France And Rwanda Squabble Over History

France is hitting back at claims included in an official Rwandan report, that top officials in the French government knew the genocide in that country back in 1994 was going to take place, but did nothing about it. And it's not just civil servants who are implicated. The report mentions names including then-President Mitterrand, the then-PM Edouard Balladur, as well as two other men who later went on to be Prime Minister - Alain Juppe and Dominique de Villepin. Strong stuff then, although the allegations aren't entirely new.

First a quick bit of background. Fifteen years ago, most people in Rwanda were ethnic Hutus, with Tutsis making up a significant minority. France certainly gave support and weapons to the Hutu government during its civil war against the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front, which ran throughout the early 90s. Shortly after that war ended, the Hutu president was killed when his plane was shot down. The Hutus (and the French) blamed the RPF, and within three months the Hutu regime had slaughtered almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. At this point, the RPF managed to defeat the Hutus and its leader Paul Kagame took power, a position he still holds today.

The role of the French in all this has always been a bit unclear. As the genocide began in 1994, the UN imposed an arms embargo, but there's little doubt the French continued to supply weapons to the Hutu government. UN officials even intercepted one shipment, but were powerless to do anything, as the French got round the embargo by saying the arms deals had already been agreed before the sanctions were enforced. On a very basic level, France wanted to help the (French speaking) Hutus over the (English speaking) RPF, as a way of maintaining their own influence in central Africa. The current French foreign minister recently admitted that "political mistakes" were made during this time, and it's this decision to back the Hutus at all costs that he's referring to. It doesn't exactly make all those senior French politicians complicit in the genocide, but it's clear their approach to the crisis did precisely nothing to help end it.

As for the French, they've had plenty to say in the past about Mr Kagame. A couple of years ago a judge in France called for him to stand trial over the 1994 shooting down of the Rwandan president's plane, essentially accusing him of carrying out the act that began the genocide. In response, Mr Kagame broke off diplomatic relations with Paris and applied to join the Commonwealth, firmly taking Rwanda out of France's diplomatic orbit.

There are probably elements of truth in what both sides are saying. Mr Kagame's RPF probably did shoot down that plane, although it correctly points out there were plenty of other people with reason to do it. France probably did give far too much support to the Hutu government, even after it became obvious one of the worst ever acts of genocide was taking place. This ongoing spat has more to do with both sides trying to cover up their own roles in what happened, rather than getting at the truth about what the other side may have done. And whatever either side did do, it was nothing compared to the real bad guys within the Hutu government. And as the Rwanda war crimes tribunal winds down this year, there are still several yet to face justice.

Annan Tries To Make Amends

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan is in Kenya, leading efforts to find a peaceful solution to the political crisis that's led to tribal violence in the country. He's stepped in to begin mediation between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, following the disputed results of last month's election. As well he might.

Mr Annan - the first African to lead the UN - has quite a debt to work off in this area. Many commentators in recent weeks have talked darkly about how the Kenya situation could turn into something similar to the crisis that ended in bloody genocide and the deaths of almost a million people in Rwanda 14 years ago. Back then, the head of UN peacekeeping in New York ignored repeated warnings from the Canadian general on the ground about how bad the situation was getting. The UN and the world then looked on aghast as the slaughter began. That senior UN official was none other than Kofi Annan, and rather than being punished for his gross negligence, he ended up getting the top job in the organisation. We all need him to do a better job this time.

Old Hatreds Return To The Surface

There's bad news from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where fighting between forces to a rebel general and government troops has begun again. The man at the centre of it all is General Laurent Nkunda, and his motivation is firmly linked to the 1994 ethnic genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.

Then, Hutus slaughtered nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a still-shocking killing spree lasting just three months. After the defeat of the Hutus, thousands ended up in the DRC, an influx that touched off a war against the new DRC government that ran from 1998 to 2003. General Nkunda fought with the DRC government, but set up his breakaway army of Tutsis in 2004, accusing the government of President Kabila of giving support and preferential treatment to Rwandan Hutus now living in the DRC.

This mess has served to completely undermine the progress made by last year's surprisingly successful elections. Indeed, earlier this year, things had got stable enough for a bizarre row about an imaginary cabinet minister to divert the population. But those hopes seem to have been dashed by the renewed fighting - yet another chapter in the conflict between Hutus and Tutsis. The genocide may have ended 13 years ago, but its devastating effects are still being felt.

Trying To Erase The Past

Rwanda is asking the International Court of Justice to quash arrest warrants issued by France, for nine senior members of the country's regime. They're all accused of being involved in the killing of the country's former President in a plane crash back in 1994 - the incident that sparked off the terrible genocide. The warrants were issued late last year, and have made it harder for the Rwandan government to do its job, because the accused aren't able to travel abroad.

On the face of it, France is only doing any of this because the plane's crew were French, and their relatives have been pursuing the matter through the French courts. But in trying to blame President Paul Kagame and his colleagues for being behind the incident (admittedly it prompted the chain of events that brought them to power - although not before hundreds of thousands of people were massacred), France seems to be trying to erase its own shameful past. At worst, France was complicit in all those deaths, because of the government's failure to stop arms shipments to Rwanda even when it was clear trouble was brewing, plus its refusal to step in (as, you could argue, the former colonial power ought to have done) once the killing started. France should stop its legal vendetta against Kagame and the others, and should let the Rwandans get on with governing Rwanda.

French Lesson

The talks over the Darfur crisis - or Central African war if you prefer - seem to have gone ok. Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic have agreed not to support the assortment of rebels attacking each other's countries. And the UN's given a timely warning of the spread of militia violence into the bits of eastern Chad flooded with Darfur refugees. Hopefully everyone will finally agree to let a UN-led force in to support the current weak deployment from the African Union. Equally hopefully, that would limit the spread of the violence. We've heard all this sort of thing before, but there's reason to be very cautiously optimistic, which is something.

The French can probably feel pretty pleased with themselves having knocked heads together at the summit in Cannes. But this interview with Rwanda's President Kagame offers a lesson in how the French style of diplomacy has failed in Africa in the recent past. As the leader of a Tutsi rebel army it was Kagame who led his people to victory in the 1994 civil war, but not before up to a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians had been slaughtered by Hutu militia. Kagame hates the French for their arms shipments to the Hutus before the genocide began, and their continual attempts to blame him for kicking off the whole thing by assassinating the presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi. They won't let that allegation drop, so he's finally turning his back on them to join the Commonwealth.

One subtext of the French involvement in Rwanda before 1994, and in the Darfur crisis now, is an effort by Paris to retain its influence over French-speaking Africa. That led them to arm and support some of the world's most evil men in Rwanda, who went on to carry out a terrible genocide. If France is to play the honest broker now, it must leave such selfish ambitions aside.