Board of inquiry citizen on the implication of France in Rwanda

The Board of inquiry citizen on the implication of France in the genocide of Tutsi, (CEC), is an initiative of French associations. It is a collective without legal status, animated by a “ steering committee ” which was given as president, Géraud of Pradelle, law professor.

It held its first public works from March 22nd to 26th 2004, in the buildings of the Research center and of information for the development. It was made up of four associations and various, university, legal personalities and of ONG.

Composition of the commission

Associations are:

Aircrige (International association of research on the crimes against humanity and the genocides), represented in particular by Catherine Coquio (professor de compared Littérature, responsible for the university group of research Literature and knowledge the political violence proof);
the Cimade (oecumenical Service of mutual aid) (which was withdrawn then), represented by Gerard Sadik;
OBSARM (Observatory of the transfers of armament), represented by its president Patrice Bouveret;
Survival, represented in particular by François-Xavier Verschave, vice-president of the CEC.

Among the personalities one finds in particular:

Annie Faure, doctor in Rwanda during the genocide, author of “ Wound of humanitarian ”;
Géraud de Geouffre of Pradelle, professor emeritus of Right to the University of Paris X, president of the CEC;
Bernard Jouanneau, lawyer at the court, chair association Mémoire 2000;
Marcel Kabanda: historian, joint author of “ Rwanda: media of the genocide ” (under the direction of Christian Jean-Pierre of CNRS);
Georges Kapler: producer of film “ Rwanda, a cry of an amazing silence ”;
Anne Lainé: director of film “ Rwanda, a cry of an amazing silence ”;
Rafaëlle House: law professor with the faculty of Picardy, author of “ the individual responsibility for crime of State in public international law ”;
Yves Ternon, surgeon and Doctor of History (Paris IV), specialist in the genocides of the XX° century, author in particular of the “ criminal State ”, vice-president of the CEC.

Work of the commission

This work made it possible to present prérapports written by the police chiefs of the CEC, to hear Rwandan and nonRwandan witnesses, journalists, various French actors, experts, to which some had already testified in front of the International penal court for Rwanda. The commission also viewed the testimonys filmed with the Rwanda with its request by Georges Kapler.

The tackled subjects were:

Elements of military complicity
Elements of financial complicity
Elements of diplomatic complicity
the French written press and the genocide
the Turquoise operation
Hierarchy of the responsibilities

This work gave place on March 27th, 2004 to the presentation of tentative conclusions at the time of a conference organized with the French National Assembly.

This conference proceeded in the presence of No5el Mamère, appointed, and of Pierre Brana, Co-rapporteur of the Mission of parliamentary information on Rwanda which had also been heard by the CEC the previous days. Its testimony before the commission wanted to show that it estimated that the deputies had worked well and thus to justify their work in front of the CEC. But it implied, in interviews which it gave in the media in 2004, that certain aspects of the French responsibilities would have been undoubtedly underestimated, but without granting any credit to the possible idea of a will of the French authorities to take part in one way or another in the genocide. He also insists on the other international responsibilities. The French soldiers then involve a completely monoethnic army in a country where develops interethnic racism and where branches Hutu extremists in each political party are organized, while the calls to the genocide with the Radio of the Thousand Hills military Responsabilités multiply, political French and responsibility for communuaté international, the Rwandan drama challenges us all.” )

The “search for factual elements”

Affirming that the research of the truth on the implication of France in Rwanda is sullied by the Reason of State, the members of the steering committee of the commission systematically sought the elements which make it possible to bore the “lead coating” which according to them covers these events:

It is thus specified in the “call witness” that:

We seek people, of French nationality or others, likely to bear witness on facts that they saw or lived and who carry to say that France, through its political officials or soldiers, was directly implied in this genocide. We particularly seek testimonys reporting of the facts which proceeded during the genocide, from April in July 1994, one time when none of those which brought their support for the exterminators could doubt the result of its assistance. However, of the events former or posterior at this period can also be rich of significance. These facts can be produced in Rwanda (in the streets, on the hills, etc) but also in other countries, in the diplomatic enclosures, certain places of international decision, companies (of supply of weapons in particular), in banks or financial institutions (by which the money being used forwarded to finance the purchases of weapons or which ensured the risk of such transactions).

The Members of the Commission affirm however that they remain very attached to the debate. They invited to work of March 2004, by registered letter, the totality of the French persons in charge who had to deal with this problem. Only Jean-Christophe Rufin, political adviser of the Minister for defense in 1994, and Pierre Brana Co-rapporteur of the Mission of parliamentary information on Rwanda, answered this invitation. Their testimonys are reported in the report/ratio of the CEC. Paul Quilès, president of the parliamentary mission on Rwanda, expressed in a letter and the newspaper Le Monde its disapproval of this initiative.

