RWANDA: French had role in Rwanda president's death says Kagame

Senior Hutu commanders backed by France shot down the plane carrying Rwanda's president in 1994, killing him and touching off a genocide, Rwandan President Paul Kagame told Reuters on Saturday. "Hundreds of thousands of militias moreover supported by France, remember France and the presidential guard of Habyarimana were the ones in charge of the airport security, in charge of that whole area where Habyarimana´s plane crashed. Even it crashed by the way, its on record, I do not know why people keep forgetting simple facts that were there. The UN forces here tried to go to the site to investigate quickly a follow up of as what happened and who was responsible; it is the French and Habyarimana´s presidential guards that denied them access," said Kagame. Kagame also said in an exclusive interview that France harboured former government officials who masterminded the slaughter of 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus during the 100 days of bloodshed which followed Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana's death in the plane crash. "The ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda) has information pointing to people who were responsible for gunning down Habyarimana's plane, and these are Hutu extremists including senior commanders at the time of that government with the support of France," Kagame said, at times visibly angry. Kagame made his comments a day after Kigali severed diplomatic ties with Paris, furious at a French judge who issued arrest warrants for nine of Kagame's associates and called for Kagame to face trial over the downing of Habyarimana's plane. "The French are trying to hide and they are saying that it was RPF with missiles, no. The French including this Brougiere man, they have documents and they know that missiles have been ordered and received by government forces, the government of Habyarimana, they have them and they know that," said Kagame. The case has revived Rwanda's festering enmity towards its former ally France, which it says armed, trained and gave orders to those who carried out the genocide. Shortly after the interview, Rwandan officials said French ambassador Dominique Decherf had boarded a plane for Paris. The Belgian foreign ministry said it has agreed with Rwanda that it can protect the French embassy and French interests in Rwanda. The charges have also dealt a personal blow to Kagame, whose rebel Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), defeated the Hutu extremists in a march across the country to the capital Kigali. He recalled how the press in 1994 reported plans to assassinate Habyarimana from within his own camp, and accused French soldiers and presidential guards of preventing U.N. forces from accessing the crash site as part of their inquiry. "All this is put aside and the blame is apportioned to RPF. The French know who shot down the plane. It must be them who are responsible," Kagame said. France, one of the key supporters of the Hutu-led regime that governed the country in the years leading up to the genocide, has always denied any involvement in the massacres. A French parliamentary commission in 1998 cleared Paris of responsibility for the genocide while admitting that "strategic errors" had been made. But, a separate inquiry requested by the families of the French crew flying Habyarimana's plane and the late President's widow Agathe, culminated in magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere's decision this week to issue arrest warrants for nine Kagame aides, including the military chief of staff. Kigali accuses Agathe of being the founder of Akazu, a small but powerful circle of Hutu family members and relatives who plotted to exterminate the Tutsis, and the government has long wanted the former first lady to face justice over the genocide. "How do you tell me that all criminals who have fled the country, find their way in to France, what they are saying is what forms the main evidence of what Brougiere is saying." Kagame said, adding that other former government officials had also sought refuge in France. Kagame said there was evidence France tried to hamper the RPF's fight against Rwanda's then Hutu-dominated government, citing two events that took place during a visit to Paris in 1992. He said French authorities arrested him and that a senior French diplomat warned him that the RPF should stop fighting. "For a French official as far back as 1992 to have said that -- I did not understand it at that time," Kagame said. "I only understood it after the genocide took place. So that meant that they were involved in the planning." Survivors' groups have accused France of inadvertently extending the genocide when its troops occupied parts of southern Rwanda in a bid to help and provide safe-havens for refugees and secure passage for humanitarian aid. They say France's military presence helped slow the RPF's advance, allowing Hutu extremists to continue their killing. The breakdown in diplomatic relations comes a month after Rwanda launched an investigation into allegations France helped the Hutu government in the slaughter.

ITN Source | November 26, 2006

Tags:. .angry. .relatives. .recalled. .hide. .circle