Editor,

I WISH to respond to Justin Nyanshwa and Eddy Kalisa Nyarwaya’s co-authored article, "France’s shadow diplomacy versus Rwanda’s open diplomacy” (The New Times, April 25).

The French politics is historically vicious when it comes to Tutsi. To deny – allegedly in the name of protecting their "honour” – changes not the facts. Let them stay with their honours but leave us alone to live our lives. If it is respect they want – they have more than enough from génocidaires who number in millions. Let them be satisfied with that.

Rwasubutare, Rwanda

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DEAR RWASUBUTARE, true honour derives from acting honourably, not from acting in the most dishonorable manner possible and then demanding that you not be reminded of your misdeeds and their consequences. Otherwise what we have is the classical naked emperor insisting we recognise the fineness of their clothing. It doesn’t work.

The rest of us who live in the real world can see how naked and dishonourable they are. And the smell of our million dead clings very closely on the French state, most especially when its elite sanctimoniously attempt to speak about honour or human rights.

It would do them lots of good to come clean, or stop speaking about their non-existent honour when they speak about Rwanda. They might also do well to stop speaking about human rights, because they disqualified themselves long ago from addressing that topic.

Mwene Kalinda, Rwanda

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THE FRENCH government knows very well what François Mitterrand, Edouard Balladur, Alain Juppé and their associates (military and civilians) did in Rwanda. They conspiratorially helped murder over one million potential French-speaking Tutsi, and this was not in defence of their language.

It was not even the first genocide in the world for the honourable inventors of the guillotine. There’s Indochina, Algeria... Their offensive against Rwanda is not over yet; using even the UN as a tool, they always try to hit us on all sides politically and economically.

France, keep hiding behind your wall of shame, but please spare the honour of your citizenry and that of other true sons and daughters of France. Leave Rwanda alone, own up to your evil deeds and apologise.

Justin Gashamura, Washington D.C.,

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FRANCE HAD always had a hostile diplomacy towards some of its former colonies. 

Look at the genocide that claimed three million people in Cambodia as well as the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Look at how France decided to help the génocidaires until they were rooted out of the country, how it created a safe passage for them to be exported to Congo, and how France supported them militarily while on the other side of the border.

What did France do to help securing Cambodia from Khmer Rouge Genocide? We really want France to provide a clear explanation of their Opération Turquoise in Rwanda – if it wasn’t other than harbouring and reinforcing the genocidal regime.

Stella, Phnom Penh, Cambodia