Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana, widow of the genocidal regime’s president Juvenal Habyarimana, on Tuesday, November 3, appeared before a court in Paris for questioning in an ongoing investigation against a former French military officer with links to Rwanda. She was questioned as part of the probe into the role played by Captain Paul Barril in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, according to reports from France. An undated photo published by Le Figaro, a popular French daily, shows Kanziga, wearing a facemask accompanied by a lawyer. Kanziga, 78, a genocide suspect herself, is reported to have been summoned by an investigating judge in charge of this investigation for complicity in genocide. According to reports, Kanziga was questioned about her links with Barril, an ex-gendarme of the Elysee under former French President Francois Mitterrand. In 2013, Paris prosecutors launched an investigation into complaints filed against former French Military officer Paul Barril’s role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The complaint against Barril was filed at the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris by three human rights groups International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), French Human Rights League (LDH) and Survie. The groups want the ex-French commando to answer for his role in keeping a genocidal government in power to exterminate the Tutsi. The rights groups filed the complaint on the grounds of Barril’s alleged complicity in the Genocide against the Tutsi. The ex-French military officer particularly concluded an agreement with the Prime Minister of the Interim Government of Rwanda, Jean Kambanda, to supply arms, ammunition, training and supervision. Barril is alleged to have been the secretive man who supplied arms and mercenaries on behalf of the French government to the Rwanda government as the Genocide against the Tutsi spread across the country in 1994. In 1994, Barril was paid US$3m by the interim government to supply arms and more than 1,000 mercenaries to keep it in power as the slaughter of Tutsis gained momentum. The contract was allegedly given to him by Kambanda, the interim Prime Minister, currently on life imprisonment in Mali for Genocide. Barril was secretly sent by François de Grossouvre, advisor to ex-French President Francois Mitterrand, to Rwanda a few days before or after the Genocide. On April 27, 1994, the Rwandan Defense minister at the time, Augustin Bizimana, wrote a letter to Barril asking for two specific supplies; arms and mercenaries. Who is Kanziga? A wife of former President Juvenal Habyarimana, Kanziga remains in France, despite an arrest warrant issued by Rwanda over her role in the Genocide. She was one of the core members of Akazu, a small elite group that orchestrated the Genocide against the Tutsi. Available information indicates that Rwanda’s extradition request was rejected by Paris in 2011.
