PARIS, (Reuters) – A French probe into what sparked the 1994 Rwandan genocide appears to exonerate current President Paul Kagame and his Tutsi allies after Paris had previously accused him of triggering the killing of 800,000 people in 100 days.
Diplomatic relations between Rwanda and France were broken off in 2006 when a French judge said Kagame, the rebel leader at the time of the killings, had orchestrated the assassination of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana to trigger the bloodshed.
After Habyarimana’s plane was shot down, Hutu extremists slaughtered Tutsis and moderate Hutus in some of the fastest mass killings ever perpetrated. Kagame’s Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front seized power in the aftermath of the genocide.
Kagame has accused former French President Francois Mitterrand’s administration of training and arming the Hutu militias responsible for the slaughter.
A team of French investigators, led by two judges, re-examined a dozen eyewitness testimonies to work out where the two missiles that brought down Habyarimana’s Dassault Falcon 50 plane were fired from, in an effort to determine final responsibility. Both sides had bases near the airport.
The judges yesterday presented their report to Kagame’s lawyers, who told media that they had concluded the shots could not have come from a military base occupied by Kagame’s supporters. The findings did not specifically point the finger at the Hutus.
“Today’s findings constitute vindication for Rwanda’s long-held position on the circumstances surrounding events of April 1994”, said Rwanda Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo in a statement.
“With this scientific truth, Judges Trévidic and Poux have slammed shut the door on the seventeen-year campaign to deny the genocide or blame its victims.
“It is now clear to all that the downing of the plane was a coup d’état carried by extremist Hutu elements and their advisers who controlled Kanombe Barracks.”
However, Jean-Yves Dupeux, a lawyer for Habyarimana’s children, said the findings did not support the Rwandan government’s account.
“The findings cannot point the finger at the Hutu camp,” he said. “What the experts are saying is that the shots could not have been fired from Paul Kagame’s camp. That doesn’t mean it is the other side.”