Rwanda accuses France of genocide
Report by the Rwandan government calls for trial of French senior politicians.
“Considering the gravity of the alleged facts, the Rwandan government asks competent authorities to undertake all necessary actions to bring the accused French political and military leaders to answer for their acts before justice.”
Dozens accused
An official at the French foreign ministry told Reuters news agency that the French government had not yet received any official communication from Kigali and so could not comment.
Attached to the report was a list of 33 accused French political and military officials.
As well as Mitterrand and Villepin, others listed include Alain Juppe, a former foreign minister who is also a senior figure in the party of Nicolas Sarkozy, the current president, and Edouard Balladur, a former prime minister. Another suspect is Hubert Vedrine who, like Balladur, is a senior politician.
Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, cut ties with France in November 2006 in protest at a French judge’s call for him to stand trial over the death of his predecessor, Juvenal Habyarimana, in April 1994 – an event widely seen as unleashing the genocide.
That call prompted street protests in Kigali. Relations soured further after the Rwandan commission later heard accounts from victims who said they were raped by French soldiers after seeking refuge with them during the genocide.
But ties between the two nations had improved in recent months after Kagame met Sarkozy at a European Union-Africa summit in Lisbon in December 2007.