French youth denounce role of Paris in Genocide

Young French leaders have denounced their government’s rule of silence on Paris’ role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and are appealing for recognition of French responsibility in the slaughter. The young leaders are members of the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (Egam), which brings together the main 35 anti-racist organisations from 29 European countries dedicated to fight racism and anti-Semitism. Some of the young leaders will be in the country next week as part of a movement to end what they call France’s “secret agenda.” “We are leading, from next Sunday, and for one week a delegation of French young leaders of political parties and civil society organisations that will come to Rwanda and deliver a message of the young generation appealing for recognition of the French responsibility in the Genocide of 1994,” said Elie Petit, the Egam communications officer. In a strongly worded statement titled, “Tutsi Genocide: Now is time for the truth,” Egam cites facts that prove France’s involvement in the Genocide and call for an end to concealment of that responsibility. “Let’s state it clearly: Paris did support the Rwandan regime before, during and after the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi population, which resulted in the death of over 800,000 people between April and July 1994,” the statement reads in part. “For the past 20 years, these politicians, in an attempt to save their honour, have refused to answer for their actions and kept trying to obstruct the bursting of the truth by denying France’s involvement, which often tends to sound like denial speech,” it adds. The development comes just weeks before Rwanda marks the 20th Liberation anniversary – on July 4 – the date when the Rwanda Patriotic Army took Kigali and effectively halted the Genocide. During (then French President) François Mitterrand’s second seven-year mandate, a handful of highly ranked politicians, both right wing (conservatives) and left wing (liberals) personalities, kept a secret political agenda, at least between 1990 and 1994, it says. The statement adds: “This secret agenda, which was never discussed in Parliament or with the French population, concretely meant a political, military and diplomatic support for the extremists that had organised themselves in the Hutu Power movement. “This movement was recognised by France, which knew about its racist, totalitarian and genocidal structure.” The list of incriminating facts is long, based on official documents, journalistic investigations and on the French parliamentary enquiry mission of 1998. The facts referred to are non-exhaustive but say enough of the deep collaboration that existed between certain high-ranking French officials and the regime responsible for perpetrating the Genocide in Rwanda. The young French leaders declared in the statement: “We, youth leaders of French political parties, of youth associations, fight now and support now the duty of truth. “Searching for the truth about the Genocide is for us an absolute. It doesn’t depend on a compromise in a given balance of power or diplomacy, and it doesn’t depend on a certain political support to a given regime or government. Across all democratic political beliefs, our generation rejects the poisoned heritage of the collaboration. We fight indifference, denial and the silence of the State. The fight against denial is for us non-negotiable.” *** ABOUT EGAM The European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (Egam) was founded in 2010 by Benjamin Abtan, who is its president. Egam brings together the main antiracist and human rights civil society organisations from more than 30 countries throughout the continent to fight racism, anti-Semitism, racial discrimination and genocide denial through both institutional advocacy and coordinated grassroots actions. Egam has also been actively involved in fighting genocide denial regarding the Holocaust, holding, for example, the first-ever European seminar on the Nazi persecutions, in partnership with the Shoah Memorial in Paris and its European partners.

National

French youth denounce role of Paris in Genocide