A/S : Rwanda

15 juillet 1994

19940715

A/S : Rwanda

MIP, Annexes, p. 458

MinAffEtDAMno1963-15juillet1994.pdf

178567 bytes

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Quai d'Orsay

MIP

Note

FR

According to this note from the Quai d'Orsay, the attitude to adopt towards the political figures of Gisenyi, almost all of whom are considered responsible for the massacres, must be defined. At this stage, there is no provision for their arrest and trial. Only a commission of inquiry has been created, the members of which have not yet been appointed.

While France is a signatory to the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of December 9, 1948, while Alain Juppé, Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared that "France will have no complacency with regard to the assassins or their sponsors" (Liberation, June 16, 1994) and that "the return to dialogue can only take place if those responsible for the massacres are dismissed, judged, punished" (Le Monde, July 2, 1994), this note from his ministry envisages the attitude to adopt with regard to "the political figures of Gisenyi, almost all of whom are held responsible for the massacres". It states that "there is no provision for their arrest and trial". Not only as a signatory of the Convention, France had to arrest the presumed culprits to bring them to justice, but moreover, the French soldiers have Chapter VII which authorizes them to use force and therefore to make arrests. . Despite this, the note states that these personalities were warned that "their presence in the area was not desired". If they return, "We told them that we would have to put them under house arrest until they were handed over to the United Nations". This note confirms the dispatch from the Reuters agency of July 15, 1994 on which Hubert Védrine wrote that this is not what was said at the Prime Minister. The note even contemplates that "it is not excluded that we will be asked to transfer them to Kigali". It will not be the case, the ministers of this criminal government will stay in Cyangugu in the Humanitarian Zone from July 14 to 18 and the French soldiers will even help them to carry their luggage to Bukavu, in neighboring Congo. This document shows that the diplomats at the Quai d'Orsay knew that France had to arrest these organizers of massacres. But their minister Alain Juppé decided otherwise.