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PARIS - The Rwandan Government reacted with stupefaction yesterday to a call by a French judge for the country's President, Paul Kagame, to face an international tribunal for his alleged role in triggering the 1994 genocide.
"France is trying to turn the blame around to salve its own very damaged conscience over the genocide and the role of high-ranking French officers in it," said Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Murigande.
Legal experts were puzzled by the move on Tuesday by high profile French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, to call for arrest warrants to be issued against nine Rwandan officials, including Rwanda's current chief of staff.
Bruguiere also said he would write to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to ask that Kagame be brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda which tries genocide suspects in Arusha, Tanzania. French law prevents him from attempting to prosecute Kagame because he is a serving head of state.
The tribunal's acting deputy registrar, Everard O'Donnell, said: "Judge Bruguiere can write to Santa Claus if he likes. The ICTR is independent. Its prosecutor does not take instruction from Kofi Annan or anyone else."
Bruguiere's move is the latest in ongoing diplomatic fireworks between France and Rwanda, where as many as 800,000 people - mainly Tutsis - were killed in a frenzy of machete killings in 1994.
The 100-day genocide was triggered by the shooting down of a French-piloted Falcon jet carrying then-President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down over the capital, Kigali.
In a report released on Tuesday, Bruguiere - who is investigating the downing of the jet at the request of its crew's family and Habyarimana's widow, Agathe - claims Kagame, who was then the leader of the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), ordered the aircraft to be shot down and obtained missiles for the operation from Uganda.
In a suggestion that Kagame was prepared to sacrifice the lives of fellow Tutsis in pursuit of power, Bruguiere writes: "General Paul Kagame deliberately opted for a modus operandi which could only lead to bloody reprisals towards the Tutsi community, thus offering him a legitimate motive to grab power with the support of the international community."
French legal and political sources suggested the French judge's move was motivated by a desire to impress President Jacques Chirac because Bruguiere wants to run as a candidate for the centre-right UMP party in next May's French parliamentary elections.
But Murigande saw Bruguiere's move as motivated by a desire "to continue this war against us, to scare us". "A Rwandan commission of inquiry into France's role in the genocide began its hearings three weeks ago in Kigali," he said.
"In its conclusions, it will almost certainly name several high-ranking French military figures.
"When a judge in one country is investigating an event involving another sovereign country, it isnormal to go through diplomaticchannels or established legal chan-nels.
"On top of everything, France has flouted this protocol."
French prosecutors have approved Bruguiere's request for international arrest warrants to be issued against Rwanda Defence Forces Chief of Staff Brigadier General James Kabarebe, Army Chief of Staff Charles Kayonga, Army officers Jacob Tumwime, Eric Hakizimana, Franck Nziza and Jackson Nkurunziza, as well as Rwanda's Ambassador to India, Faustin Nyamwasa-Kayumba, MP, Samuel Kanyamera and Director-General of State Protocol Rose Kabuye.
Bloody slice of Africa's history
* As many as 800,000 people - mainly Tutsis - were killed in a frenzy of machete killings in 1994.
* The 100-day genocide began after a French-piloted Falcon jet carrying then-President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down over the capital, Kigali.
* French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere has called for Rwandan President Paul Kagame to be brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
* He says Kagame ordered Habyarimana's aircraft to be shot down.
* Kagame was leader of the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front at the time.
- INDEPENDENT
