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September 3, 2023 French

Bernard Kouchner : « Le monde n'a rien fait contre le génocide, contre les 500 000 morts découpés à la machette. Alors c'est difficile d'expliquer au FPR que le monde s'apitoie sur le choléra et pas sur le génocide »

Card Number 29229

Number
29229
Author
Bromberger, Dominique
Author
Baillancourt, Isabelle
Author
Brunetti, Denis
Date
31 juillet 1994
Ymd
19940731
Time
20:00:00
Time zone
CEST
Uptitle
Journal de 20 heures
Title
Bernard Kouchner : « Le monde n'a rien fait contre le génocide, contre les 500 000 morts découpés à la machette. Alors c'est difficile d'expliquer au FPR que le monde s'apitoie sur le choléra et pas sur le génocide »
Subtitle
Edouard Balladur a rendu visite aux troupes françaises de l'opération Turquoise dans le Sud-Ouest du Rwanda.
Size
39775 bytes
Pages nb.
7
Source
TF1
Public records
INA
Type
Transcription d'une émission de télévision
Language
FR
Abstract
- Edouard Balladur visited French troops from Operation Turquoise in southwestern Rwanda today. The head of government, who was accompanied by the Ministers of Defense and Cooperation, also flew over a refugee camp.
- Edouard Balladur spent only five hours in Zaire and Rwanda. No visit to the dying refugee camps. The Prime Minister chose the French military field hospital of Cyangugu. Children who are sick or injured by bullets or machetes end up here. They are cared for by a team of doctors who work hard.
- In Kibuye where terrible massacres took place a few weeks ago, Edouard Balladur greets the soldiers of Operation Turquoise. The Prime Minister met the Chadians who relieve the French in this area. Today, there are a little more than 800 French soldiers in the security zone.
- Accompanied by the Minister of Defense during these few hours spent with the French troops, no speech but only and above all a tribute to "an admirable army, an army which has faith". These are the Prime Minister's own words.
- Edouard Balladur: "Our soldiers have taken charge of the situation, they are ensuring calm in this area. The supplies, of course, are insufficient, but finally the essential is preserved. They provide the sick, the wounded, all the victims of the atrocities that you have seen, essential care. I visited two field hospitals, one in Cyangugu and the other in Kibuye, and I could see the dedication of all the doctors, all the nurses, of all the military and all the soldiers. France, from the beginning, has insisted on doing what it considers to be its duty: not a duty that others impose on it, but a duty that it imposes on itself. herself. She had the comfort of being very quickly assisted by contingents from French-speaking Africa. And today, while a few weeks ago, everyone was astonished at France's attitude, that the whole world, finally moved, get mobilized. I hope that this mobilization will be effective. I hope that the populati we can go home. And I hope that this unhappy country and these unfortunate Rwandans can regain a minimum of security. […] They will only have this feeling of security if the Rwandan authorities take the necessary steps to give it to them. And then the urgency is for the international community to provide it with the food, medicine and aid it urgently needs. We are witnessing here a tragedy like our century, which is however so customary, has known very little. […] We had to be there for a humanitarian operation, not to interfere in the internal fighting in Rwanda. I remind you that when we came here, the fighting was still going on in Rwanda and that Kigali was still in the hands of the old government and its supporters. We had to be relayed by all the countries of the world and our mission had to be of limited duration. These conditions, which we set, are almost all met today. […] Our country, under the circumstances, was the first and the only one to take the necessary decisions. It was tough decisions that exposed us to a lot of criticism. These criticisms, we have accepted them, we have overcome them. We knew that this operation involved risks of all kinds. But we felt that our duty was to face these risks and take them. Today the whole international community seems to feel a sort of sense of relief. But the time for relief has not come. What happened is the moment of mobilization. International aid really needs to be faster, more important, more effective and also completely disinterested. […] No one is in a position to lecture France in this matter. And if truly the international community is not able to mobilize 3 to 4,000 men to take over, that would mean that good words are only good words. And that they are not followed up. What I can't and what I don't want to believe! Under these conditions, France has shown its sense of responsibility and will do nothing to make the situation worse. On the contrary ! She will do everything to make her improve".
- Among the missions of the French military, there is one essential: it is the distribution of drinking water. Since the arrival of the refugees, French soldiers have become water carriers. Every day, their military tanks come to the American wastewater treatment plant on the shores of Lake Kivu. The logistical support battalion took over its forces from Turquoise to deliver 65,000 liters of water per day to a large camp near Goma and to orphanages. The one in Ndosho accommodates 3,500 orphaned, abandoned or lost children. This pure water, the regular disinfectant brought in reduced the disease after the first 200 deaths at the start.
- In the large camps, cholera and infections are still dramatic. In Mugunga, water first supplies the dispensary and then the 150,000 refugees. Humanitarian workers still have a little hope, next to the large camps in the north, which are more distant and less distributed.
- At the "Noël" orphanage, transferred from Rwanda and increased by refugees, the 15,000-liter bin reduced the disease. The only worry: what will become of them when the French leave at the end of August?
- The US Secretary of Defense, William Perry, arrived this morning in Kigali, where he had been preceded by the first US soldiers. William Perry met the strongman of the new regime, Paul Kagame, who welcomed the American forces. 4,000 US troops could be deployed in the region. A few hundred Canadians and British are also due to arrive in Kigali.
- Bernard Kouchner, former Minister of Health and Humanitarian Action, has just returned from the capital of Rwanda, where he met the new leaders. Bernard Kouchner: "It's a dead city, nothing works. There is a government, an administration that no longer exists and that needs to be rebuilt. But it is especially in Goma where the problems are located, all along the border and also in Tanzania. At least three million people who have left their homes must return! The priority problem is return. I was with a delegation from the European Parliament. We had a very specific objective: how ensure this return, how to restore confidence. And then you must also know that Europe has given 350 million ECU! That is to say more than Japan and the United States combined. And it doesn't show. So how can we restore this confidence from the capital, from Kigali? For two weeks we have been trying to set up humanitarian relays. That is to say, people will come back if they have confidence, if they know that there is water on the road, doctors on the road, a welcome, a protection. As I believe that the treatment for this cholera is in Kigali. It is by showing that the country exists and that we will be able to protect them. Hence the European Union's proposal for technical assistance. Including in the legal field and in the field of the search for criminals, they insist a lot on this. […] I regret the ambiguity of the French position. And which is accentuated by the Prime Minister's approach to visit the security zone without the current government, the government in place in Kigali, having been consulted, to my knowledge. And they obviously took it very badly! Again we need clarity and transparency. This is therapy! This is how we will save these millions of refugees at the borders. I believe that it was necessary to go about it differently because it is the beginning of necessary relations, obligatory, with a government which we did not put in place, which we did not choose, which some condemn. But who exists. And who is the government, at the moment, legal of the country. I remind you that Mr. Habyarimana's government was also born out of a coup d'État. And we recognized it. We must not forget something essential: the world was alerted by the cholera epidemic and by the disease, which we could not stand. And see these children and this appalling situation. But the world did nothing against the genocide, against the 500,000, I don't know how many, dead, cut up with machetes, all real targets established in advance. So it's difficult to explain to the RPF that the world feels sorry for cholera and not for the genocide. This is the essential".