France: the mission of misinformation

Underestimations, errors of judgment… the final report of the Information Mission on Rwanda, which examined the role of France in Rwanda between 1990 and 94, is filled with such expressions. As to the essential questions, the report does not find anything to reproach to France.

“France has continued its military presence and cooperation in Rwanda in a context of ethnic tensions, of massacres and violence, as if impervious to a situation the graveness of which it had underestimated.”

Underestimations, errors of judgment… the final report of the Information Mission on Rwanda, which examined the role of France in Rwanda between 1990 and 94, is filled with such expressions. As to the essential questions, the report does not find anything to reproach to France.

Thus, the Mission becomes a mission of non-information: it is only in the conclusions of the report that the pertinent questions are raised—the answers to which you have looked for in vain in the report.

If you wanted names named or fingers pointed, you will be disappointed by the French report. Sometimes, the investigators recognize that questions can be asked on certain decisions, doubts raised on certain actions. But there are always excuses and explanations.

In the end, this is what is most astonishing about this report. It is no surprise that its conclusions are favorable to France—already during the inquiries, observers regularly criticized the remarkable selectiveness in the choice of those called to testify.

What is most baffling about the final report, however, is the credulity, the deliberate naiveté with which the French parliamentarians accept the explanations given by the witnesses.

The misinformation that French soldiers did not engage in combat

A good example can be found in the chapter where the Information Mission examines whether French soldiers did not violate their mission during the Operation Noroît, and got engaged in combat.

The Operation Noroît was set up to evacuate French nationals during the RPF offensive in October 1990. However, the French army was at several times accused of having become involved in the fighting against the RPF, side by side with the FAR [Forces Armées Rwandaises, the then Rwandan army].

In order to reply to these accusations, the report only quotes French military staff in charge of the operation. Did they really think that the officers would denounce their own people; that they would admit that the French military had gone too far? A critical attitude towards their declarations would be justified.

Yet the French parliamentarians do not ask questions when the military officers explain that their soldiers were not implicated in combat, because that was not their mission. Apparently, nobody noticed that the question was exactly whether the soldiers had not disobeyed their orders…

It has to be mentioned, though, that the investigators were not entirely convinced by the explanations of the witnesses—even if their doubts sounded very feeble.

“The Mission can not completely discard the idea that a French instructor might, for diverse reasons, punctually have given more effective assistance in helping to use some piece of artillery, or in any other situation, despite the instructions from the high command of the army, but it seemed very difficult, in that critical situation, to assess exactly when instruction and training became actual engagement.”

In other words: maybe there was an isolated case of a French soldier who fired a mortar, but you have to excuse him because the situation was critical.

The report concludes this chapter in the following terms: “Even if France has not engaged in combat, it has nevertheless intervened in the field in a way extremely close to the FAR.

It has continuously participated in elaborating fighting plans, given advice to the army high command and to sector commanders, proposing reorganization and new tactics. It has dispatched consultants to instruct the FAR in advanced weaponry. It has taught techniques of ambush and placing mines, suggesting the most appropriate places for those.”

This is simply noted, there are no accusations; nowhere in the report is it mentioned whether all of this constitutes an error on the part of the French army.

And in the conclusions of the report, the French parliamentarians are no longer in doubt: “The French soldiers did not engage in combat. Moreover, given the dilapidated state of the Rwandan high command, incapable to indicate the front-line and the position of its troops on a map, could one really say this was simply an assistance mission, or was it about advice and support? […]

In this context of re-establishment, it is hardly surprising that some French military officials had the impression that they were setting up an army, which moreover had to be supplied with arms.”

And the recommendations of the Mission? “In case of crisis, priority should be given to negotiated solutions in an African context, yet this option should not mean the renunciation of our traditional bilateral military cooperation programs.”

“Interahamwe militias were unknown”

According to the Mission, French soldiers were not implicated in the training of the Interahamwe militias, or other organizers of the genocide. “In no way has France incited, encouraged, helped or supported those who orchestrated the genocide and started it in the days following the attack [on the plane carrying President Habyarimana].”

