- After a French judge today issued international arrest warrants for nine top aides of Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, indirectly accused of inciting the 1994 genocide, spontaneous mass protests broke out in Kigali today. Rwandans still suspect France of having played a crucial role in assisting the genocidal regime defeated by Mr Kagame, with new dirty details being revealed every day.
Thousands of ordinary citizens took to the streets of Rwanda's capital Kigali today, as it was known that the French anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguière had set about his threats to issue international warrants for President Kagame's aides. Judge Bruguière also accused President Kagame himself, but could not legally issue a warrant for an incumbent President, according to French law.
The French anti-terrorism magistrate accuses President Kagame and his aides of shooting down the plane of Rwandan thus-President Juvenal Habyarimana, his Burundian counterpart and three French citizens on 6 April 1994. The "terrorist" attack on the airplane is said to have ignited the Rwandan genocide, in which close to one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.
The accusations against President Kagame and his nine aides are seen as an outrageous provocation by Rwandans at large. While his current politics are controversial, thus militia leader Kagame fought and defeated the France-supported regime that carried out the genocide. France, on the other hand, has given impunity to several accused genocide perpetrators.
News of the arrest warrants therefore caused spontaneous anti-French riots in Kigali. Local sources speak of up to 30,000 demonstrators, many of which were burning French flags. Some protestors carried banners saying "France: stop organising a second genocide". During the afternoon, many businesses and government offices were closed to let employees take part in the protests.
Also official reactions in Rwanda emphasise outrage. Rwanda's Minister of Justice, Tharcisse Karugarama, earlier this week categorised the international arrest warrants as "politically motivated and mere comedy," referring to Rwanda's own legal actions against France over its supposed co-responsibility for the 1994 genocide.
President Kagame yesterday said "That some judge in France whose name I cannot even pronounce has something to say about Rwanda - trying a president and some government officials - that is rubbish." He insisted that, instead, a trial should be opened against France and its role in supporting the genocidal regime.
Among Rwandans, there is a clear notion that France in some way supported the government-organised militias carrying out the genocide, known as the Interahamwe. Anti-French news reports and analyses have for a long time dominated Rwandan media, and only yesterday, the Rwandan news agency RNA presented a new book by Andrew Wallis, which supposedly quotes France's ex-President François Mitterrand as saying "In countries like 'that', genocide is not so important."
France, according to the same book, was "secretly providing military, financial and diplomatic support to the genocidaires all along." This is also the official view in Kigali, which last month established an "independent national commission" to conduct hearings on the alleged French involvement in the genocide. At the end of the hearings, the commission is to determine whether it is necessary for Rwanda to issue a motion at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague against Paris.
But international courts are already tired of the French-Rwandan diplomatic war over genocide responsibilities. The ICJ has indicated it is not the right place for such a quarrel. Also the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) - a UN-backed court looking into the genocide - this week sent a clear message to France's judge Bruguière, saying it did not want to get "involved in political issues". Mr Bruguière had indicated the ICTR should look into the "case" of President Kagame as he enjoyed immunity in France.
The only ones taking interest in the French accusations against President Kagame were the defence lawyers of genocide indicted at the ICTR. The lawyers expected the report compiled by Mr Bruguière could help the supposed genocide perpetrators by relocating some guilt to the anti-genocide militia led by Mr Kagame in 1994.
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