This week an independent non-political commission declared after researching the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that France had direct involvement in actively exterminating 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. The commission accused 33 French political and military figures including the former prime minister of France and the former president. The phrase "What goes around, comes around" comes to mind when the French who recently accused the Turks of the Armenian Genocide, is now being blamed for a proven genocide.
What did the commission conclude?
Rwanda has accused France of having an active, direct role in the African country’s 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed.
The commission delivered a 331 page report on the subject, accusing military and political figures of France, including French soldiers who were training and arming the Hutus. French soldiers were accused of raping and assaulting Tutsi women.
The commission concluded that France was involved directly in a genocide against the Tutsis.
The commission accused 33 political and military figures of France including former prime ministers, and president, François Mitterrand. The commission suggested that France should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The French Governmet's Position
The French government immediately rejected the commissions findings accusing the commission of not being independent. France had in the past blamed the Tutsis for the genocide.
The French insisted that French soldiers were sent in to save the Rwandan People from atrocities.
The French Press
Some newspapers in France accepted the findings or at least gave it some merit. The French newspaper, Le Monde, said that France "cannot be sure that its soldiers, caught up in a terrifying war alongside merciless killers, did not commit the murders, rapes and violence of which they are accused."
The French Hypocrisy
The French Parliament in 2006 accused the Ottoman Empire for the Armenian Genocide and made denying the Armenian Genocide punishable by law.
For some, this was thought of as normal, but to most democratic minded individuals it was extremely offensive.
A parliament cannot judge history, and neither can it judge anything for that matter. It wasn't a French court that ruled on the genocide but the French Parliament with politicians who may have never read a book about the subject in their whole lifetime.
Western Historians and Scholars criticized France at that time for recognizing the genocide and for punishing deniers as it is just another law in France that violates Freedom of Speech. The Armenian Genocide has yet to be proven, it is still debated heavily around the world, disputed by genocide scholars and Ottoman historians in the West and in the East. There are still many disputed historical topics regarding the alleged Armenian Genocide, and that it doesn't seem to be a systematic extermination as it was once thought.
It is not surprising that even the most liberal and democratic parties of Turkey have denounced French actions and have advocated a boycott of French goods and products. The government of Turkey condemned France for such an absurd parliamentary law that would make other parliaments embarrassed.
The Turks also accused France of genocide against the Algerians and the Rwandan Tutsis. Rwanda as well as many other countries agree with Turkey.
One must ask, why on earth people blame others for genocide without historical proof, proper debates, and courts judging which is and is not genocide. One must also ask why France, a nation that has committed countless atrocities throughout history gets to decide what is and what isn't genocide. What goes around must really come around.
