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Kagame praises Macron for 'speaking the truth'

Thursday May 27 2021
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French President Emmanuel Macron looks at the images of victims on display during his visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where some 250,000 victims of the massacres are buried, in Kigali, Rwanda on May 27, 2021. PHOTO | AFP

By AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday recognised his country's role in the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, as Rwanda and France seek to turn the page on decades of diplomatic tensions over the bloodshed.

While Macron did not formally apologise, he highlighted how France had backed the genocidal Hutu regime of the time, ignored warnings of impending massacres and joined the world in abandoning some 800,000 mostly Tutsi Rwandans to a grisly fate.

"Standing here today, with humility and respect, by your side, I have come to recognise our responsibilities," Macron said in a speech at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

He said that only those who had survived the horrors can "give us the gift of forgiveness".

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who called Macron his "friend", heaped praise on the speech at a joint press conference after the two leaders met. 

"His words were something more valuable than an apology. They were the truth," Kagame said. 

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"Speaking the truth is risky. But you do it because it is right, even when it costs you something, even when it is unpopular."

Silence over truth

Macron is the first French leader since 2010 to visit the East African nation, which has long accused France of complicity in the killings.

Macron said France "was not complicit" in the genocide.

"But France has a role, a story and a political responsibility to Rwanda. She has a duty: to face history head-on and recognise the suffering she has inflicted on the Rwandan people by too long valuing silence over the examination of the truth."

Egide Nkuranga, president of the main survivors' association Ibuka, told AFP he was disappointed that Macron did not "present a clear apology on behalf of the French state" or "ask for forgiveness".

However, he said Macron "really tried to explain the genocide and France's responsibility. It is very important. It shows that he understands us."

Emmanuel Macron.

French President Emmanuel Macron in Kigali on May 27, 2021. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA

'Form of blindness'

The genocide between April and July of 1994 began after Rwanda's Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana, with whom Paris had cultivated close ties, was killed when his plane was shot down over Kigali on April 6.

Within a few hours extremist Hutu militia began slaughtering Tutsis, and some moderate Hutus, with a scale and brutality that shocked the world.

Victims were felled with machetes, shot, or massacred while seeking shelter in churches and schools, while sexual violence was rife.

France, which provided political and military support to Kigali during a civil war preceding the genocide, has long been accused of turning a blind eye to the dangers posed by Hutu extremists in a country which had already seen several large scale massacres in its past.

"In wanting to block a regional conflict or a civil war, (France) in fact continued to support a genocidal regime. By ignoring alerts from the most clear-headed observers, France assumed an overwhelming responsibility in a chain of events that resulted in the worst scenario," said Macron. 

The question of France's role and responsibility in the genocide has burned between the two nations for decades, leading to a complete diplomatic rupture between 2006 and 2009. 

In 2010 Nicolas Sarkozy attempted to break the ice by admitting to "serious mistakes" and a "form of blindness" on the part of the French during the genocide.

His remarks fell short of expectations in Rwanda, and bilateral relations continued to fester.

Two commissions

However, ties have warmed under Macron, who formed a commission to probe France's role in the genocide, which accused Paris of being "blind" to preparations for the genocide and said it bore "serious and overwhelming" responsibility.

To cement their rapprochement, Macron announced he would soon name a French ambassador to Rwanda, a role left vacant since 2015 due to diplomatic strain.

Kagame said Macron understood that the global perspective on Africa needed to change from one in which the continent is seen as full of "bad actors", slamming a general "veneer of moral superiority" concealing racism.

"President Macron is someone who listens, and he is committed to supporting Africa based on what Africa itself has chosen. This is different, it is better, and it can last."

However, while the two leaders celebrated their new relationship, Rwanda's opposition has accused the French president of remaining silent to criticism of Kagame's record on human rights and tolerating dissent.

"French President Emmanuel Macron does not hesitate publicly to bluntly castigate dictatorial regimes but keeps silent with regard to the authoritarian rule and human rights abuses by the Rwandan regime," critics Victoire Ingabire and Bernard Ntaganda said in a statement earlier this week.

The French president leaves on Friday to South Africa for a visit devoted to the coronavirus pandemic and vaccine production.

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