Ce qu'a présenté Paul Barril, c'est un boîtier d'antenne radiocompas. Sur le Falcon 50, il y en a deux. C'est un appareil inerte, qui ne contient aucune information

Amar, Paul

Caumont, Carole

Fourniou, Valérie

Staes, Isabelle

28 juin 1994

19940628

20:00:00

CEST

Journal de 20 heures

Ce qu'a présenté Paul Barril, c'est un boîtier d'antenne radiocompas. Sur le Falcon 50, il y en a deux. C'est un appareil inerte, qui ne contient aucune information

À Gishyita, des commandos marine surveillent les collines : des hommes du FPR y sont positionnés. On parle de 1 000 à 2 000 rebelles.

ScriptFrance2JournalDe20Heures28061994.pdf

43359 bytes

7

France 2

INA

Transcription d'une émission de télévision

FR

- Who killed or caused to be killed the President of Rwanda? There is no answer for the moment to this mystery but a man claims to know it. Captain Paul Barril accuses the Rwandan Patriotic Front. He said so clearly in our 1 p.m. news. And the former commander of the GIGN showed, to demonstrate it, the black box of the presidential plane shot down by two missiles. The accusation is so serious that it deserved an investigation into this investigation.
- It's 1 p.m. Live on France 2, Paul Barril explains to us that he recovered the black box of the Rwandan President's Falcon 50. With that, he says, we can prove that the plane was the victim of a missile attack, a carefully planned operation.
- At the same time in Toulouse, a pilot, Philippe Lendepergt, who is watching France 2, jumps: for him, the object presented by Barril has nothing to do with a flight recorder. Philippe Lendepergt, "Pilot": "A black box such as Mr. Barril should have found it, it's orange to start with, internationally. And it records all the aircraft's parameters".
- What Paul Barril presented was a radio compass antenna box. On the Falcon 50, there are two. The Omega radiocompass is used to go from one point to another between two beacons, the plane keeps its course. It is an inert device, which does not contain any information.
- A controversy that has at least one merit, that of bringing up the essential question. Even if no one seems determined to find the answer. Who are the sponsors of the attack and who fired the two rockets that shot down the Rwandan President's plane? The words are launched: there is talk of "conspiracy" and even of "mercenaries".
- Paul Barril's thesis goes against the investigations published so far. It is obviously rejected by the RPF. Jacques Bihozagara, "RPF Representative in Brussels": "First of all, you have to know what credit you give to Captain Barril's statements. And you first have to know who he is, who mandated him. And on what basis he works".
- Last question: the silence observed by the French government in this affair. Heavy silence as three Frenchmen, the three crew members of the Rwandan President's plane, were also killed in the attack.
- In Rwanda, the emergency today is to evacuate as many civilians as possible. The French army is working on it. 35 nuns of various nationalities and eight orphans were thus able to leave the Kibuye convent where they had taken refuge.
- The soldier starts early, humanitarian mission or not. These helicopters, which fly over Lake Kivu, the natural border between Zaire and Rwanda, know that they are expected to carry out their first major evacuation mission in Rwanda. These 40 nuns from Kibuye have decided to leave. They are American, English, Belgian or Rwandan. They first fled the Kigali massacres to take refuge in this convent by the lake. But the visits of the local militias continued: ban on hosting Tutsi, intimidation, extortion, death threats. Today they are leaving.
- It must be said that the situation remains tense in Kibuye. Clashes again took place yesterday [June 27], about ten kilometers from the city. And about twenty children were found dead a few days ago in Gisovu. Among the evacuees, Benoît, a little Tutsi, the only one whom the Sisters had sheltered in secret. He leaves too. His friend Marie, a Hutu, who had taken him in, remained alone in Kibuye.
- François Léotard must leave Paris for Rwanda. The Minister of Defense will visit tomorrow [June 29] the 2,500 French soldiers taking part in Operation Turquoise. And he may meet a compatriot who lives in Rwanda, who has been threatened with death by the militias.
- Rwanda border post. The French incursion is not a simple patrol: these men of the 11^th DP have the mission of rescuing a French national, threatened with death. In the suburbs of Gisenyi where we met him a few hours earlier, holed up for two months in his villa, guarded only by two Rwandan gendarmes. The four vehicles of the convoy take possession of the premises. And Captain Courtois heads for the only Frenchman left in town.
- For a week, Alain Lœuillet knew that the French soldiers were there, just on the other side of the border, only 500 meters from him. But he could not leave his villa to warn them of his presence, the militias are looking for him to kill him. Witness of the massacres, what he saw he cannot tell us about it in front of the camera still fearing for his life as long as the French have not organized his security. Alain insists on staying in Gisenyi to recover his stolen property. A city where 10,000 Tutsi were killed in one week and he is the only Westerner who can testify to it.
- Benoît Duquesne: "We knew from the ICRC that around 250 to 500,000 Hutu were wandering in the diocese of Gikongoro, fleeing the advance of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. The French soldiers had confirmation of this today. There is indeed a huge mass of population wandering in that region. This is of course the consequence of the advance of the war. But these people have absolutely no support at the moment: the camps are not organized, there is no humanitarian aid, there is no food, there is absolutely nothing. And, not tomorrow [June 29], because there is a visit from François Léotard, but probably the day after tomorrow [June 30], the French soldiers will go there".
- A photographer from the American agency Associated Press was injured today in Kigali: Ricardo Mazalan, of Argentine nationality, was in his hotel room when a bullet hit him in the right leg. Doctors are optimistic.
- The soldiers of Operation Turquoise, while taking care to respect their humanitarian mission, remain vigilant. The French positions heard, yesterday [June 27], the echo of very close clashes between the Patriotic Front and the government.
- Very, very vigilant marine commandos. They watch the hills a few kilometers away. RPF men are positioned there. We are talking about 1,000 to 2,000 rebels. We are in Gishyita, the nerve center of Operation Turquoise, because it is here that the Tutsi rebels would be the furthest advanced into Hutu territory. 40 marine commandos are on alert. In the distance shots ring out. The most violent clashes took place yesterday evening: 20 dead among the rebels, three on the other side. Marin Gillier, "Fregate Captain": "We heard a little noise. We saw smoke. It was infantry-type clashes, relatively important, especially on the scale of the country".
- Infiltrations, clashes, abuses every night, in this particularly sensitive sector, the manhunt continues. A little everywhere the traces of the massacres, like these mass graves near the destroyed houses. Marine commando soldier: "People who were massacred in the area must have been put in mass graves. I think they must have made a gallery, dumped the earth here and piled up the bodies".
- Far from the welcome speeches that greeted them on their arrival, the French soldiers are now faced with the realities of the war that is tearing Rwanda apart. With the advance of the rebels, they are not far from being on the front line.

The 20 o'clock news of France 2 of June 28, 1994 is visible in its entirety here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZJMpDo5Vts