| August 07, 2008 | Thursday | Sha’aban 4, 1429 |
| August 07, 2008 | Thursday | Sha’aban 4, 1429 |
KIGALI, Aug 6: Rwanda’s information minister said on Wednesday she hoped a raft of French political and military officials accused of playing a role in the country’s 1994 genocide would soon be indicted for war crimes.
A 500-page report released Tuesday by Kigali alleged that France was aware of preparations for the genocide and that French forces in Rwanda contributed to planning the massacre and actively took part in the killing.
“The government has asked the courts to use this report. We hope that legal proceedings will follow,” Information Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said.
Quoted separately in Britain’s Financial Times newspaper on Wednesday, she explained the report would be considered by the public prosecutor as the basis for indictments which could lead to the first attempts by an African nation to extradite European nationals for alleged war crimes.
“We don’t believe any French citizen or other citizen is above the law, especially when it comes to crimes as serious as genocide,” she said.
“We hope the French will take this report as seriously as Rwanda has taken it and, when the indictments come out, will co-operate.”
IBUKA, a Rwandan association for genocide survivors, urged France to prosecute its citizens accused in the report.
“The French judiciary should be the first to bring French criminals to justice,” said its president Theodore Simburudari.
The report named former French prime minister Edouard Balladur, former foreign minister Alain Juppe and the then-president Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, among 13 French politicians accused of playing a role in the massacres.
Dominique de Villepin, who was then Juppe’s top aide and later became prime minister, was also among those listed in the Rwandan report, which names 20 military officials as being responsible.
France, meanwhile, accused Rwanda of making “unacceptable accusations” by alleging that Paris played an active role in the genocide, but said it was still determined to rekindle ties with Kigali.—AFP
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