The report/ratio “the horror which takes to us with the face”

February 3rd, 2005, the CEC presented to the press his ratio of six hundred pages, gathering the entirety of work of March 2004, under the title “ the horror which takes to us with the face ” (published at Karthala). At the same time the CEC presented the legal work of its president, Géraud of Pradelle: “ Imprescriptible ” (published with the editions the arenas) which describes the legal framework in which French persons in charge could be continued in front of French justice.

It continues to meet with the objective which the French authorities take the measurement of the damages that France would have caused with the people Rwanda is.

Complaints the Rwandan one

During the same press conference, two Parisian, Main lawyers Antoine Comte and William Bourdon, the lodged complaints presented in front of French justice by three Rwandan which affirm to be violated by French soldiers at the time of the Turquoise Opération, and the project of complaints who actually were deposited fifteen days later, by six other Rwandan, for complicity of Génocide and/or Crime against humanity, against “X”, of the French soldiers of the Turquoise Opération to be identified. This correlation of the two advertisements, report/ratio CEC and felt sorry for, during the same press conference is due to the fact that work of the CEC and of its president allowed the Rwandan ones to better include/understand how they could obtain justice in front of French justice and with their lawyers of better being able to locate the context of these complaints.

These complaints give as report of rapes and participations in the massacres of Tutsis on behalf of the French soldiers.

December 9th, 2005, the minister Frenchwoman of defense, Madam Michele Alliot-Marie, has reacts to this complaint by declaring “ I think that it is inadmissible that the French soldiers can be marked in this way and things which most of the time are completely eccentric ” on the television channel I-TV. It notes “ that the prosecutor who received testimonys did not judge good to open indeed an instruction and which he asked the judge to go on the spot to listen to the witnesses because he found that there precisely was not in what had been known as sufficiently precise elements to be able to open an investigation ”.

December 23rd, 2005, the prosecutor of the court to the armies of Paris (TAP) opened legal information against X for " complicity of génocide" , retaining two of the six complaints of the Rwandan survivors aiming at the French Army, and entrusting the investigation to the judge Brigitte Raynaud (article of the world of December 24th, 2005) and taken again in 2006 by new the examining magistrate of the Court, Mrs Florence Michon. These complaints were fought by the parquet floor of the court to the armies which was débouté twice by the Court of Appeal of Paris in May and July 2006. The instruction is from now on open for the totality of the six lodged complaints by the Rwandan ones, to which the 3 lodged complaints for rape in June 2004 are added.

July 3rd, 2007, the Le Monde newspaper which devoted to it also its leading article, was largely made the echo of the file, deposited by lawyers of the plaintiffs in front of the Court with the armies, referring to files of the Institut François Mitterrand. These documents presented under the title “ Rwanda, the files tell what the Elysium knew ” show that the French authorities were informed of the intentions and preparations of the genocide, that they amalgamated FPR and the Tutsi as enemy of the mode which they supported.

Criticisms emitted against the commission

In Black furies, lying white , Pierre Péan quotes several testimonys, in particular that of Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana, former minister FPR, aiming at showing that Survie is a dispensary FPR. According to Mr. Péan, the president of association, Jean Carbonare, was even the most powerful adviser of Paul Kagame, being based on the testimony of former leaders FPR. Jean Barahinyuta, police chief of the FPR to Information and Documentation for Europe in 1990 and 1991 declared with Mr. Péan that “ Carbonare was the key person of the FPR in France, which worked in connection with Immaculée Mukakimanuka ”. Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana, Foreign Minister of Rwanda between July and October 1994, confirmed and specified: “ Carbonare was the eye of Kagame at Bizimungu and the members of the government which did not form part of the first circle of Kagame. ”.

Pierre Péan criticizes also Annie Faure, in particular for his remarks on the Turquoise operation: “The Turquoise operation did not make that to protect from the killers, it made it possible to kill more Tutsis. ”, and validity of the complaints, which largely take again former charges, that Mr. Péan to attempt to refute in its work. For example, the witness Jean-Bosco Habimana speaks about Bigogwe like a place of formation the Rwandan one by the French soldiers; however, Bigowe forever be a place of encasernement French, but Belgian. As for Eric Nzabihamana, it evokes the remarks which would have made to him a French soldier, but without naming it, and of a “combat” with Gikomgoro, whereas it there had a simple fixing, where the French Army had only one slightly injured to regret, and, in a more general way, defends “a version which contradicts completely what it had declared at the journalists in June and July 1994”.

Some thus call into question work of the commission regarding this one as partial, even like désinformatrice.

In answer to these criticisms public, the Board of inquiry citizen made a development in December 2005 on what are a genocide and genocide complicity. Association Survival, principal defendant of Pierre Péan, retorted with its book in several articles and documents.

Sources

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