Le Monde had an article this morning, which the Independent discusses, which confirms what many suspected to be true: Mitterrand knew about the Rwandan Genocide, but feigned ignorance because it didn’t want to intervene. Sugary excerpt:
Among the evidence to suggest France was informed of the mounting genocide is a diplomatic telegram from October 1990 in which the French defence attaché in the Rwandan capital Kigali alerts Paris of the "growing number of arbitrary arrests of Tutsis or people close to them". The cable adds: "It is to be feared that [it could] degenerate into an ethnic war.''
Another diplomatic memo, sent by French ambassador Georges Martres on 19 January 1993, quotes a Rwandan informant as saying that the president of the country, Juvenal Habyarimana, had suggested "proceeding with a systematic genocide using, if necessary, the army''.
These revelations show something, which Tara McCormack seemed in her article in Spiked not to be able to acknowledge when she argued that Kouchnerism was grandstanding interventionism disconnected from national interest and that is that real politik can lead to disaster because countries will always find it in their best interest not to intervene in messy and bloody affairs such as the Rwandan Genocide.
I doubt that even if Mitterrand had acknowledged that he knew and that massacres were happening in the ground that France would have intervene in a strong and decisive manner to stop the Genocide. What happened later in Côte d’Ivoire, in my opinion, demonstrated how difficult it is for France to play a peacekeeping role in Africa given its history and its deep ties to many parts of the continent. The sad truth is that there wasn’t enough public pressure and public outrage at that time to force actions because people believe that it was just another unavoidable African tragedy, which would had no bearing on the interests of the Western powers. I think that Mitterrand was just a faithful follower of real politik. He didn’t want to intervene because he knew that he was too weak politically to do so. He believed probably that on the contrary to the first Gulf War, he wouldn’t have allies willing to join in and more importantly that intervening meant engaging France in long process, which would never be sealed by a victory. It is sad. It is even shameful. Nevertheless, it is the way the world works and will continue to work as long as atrocities are tolerable. Some human lives are more valuable than others, we only need to look to Darfur to see that this is true.
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