification and underestimation of the whole Rwandan mess. According to Prunier, ‘in such a tense ethnic climate, with massacres having taken place in recent weeks, this call for a “common front” that could only be based on race was nearly a call to racial war.’ The result was a clear delineation in Paris of what the conflict was about. ‘The equation thus suggested was “Uganda equals Anglo-Saxon equals RPF ... equals Tutsi. ...” This of course implied another equation: “Rwanda equals France equals common front equals Hutu”.’
There were dissenting voices in the French camp. On the release of a number of high-profile reports on human rights abuses in Rwanda in March 1993, Guy Penne, a former government minister and now vicepresident of the senate commission on foreign affairs and defence, wrote to Prime Minister Balladur expressing his anxiety.
He mentioned France being ‘very implicated’ in the situation, asked the prime minister to arbitrate between the ministries of foreign affairs, cooperation and defence, and stated the need to reduce the French military presence. Moreover, he expressed the view that any remaining troops should be used specifically for humanitarian work and to protect French citizens, and that cooperation with Habyarimana should be suspended until the international commission on human rights abuses in Rwanda was published. Predictably, such views were swiftly consigned to the Elysee’s ample wastepaper basket.
France was not renowned for changing a stance merely for human rights abuses and Mitterrand, champion of Vichy and the Algerian campaign, was not about to let the fate of ‘a few’ Rwandan villagers upset his Rwandan policy.
An RPF press release, issued on 8 February 1993, the day it renewed its offensive, conclusively equated Habyarimana with France. As far as the RPF was concerned the new offensive it had launched was due solely to Habyarimana’s intransigence and his French allies. The RPF press release was dominated by an attack on the continuing French role in Rwanda.