The Rwandan Government has welcomed a report by a team commissioned by the French government to probe Paris’s role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
A statement by the Ministry of Foreign affairs obtained Tuesday said that the Government of Rwanda welcomes the report of the Duclert Commission, which represents an important step towards a common understanding of France’s role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi,”
“An investigative report commissioned by the Government of Rwanda in 2017 will be released in coming weeks, the conclusions of which will enrich those of the Duclert Commission,” it added.
The 1,200-page report which appears to absolve France of complicity in the massacres where more than one million people died, concludes that the European country, led by the François Mitterrand during the Genocide, was “blind” to preparations of the massacres.
The report says that nothing in the archives consulted proves France’s complicity but it notes that for a long time France was involved with a regime that encouraged racist massacres.
According to the report, France, however, remained blind to the preparation of a Genocide by the most radical elements of this regime.
In April 2019, Macron appointed a panel of experts to probe France’s actions in Rwanda during the Genocide, a subject that, for long, hindered relations between Rwanda and France.
At the time, the French presidency said the commission of eight researchers and historians, led by Prof. Vincent Duclert, was to consult all France’s archives relating to the genocide” in order to “analyse the role and engagement of France during that period”, from 1990 to 1994.
According to the report, France, however, remained blind to the preparation of a Genocide by the most radical elements of this regime.
CU/abj/APA