Mediapart.fr reveals the existence of a telegram issued by the Quai d’Orsay to let the genocidaires go after committing their crimes in 1994.
This telegram came from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time. According to Mediapart.fr, an online newspaper, on 15 July 1994, Minister Alain Juppé’s office instructed Ambassador Yannick Gérard to convey France’s wish that the genocidaires leave the Turquoise Zone.
The main leaders of the Interim Government of Rwanda (GIR), who had carried out the genocide against the Tutsi, had withdrawn to the side of the French military for security reasons in the face of the advance of the RPF-Inkotanyi.
The French diplomat, who was in Rwanda, had asked his government for clear instructions on the attitude to adopt for him and the French army towards these genocidaires.
“We have no choice … but to arrest them or put them under immediate house arrest pending the competent international judicial bodies to decide on their cases,” he proposed. His voice was not heard.
The content of this document shows that France could have placed these genocidaires under arrest because it had information about their heavy responsibility in the genocide against Tutsi. It preferred to let them cross the Rwando-Zairo border to protect them.
As if that were not enough, France at the time continued its support for the genocidaires even in the refugee camps in former Zaire (DRC).
This telegram is now nothing more than an open secret after the revelation of its contents by the researcher François Graner. The latter was able to access the archives of the Elysée thanks to the Council of State.
Gérard Rugambwa
