LETTERS: Hold France accountable for its role in the Genocide

France is widely believed, with a smoking gun, to be the mastermind and accomplice in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Sunday, October 16, 2016
French soldiers hand over an unwilling Genocide victim to militiamen at a road block during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. / File.

Editor,

RE: "It could be worse: Rwanda vs France Part II” (The New Times, October 12).

France is widely believed, with a smoking gun, to be the mastermind and accomplice in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Why should the whole world not be interested in the role of France in this matter?

If the RPF started the genocide, why would they stop it? How would it help in their agenda? Did France try to stop it since they had a heavy troops deployment in the country at the time? Any slightest effort? So, if they chose not to then, why be so much concerned now? By the way, why French judges, instead of UN specially assigned neutral experts, if really there is genuine need to establish the cause of the genocide in Rwanda once and for all?

I feel Rwanda should have no obligation to cooperate in this time-delaying-tactics of France that keeps helping them to keep hiding their shame behind the senseless and endless investigations.

This is a shame, France can’t be accused of a crime and at the same time be a prosecutor of the same crime. I don’t even understand why Rwanda can’t be the one pursuing France in the international courts of law to answer for their responsibility in the genocide that claimed over a million Rwandans (not French).

It’s on record that many scholars, judges and politicians from different corners of the world have investigated this plane crash issue and the outcome has all pointed in the direction of FAR (former government army) under the cover of French commanders. And throughout the liberation struggle, nobody ever saw RPA/RPF troops using such weapons.

Does it make sense therefore to suppose that RPF could purchase just a single piece to down the president’s plan? Of what advantage would that have been to the course of the war?

Also FAR was already losing the war even when the president was with them, what would be the point in assassinating an embattled president, of what strategic importance would it be?

As well, Kayumba Nyamwasa can’t make the facts any different by lies. But if he admits to be a suspect in this matter, he should be apprehended, and be made to explain the matter behind bars. He is pleading guilty, why aren’t these judges going for him?

Donart