26 Oct Rwanda Investigates France’s Role in 1994 Genocide
The Rwandan government has established a commission to investigate France’s possible responsibility in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. That commission heard testimony this week (see reports here and here). There are some pretty ugly allegations.
The French soldiers established several communes in the former Gikongoro province, now Southern Province, on their arrival to what they called Operation Turquoise, MP Desire Nyandwi, the sixth witness in the role of France Genocide probe said yesterday. “Upon their arrival in Gikongoro, the French wielded a lot of power in that they dethroned some of the Bourgmasters whom they deemed incompetent and recruited others. An example is the one of the former Nyamagabe commune,” he said in his two-hour testimony.
Nyandwi, a former local government Minister, also said that he had that the French airlifted people from Bugesera in helicopters and brought them to be killed in Nyungwe forest.
To its credit, France has said it will assist in the inquiry. Interestingly, the mandate of the commission will be to determine whether to file a claim against France in the International Court of Justice, presumably along the same lines as the Bosnian case against Serbia. It certainly sounds like they are heading in that direction, although the testimony seems pretty sketchy at best.
And the basis of the ICJ jurisdicton would be….? I do not see France accepting ICJ jurisdiction ad hoc like it did with Djibouti. Surely not on something like this.
Internationally there are indeed rights without remedies…
Just to clarify, France hasn’t entered a reservation to ICJ jurisdiction under the Genocide Convention; it’s Rwanda that has reserved out of ICJ jurisdiction. A French jurisdictional objection to an ICJ case brought by Rwanda would be based upon a reciprocity argument, not on any reservation France itself had entered. So Rwanda has, through its own reservation to the Genocide Convention, obstructed its own ability to institute proceedings.