Mick Hartley

I posted back in December on Rwanda’s fraught relations with Paris following the recommendation of French investigative judge Jean-Louis Bruguière that President Paul Kagame be tried for his “presumptive participation” in the shooting down of the jet of his predecessor, Juvénal Habyarimana – the event that triggered the genocide in 1994. Now here’s Kagame, in an interview, from December but only now appearing in English, with French journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupéry:

How can this escalation be stopped?

It is a serious conflict. As I said, we tried to resolve our problems with France. The French government never wanted to do so, despite our contacts with African leaders who are close to Paris like President Wade of Senegal, President Compaoré of Burkina-Faso or President Bongo of Gabon. It was Paris who started this conflict. The closing of the French embassy in Rwanda should not be seen as something that happened all of a sudden. Our relations have been bad for twelve years now. If one wanted to summarize the nature of the dispute, one could do it as follows: For several years Paris has been encouraging suspicions against a “regime that emerged from mass graves,” whereas Kigali accuses Paris of “complicity in genocide.” . . . Yes: Paris is complicit in the genocide.

Is there a way out of this opposition?

Before, it would have been easy. But Paris always refused the easy way. Representatives of important countries — the Belgian Prime Minister, the American President — came here and admitted their responsibility, even though their responsibility bears no relation to that of Paris. France has never had anything to say. The French are the most implicated in the affair — and nothing, not a single word. But simple apologies, showing that one feels affected by what happened here, would make a big difference. To be unable to do this when one was so deeply implicated only makes the situation get worse. It is up to France to think about it. It is up to France to decide. If a French representative came to Kigali to present apologies to Rwandans, it would make an enormous difference. This is what Rwandans are expecting.

Apologise? The French? To a country that’s recently changed its official second language from French to English?

[Thanks JR]