When the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) – the latter was the political wing, and the Rwandan Patriotic Army, its military – launched the liberation struggle on October 1, 1990, President Juvénal Habyarimana got on a war footing.

He prepared his army, rallied the populace – especially Interahamwe, or members of the MRND militia – against the invasion, and requested for more support from his far-off allies. The MRND was the ruling political party from 1975 to 1994 under Habyarimana. A military training programme of civilian militia set up before the Genocide aimed at the extermination of the Tutsi all over the country as well as fighting the RPA.

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In March 1991, the head of the intelligence service in Ruhengeri Prefecture, Eugène Munyangoga, sent Kigali a report recommending mass military training and distribution of weapons to civilians, especially youths aged between 18 and 25.

The idea was that after training, the youths would return to their home regions and be given arms but continue to operate as civilians. The RPA also had to deal with Impuzamugambi, the equally extremist CDR party’s own youth militia whose purpose almost always aligned with the Interahamwe’s.

Zaïre’s Mobutu sent in his elite army

However, the rebel army that stopped the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and liberated the country, on July 4, 1994, did not have the genocidal regime’s army, Forces armées rwandaises, or FAR, and civilian militias, as the only enemy.

Former Zaïre (present-day DR Congo) President Mobutu Sese Seko sent an entire battalion plus the Division Spéciale Présidentielle (DSP), an elite military force charged with his personal security, to assist Habyarimana.

It is the French-trained and well-equipped DSP that helped, at some point, drive the RPA rebels from Gabiro.

Reports indicate that the Zairean forces in Rwanda – estimated at around 1,500 – participated in looting and raping and Habyarimana, within a week of their arrival, asked Mobutu to take back his troops.

Enter François Mitterrand

When the RPA launched the liberation struggle, in 1990, French President François Mitterrand – the main ally of Habyarimana’s government – was keen on backing his ally. By mid-1990, rumours of an attack from the RPA were common. Reliable reports indicate that France’s new ambassador in Kigali, Georges Martres, had, in fact, heard the rumours as early as March 1990.

Martres had advised Mitterrand that Habyarimana would likely bring up his regime’s security concerns at the two presidents’ next meeting in Paris that April.

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When the war actually broke out, there were already French military cooperants – some sort of advisors – in Rwanda, including a few who had been training key units of Habyarimana’s army – the reconnaissance battalion, the para-commando battalion, and the aviation squadron. These French troops, sources say, were among the first sent out to fend off the rebels.

On October 2, 1990, Habyarimana phoned the Élysée to plead for help to repel the RPA’s military offensive.

Later, when rebels started closing in on Kigali, in 1993, it is reported, Mitterrand received two military options from his advisors: withdraw French troops or reinforce them. It was not a hard decision to make.

A few years earlier, French special forces had been flown to Kigali with a secret mission to assist the Rwandan government forces in its fight against the RPF/A.

Three days after the war began, on October 4, 1990, the French military cooperants were joined by 150 French troops to help secure Kigali and the airport. Soon after that, another 150 French soldiers arrived in Kigali, marking the beginning of Operation Noroît, an operation in which approximately 150 French troops from a French base in the Central African Republic landed in Kigali.

500 Belgian paratroopers

The next day, approximately 500 Belgian paratroopers also landed in Kigali.

Just like the French troops, the Belgians also came to support the government and serve as a deterrent to the RPA military advance.

When French and Belgian troops secured the airport in Kigali, allegedly to facilitate the evacuation of their nationals, they freed up the government army to go to the front.

But the rebels kept on advancing anyway.

By mid-1992, French journalists including Jean-François Dupaquier began calling out Paris for its unending support of the genocidal regime, but France’s military assistance did not stop.

Besides the 142 French troops deployed as trainers and advisors to the Rwandan army, records also indicate that the number of French troops under Operation Noroît grew to 688 by March 1993. The French government also sent tonnes of weapons and military equipment provided free of charge. French special forces flew to Kigali with a secret mission to assist the genocidal government forces in its fight against the RPF/A.

In August 1993, a historic peace accord, signed in Arusha, Tanzania, enabled the departure of most French troops from Rwanda. But in June 1994, Paris eventually redeployed more than 400 troops to Rwanda through Operation Turquoise, a mission that the French government said was a humanitarian one to "save lives and stop the massacres.”

In the real sense, Opération Turquoise was a secret operation meant to support the genocidal government and to prevent the RPF from taking over the entire country.