Macron Creates Group to Study French Role in Rwandan Genocide

KIGALI (Capital Markets in Africa) – French President Emmanuel Macron established a group of researchers to investigate what role France may have played in the Rwandan genocide a quarter of a century ago.

Macron made the announcement in Paris after meeting an association of survivors of the mass killings, in which at least 800,000 people died. The nine-person team of

The French military advised Rwanda’s ethnic Hutu-dominated government in the early 1990s as it fought a war against mainly Tutsi rebels based in neighboring Uganda. The French military has faced accusations that it knew about the massacres, which began in April 1994 after a plane carrying the country’s president was shot down in mysterious circumstances. The mass killings ended after the rebels, who were led by current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, invaded the country.

France’s parliament interviewed French political and military leaders in 1998, but the resulting report drew no conclusions beyond saying members of the military had made “errors of judgment.” In December 2017, a reportcommissioned by the Rwandan government recommended a full investigation into the French role in the genocide.

Macron’s commission will have full access to the archives of deceased former President Francois Mitterrand, the foreign ministry and the military, including its intelligence services.

Macron, 41, is the first French president born after France granted independence to most of its African colonies in the early 1960s, and has sought to adjust French relations with Africa away from its historic ties to former colonies. In September, he acknowledged France’s “systematic” use of torture during the Algerian War of Independence in the 1950s.

While Rwanda had been ruled by Belgium, successive French governments maintained close links because its Hutu leadership was mostly francophone, while Tutsi leaders in exile in Uganda mostly spoke English.

Source: Bloomberg Business News