Home page
France Génocide Tutsi France Génocide Tutsi
Last update :
September 14, 2021 French

Jean-Claude Lafourcade : « Il n'est pas prévu dans mon mandat de l'ONU d'aller à Kigali. Mon mandat c'est d'arrêter les massacres, en employant la force si nécessaire contre les trublions qui ont commis toutes les exactions que vous connaissez »

Card Number 28958

Number
28958
Author
Chazal, Claire
Author
Poivre d'Arvor, Patrick
Date
26 juin 1994
Ymd
19940626
Time
20:00:00
Time zone
CEST
Uptitle
Journal de 20 heures
Title
Jean-Claude Lafourcade : « Il n'est pas prévu dans mon mandat de l'ONU d'aller à Kigali. Mon mandat c'est d'arrêter les massacres, en employant la force si nécessaire contre les trublions qui ont commis toutes les exactions que vous connaissez »
Subtitle
Édition spéciale Rwanda [Avec notamment des reportages à Kibuye, au camp de Nyarushishi et à Kigali et des interviews du cardinal Etchegaray, d'Alexis Kanyarengwe, du colonel Tauzin et du général Lafourcade]
Size
50969 bytes
Pages nb.
11
Source
TF1
Public records
INA
Type
Transcription d'une émission de télévision
Language
FR
Abstract
- The headquarters of the French forces is located in Goma. Since Thursday [June 23], four reconnaissance missions have been carried out by soldiers in Rwandan territory.
- Close to the Kibuye church, the stadium. All the testimonies speak of a carnage of 3,000 people killed around mid-April. The dead were buried in quarries and forests all around the city.
- The investigations into these massacres are only just beginning. It will take a lot of courage to listen to all the stories of these atrocities.
- Today, in the north-west of the country, the French army carried out its deepest intervention in Rwandan territory, about a hundred kilometers. The region is totally controlled by the government army and Hutu militias. In fact, there are hardly any Tutsis left here. For the Hutus in this region, it therefore seems obvious that the French army has come to help them. Even if the French soldiers carefully avoid making contact with the Hutu authorities on the spot.
- Five kilometers from the Zairian border, a sacked religious mission bears witness to a massacre that took place following the attack on President Habyarimana on April 6. Today, 300 Hutu refugees are settled in the mission. They fled the regions conquered by the RPF rebels. Here, French soldiers are welcomed as true heroes.
- On the side of the road to Goma, Cardinal Etchegaray, special envoy of Pope John Paul II, declared: "The Church has been really weakened, beheaded. This Church, which has betrayed a lot here, deserves when even a comfort".
- In Kigali, the Patriotic Front of Rwanda now controls the entire periphery of Kigali, including the airport and the large stadium in the capital. A few RPF soldiers listen idly to the radio of the Hutu militias, the Interahamwe, which broadcast from downtown Kigali. "Young girls of Rwanda, put on your best clothes and roll out the red carpet in front of the French soldiers who are coming to save you", proclaims the announcer. Which is not precisely done to reassure the rebels.
- The first French incursions into Rwandan territory seem to have alleviated the concerns of the RPF. These concerns are nonetheless real, as its president, Alexis Kanyarengwe attests: "Our apprehensions are mainly due to the past, following the presence of French troops here in our country".
- The propaganda has done its work: that of the Patriotic Front of Rwanda which denounces the French intervention. That especially of the government and the Hutu militias who applaud him with virulence. It will take a lot of caution for the French government and its army to make this propaganda lie.
- In Nyarushishi camp, we are satisfied with the strict minimum provided by the Red Cross. The refugees, resigned, do not complain but they still have in their heads the memory of the days of hell. The Tutsi were the main victims of the massacres. But in some camps, there are Hutus. And among them, there are very particular Hutus who would have participated in the massacres and who would have abandoned their weapons to blend in with the refugee population. Impossible of course to recognize them. The French are here to protect all the survivors of this appalling genocide.
- It was at Nyarushishi that the first French landed in Rwanda. The camp here is a bit of a showcase for the operation. For three days, the uninterrupted broom of helicopters has supplied them with food and ammunition. The men are already equipped with Milan missiles and rockets. They believe that this weaponry is currently sufficient to respond to a possible threat. At the slightest serious alert, helicopters can deliver reinforcements within a quarter of an hour.
- For Colonel Didier Thibaut [Tauzin], "If they attack anyone, it is obvious that we will react by force, and violently. There will be no quarter".
- For the moment, nobody evokes the hypothetical subsequent phase of the operation, which would consist for the French soldiers to penetrate more deeply inside Rwanda. A mission that would probably be high risk this time around.
- For General Jean-Claude Lafourcade, commander-in-chief of the Turquoise mission, "it is not planned in my UN mandate to go to Kigali! My mandate is to stop the massacres, in using force if necessary against the troublemakers who have committed all the atrocities you know".
- In front of the French embassy in Brussels, several hundred people from Rwanda and Zaire wanted to protest against the French military presence in Rwanda and against President Mobutu's regime in Zaire.
- Gérard Longuet expressed his "pride that France and that its army were able to provide a response, late certainly but the fastest of all Western countries". He hopes that we can "help ensure that those who survived the massacres do not experience further abuses".
Comment
In Kibuye on June 26, we see a P4 jeep - if not two - of the French army. This flies in the face of the argument that Duval did not receive his material. This or these two P4 jeeps went to Bisesero the next day. We can assume that Gillier accompanied GIGN gendarmes to Kibuye with their P4 jeep. P4 jeeps are notably equipped with radio. Duval in Bisesero on June 27 therefore had good transmission equipment.