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Genocide Commemorations Begin in Rwanda, With Curtailed French Role
20 Years After, Tears and Regret Over Rwanda’s 100 Days of Carnage
(about 4 hours later)
PARIS — Rwanda began ceremonies on Monday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the country’s 1994 genocide, but with scaled-back participation from the French government, which was stung by critical remarks by Rwanda’s president that laid some of the blame for the massacres at the door of France.
LONDON — Rwanda on Monday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the genocide there with a fusion of tears, recrimination and regret at the killing of more than 800,000 people in 100 days that shocked the world, redrew regional battle lines and continues to shape international debate over how nations should respond to mass atrocities.
Christiane Taubira, France’s justice minister, had been expected to attend the ceremonies on Monday in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. But in a statement on Sunday, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that “under these conditions,” she would not take part.
With sectarian bloodshed staining conflicts from Syria to the Central African Republic, the ceremonies offered a reminder of the volatile torrents that have coursed through modern times, propelled by differences of faith, clan or ethnicity, often leaving the outside world on the sidelines.
The statement was issued after comments by the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, in an interview published Monday in Jeune Afrique, a French-language magazine, became public. According to Radio France International, Mr. Kagame told the magazine that both France and Belgium, the former colonial power in Rwanda, had a direct role in the “political preparation for the genocide.” He went on to accuse France of being involved in the slaughter of Rwandans who tried to escape through an area controlled by the French.
“We must not be left to utter the words ‘never again,’ again and again,” the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a crowd packing a soccer stadium in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, acknowledging oft-voiced criticism of the world body for its delays and failings during the 1994 slaughter.
In an apparent response to the French announcement, the French ambassador to Rwanda, Michel Flesch, said Monday in Kigali that he had been told he would not be accredited to attend the ceremonies, The Associated Press reported.
“Many United Nations personnel and others showed remarkable bravery,” Mr. Ban said. “But we could have done much more. We should have done much more.”
“We regret this decision,” a spokesman for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters at a briefing on Monday. The spokesman added that French embassies would participate in the commemorations “organized across the world to honor the memory of the victims of the genocide.”
He added, “The world has yet to fully overcome its divisions, its indifference, its moral blind spots.”
The ceremonies began Monday morning in Kigali with Mr. Kagame and Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, lighting a flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in memory of those killed.
The genocide began after an airplane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana of the majority Hutus was shot down on April 6, 1994. Almost immediately, roadblocks sprang up. The killing of minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus by soldiers and Hutu extremists began.
Ceremonies were to continue at Kigali’s main sports stadium, where thousands were expected to participate in an evening candlelight ceremony.
Churches were burned to the ground with congregants inside. Homes were attacked. The slaughter with guns, grenades and machetes offered mercy to no generation, from infants to grandparents.
The rising tensions come at a charged moment for the two countries. Rwanda is working to maintain economic growth as well as its reputation as a beacon of stability in central and East Africa, while France is in the middle of an effort to stem the violence in the Central African Republic, which many fear could escalate into the sort of widespread carnage that unfolded in Rwanda.
Since the bloodletting, President Paul Kagame, the onetime leader of rebel Tutsis who marched in to quell the massacres, has sought to project his land as a haven of stability, a magnet for investment and an emblem economic progress in a turbulent region. He has taken credit for creating a functioning health care system, raising living standards and improving women’s rights.
“It’s a long and complicated relationship between the two countries,” said Carina Tertsakian, a senior researcher on Rwanda and Burundi for Human Rights Watch in London. “The whole of the international community bears a responsibility for not stopping genocide in 1994, but France’s responsibility went beyond that because it had supported the previous government that perpetuated the genocide and had trained their soldiers.”
“Today we have a reason to celebrate the normal moments of life, that are easy for others to take for granted,” Mr. Kagame was quoted in news reports as saying. “If the genocide reveals humanity’s shocking capacity for human cruelty, Rwanda’s choices show its capacity for renewal.”
The Rwandan government has repeatedly criticized France’s role in the country and in 2006 it broke off diplomatic relations after a French judge accused several members of the Rwandan government, including Mr. Kagame, of plotting to kill President Juvenal Habyarimana in a plane crash. The death of Mr. Habyarimana, whose government France had supported, touched off the massacres. Diplomatic relations resumed in 2009.
As some in the crowd recalled the days of horror, many wailed and screamed out loud, witnesses said. But the grief of the survivors was soured by diplomatic tensions between France and Mr. Kagame.
