France and the Rwanda genocide (1)

open letter to the young people of france

I came accross this letter from Yoalnde Mukagasan earlier this year. It is in French so i have translated it for my readers
"Young Frenchmen and women, I know that you are able to understand matters.
i know that you all love life. I am sure you know that when a life is extinguished this is a dramatic experience for someone somewhere in this world.
My dear young French people, I have survived a genocide. The one of the Tutsi in Rwanda. But my husband and my three children have been killed in 1994 in the course of this genocide. My husband and children had not done anything. their only crime was that they had been born, and that they were simply alive.

Whenever a human being wants to pull a veil over his face so as not to see the errors and choices of his past, he will inevitably do the same things again for the rest of his life.

The politicians of your country have made a choice with regard to Rwanda: to share the reponsibilty for the murder of a million Tutsi.
More than a million within just three months, amonng them my husband and children, but also cousins of mine, uncles, aunts and their families.
It has now been 17 years that France is torturing me. Ever since 1990 French soldiers stopped us at roadblocs and arrested us, just as the murderous Rwandan army of those days did.
You can find images of this in the archives of France2

Who gave France to right to arrest me in my own country?
Who gave France th right to take part in an inter-rwandan struggle, going so far as to take the side of the murderers of my family?

France had trained our assassins.
France has armed them.

A complaint has been lodged against the French soldiers who have raped women during the genocide. It is not a light thing for a woman to lodge a complaint gainst rape..it makes their loss of dignity and intimacy public.
France bears the guilt for what its policians an the military in Kibuye in the so-called 'safe zone", operation Turquoise. When the genocide had stopped in other parts of Rwanda, it simply continued in the zone occupied by the French.

France persists in denying what it has done.

Even after the genocide France kept protecting our assassins who were wanted by the Rwandan courts.
After the genocide the French president, Francois Mitterant said: "A genocide, in that country over there, is of little importance."
He knew what he was saying, as he also knew what French politics in Rwanda got mixed up in. Why did the republic so far as to become guilty of a crime against humanity?

French politicians and soldiers are accomplices in the genocide of the rwandan Tutsi, and you, the youth of France, or your children are going to pay the price for this one day.

Youth of france, put your arms around your mothers and ask them whether they know what it means to a mother to lose a child. Once you will understand this, you will also understand to what extent I will not let france get away with this. France will have to account for its crimes, render account to me and the other survivors of this genocide. If France refuses to do this, it will be you who in the future will have to give account to the children of Rwanda.

"A French Genocide", "A Genocide on the consciense of France", "The shame.." are books written by French authors.I suggest you read them. Should what has happened to french women and children in the Ivory Coast not msake you think again.? Why should French society have to pay for the criminal French politics in Africa?

I thank all those Frenchmen and women who keep fighting with us to get the truth established and justice done to the victims of this genocide , both the living and the dead. But also for the murderers and their children, and for the dignity of the French people....
..what I am doing now, writing this letter to you, is not for myself, because I have nothing left to be saved, I have lost all I once loved. I shall continue my fight for all the children in this world, hoping that one day they will be the parents of children in a world of Peace and Justice".