France and the Rwanda genocide (7)

Severed diplomatic relations created “information gap”
Andrew Wallis 1st-May 2007
Kigali - Researcher and journalist Andrew Wallis has said the severing of diplomatic relations between Rwanda and France has resulted into crucial sources of information on France ’s role in the Genocide to withhold it in silence, RNA reports.
Testifying before the Mucyo Commission Monday, Mr. Wallis who has authored a damning book on French role in the Genocide said all his contacts in the French political, military and academic establishment have declined to answer his requests for more information. He is author of ‘Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France ’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide’.

Mr. Wallis revealed that before the break up of diplomatic relations, he had a “contact” in the French Ministry of Defense and another with the Paris Foundation for Strategic Research (Foundation Pour la Recherche Stratégique de Paris), a think-tank that has associated closely with the chaotic French foreign policy.
When France/Rwanda relations finally ended though they had been problematic as information begun coming through about what the French did in Rwanda and in most of their colonies, Wallis said, “various emails (to the contacts) have gone unanswered”.
According to him, since he started his research at Bradford University (UK) in 1998, he had established from the same contacts that the French Defense Ministry was “cut out completely” from any military policy in Rwanda .
Instead as Wallis explained from his contacts, all policy on Africa and Rwanda specifically was controlled “directly” and “tightly” by the Elysée Palace , office of then President Mitterrand.

He said from the period that France got involved directly in support of the Habyarimana government, “only 2 speeches” were made by President Mitterrand about Rwanda . This, Wallis said was “deliberate” to keep a “media blackout” and avoid any public discussion of the French campaigns.

Mr. Wallis also told the commission that based on information from the same sources, he managed to understand President Mitterrand as one that had a “cynical view” of Africa in that the Rwandan Genocide was presented just like the usual conflicts common with primitive Africans.
“President Mitterrand had the belief that the end would justify the means ... So it made no difference whatever was happening in Rwanda”, Wallis, the only English speaking witness so far to testify to the Mucyo commission said.
According to the British academic, the RPF campaign launched in 1990 was viewed by Mitterrand and his close advisers as interference into French territory by the Anglo-Saxons “including America ”.

The British journalist also traced French role in Rwanda culminating into the Genocide back to the Fashoda incident of 1892. Following months of a military stand-off between France and Britain in Sudan , the French disgracefully retreated leaving the British in control of the area ( Sudan and later Egypt ).
According to Mr. Wallis, the French political and military establishment has “never” come to terms with such a defeat. And indeed, as he explained, they believed the “Anglo-Saxons” were behind the RPF rebels thereby supporting the Habyarimana regime “under whatever cost”.

Wallis said the French military feels the world has become a “battle ground” between France and the Anglo-Saxons. He also explained that French policy in Rwanda was guided by “franco-Anglosaxon rivalry...geopolitical realities...and as a fulfillment of personal relationship between Habyarimana and Mitterrand”.

Asked to assess the level of Genocide revisionism and negationism in France , Andrew Willis also told the commission that the phenomenon was “increasing rather than lessening” in France and French speaking Canada . Apparently “a lot” of material is circulating because the authors feel threatened now that the world knows a lot about what happened in Rwanda .
He also said he had tried unsuccessfully to contact known notorious French mercenary Paul Barril and President Mitterrand’s son Jean Christopher. Describing Barril as “dangerous”, Wallis narrated how President Mitterrand used Capt Barril to often “destabilize the RPF rebels” and later to aid the defeated Genocidal forces in Zaire (D R Congo).

Reading from a well prepared document on his laptop, researcher Wallis also explained the relationship between the Mitterrand and Habyarimana families describing it as “warm”.
He said just as President Habyarimana shared “warm” relations with Mitterrand, Agathe (Habyarimana) was very close to Danielle (Mitterrand) as was Jean-Pierre Habyarimana (Habyarimana son) with Jean-Christophe Mitterrand (Mitterrand son).