The timing of Mr. Kagame’s accusations seemed somewhat surprising because last month, for the first time, a French court convicted a Rwandan man for his role in the genocide. The man, a former intelligence officer, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In the run-up to the commemorations, Mr. Kagame rekindled an old dispute with France — an influential player in Francophone Africa, even through Rwanda had once been a Belgian colony — accusing France of helping the killers escape and of playing a “direct role.” He seemed to allude to those allegations, frequently denied by France, as he spoke to the gathering on Monday.
“It took them 20 years to do it, but better late than never,” Ms. Tertsakian said. “We hope it won’t be a one-off and that there will be others.”
“Behind the words ‘never again’ there is a story whose truth must be told in full,” he said.
While there has been some admission by France, in a parliamentary report, of its involvement in arming and equipping the government from 1990 to ’94, when it was dominated by the Hutu ethnic group, there has never been an open discussion on the matter between the two countries. An estimated 800,000 members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as Hutus suspected of being sympathetic to them, were killed from April to July 1994.
“No country is powerful enough, even when they think they are, to change the facts,” Mr. Kagame said in a seeming reference to France, Reuters reported. “Facts are stubborn.”
A spokesman for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Romain Nadal, said that his government was surprised by the statements by Mr. Kagame and that they were in contradiction with the diplomatic agreement between the two countries.
In response to Mr. Kagame’s accusations, France, which had trained the Hutu-dominated military under President Habyarimana, canceled plans for its justice minister, Christiane Taubira, to attend Monday’s ceremony. Overnight, the French ambassador in Kigali, Michel Flesch, said he was told by an official that he was no longer accredited to attend the memorial, news reports said.
For the French, the disagreement comes as human rights observers are once again questioning their commitment to protecting civilians in an impoverished, landlocked African country — this time the Central African Republic, a former French colony.
The theme of Rwanda’s renewal was echoed by other leaders.
A sectarian war there has forced almost the entire Muslim population to flee Christian and animist militias. The French sent troops to the country in November because they feared that the growing violence could lead to genocide.
“Twenty years ago today our country fell into deep ditches of darkness,” said Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, according to The Associated Press. “Twenty years later, today, we are a country united and a nation elevated.”
“It’s pretty unprecedented to have an entire population flee,” said Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, who has tracked the fighting in the Central African Republic.
Critics have accused Mr. Kagame of running an authoritarian regime that tolerates no dissent, and of sponsoring rebels in the chaos of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda’s neighbor — allegations that he has strenuously rejected. Rwanda has also denied accusations in South Africa and elsewhere that Mr. Kagame’s exiled adversaries have been targeted and killed.
“France has a very difficult time acknowledging how bad the situation is and they continue to say ‘It’s going according to plan ” Mr. Bouckaert said. “Their refusal to evacuate the remaining Muslim population, who is starving and under constant attack, is just unacceptable.”
At the ceremony, attended by several African leaders and senior officials from Europe and the United States, Mr. Kagame and Mr. Ban lit a flame that is set to burn for 100 days — the same length of time as it took for the slaughter to unfold.
Mr. Bouckaert added that it was “a hard decision to make, but under the circumstances, with the shadow of Rwanda and Srebrenica hanging over this, sometimes you do have to evacuate people.”
The French Army, shadowed by a sense of failure in Rwanda, has struggled to plot a better course in the Central African Republic, according to articles in the French news media, but remains unsure of its role in the chaos of competing militias.
Jacques Hogard, a French former military official in Rwanda, was quoted in the French newspaper Le Monde as saying, “For lack of a clear political line, we continue to make military interventions in Africa, which puts people in unbelievable situations.”
Mr. Kagame came to office in 2000 and has been commended by Western leaders, including former President Bill Clinton, for helping to remake his damaged country and for building its economy and educational system.
For his government, the charge that the French shared some responsibility for the slaughter is something of a recurring theme that often comes up around the time of the anniversary, as a way of reminding the French and other countries in the West of their responsibility for the genocide.
Recently, Mr. Kagame’s government has been accused of supporting violent rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and of being involved in the deaths of former Rwandan officials who turned against him and went into exile. Britain withheld $38 million in foreign aid to Rwanda because of its support of the Congolese rebels.
The dulling of Mr. Kagame’s luster has made some analysts wonder if his criticisms of Western countries are a way of distracting his domestic audience from his government’s more questionable behavior.