The report quotes a French military assistant, who remained in the country after December 15, 1993, and who claims that “he did not know of the existence of the militias.” One of his colleagues declares that “we knew that the Interahamwe existed, but we didn’t know exactly what they were about.”

The French parliamentarians, once again, are not suspicious. How is it possible that, at a moment when the militias manifested themselves publicly, some French instructors did not know them? And those who knew them, why did they not investigate the nature of these groups? Nobody raises the question.

The report simply concludes that “even if the existence of the militias was known, it is clear that the French military presence in the first quarter of 1994 has in no way been implicated, through whichever of its missions, in the training of the militias.” The chapter is closed.

Arms for peace?

Although the report the report is full of vague language which seems written to confuse the reader, between the lines one can find traces of France’s real intentions in Rwanda.

“One of the political objectives of France was to avoid a military victory of the RPF [because] France did not consider this as an internal conflict but rather an external aggression. Initially, it considered the RPF as a military force with Ugandan origins rather than a group of Rwandan refugees who wanted to return to their country.”

Once again, nobody bats an eyelid at this lack of knowledge concerning the state of the Rwandan refugees at the time. Nor at the fact that, as the report admits, “France’s policies did pay sufficient attention to the racist deviation of the Rwandan regime.”

Moreover, the French parliamentarians gratuitously accept the explanations of the [then] Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hubert Védrine, who said that France’s policy at the time “was not to support the regime in place, but rather to continuously and relentlessly pressure President Habyarimana to share the power.”

The investigators are therefore very satisfied with the French diplomacy, “who made great efforts to encourage peace negotiations between the Rwandan government and the RPF.”

However, France had quite peculiar methods to arrive at peace. “Supplies of weapons and equipment continued after the Byumba offensive in June 1992 and the signature of a ceasefire in Arusha in July 1992, which was the starting point for the agreements of the same name.

The opening of the Arusha peace negotiations, which France actively supported on a diplomatic level, did not constitute, in the opinion of the ministry of foreign affairs, a new element that should affect the contractual environment of the weapons and munitions orders placed by Rwanda.”

Encouraging peace talks whilst supplying weapons to one of the parties, it seems perfectly normal for the French parliamentarians. What is more, the Mission reports that “France estimated that reinforcing its military aid to the Rwandan government was the only way to escape the logic of war by forcing the RPF to sit down at the negotiations table.

Unfortunately, and that was the error in the reasoning, the will of the Rwandan government to reach peace was taken for granted. Yet the situation was more complicated, and in the end France was helping a government to prepare the war it wanted.”

“The Anglo-Saxon influence”

This is not considered as a mistake, a deliberate error. The investigators even accept that the infamous Operation Turquoise is part of this logic. “This mission [the Operation Turquoise] was based on the idea of stabilizing the front line thus dividing Rwanda in two parts, in order to reinforce the negotiation capacities of both parties.”

How could they still count on negotiations when the RPF was very close to victory, and it was very clear that the Rwandan government had no will whatsoever to negotiate?

The Mission does not find this suspicious, although it admits that “this means that at that precise moment—June 20, 1994—France still recognized the legitimacy of the interim government, so either it did not take into account the reality of the genocide, or it did not correctly assess the responsibility of the Rwandan government in this respect.”

Why did the French government remain blind for the genocide and did not see the role of the Rwandan government in the massacres? Apparently, the French parliamentarians are not interested in those questions…

Going through the report, the attentive reader “can not completely discard the idea” that all of this comes down to the battle for Africa between the Western powers.

Yet from the very first pages of its report, the Mission warns us against such reasoning, saying that “it is not possible to affirm any opposition or contradiction of interests between France and the United States concerning Rwanda, since no proof of it has ever been given.”

This report is a good start.

Posted by The Rwanda Focus on Aug 9 2008. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.