Rwanda Revisited
I was quite surprised to see that Rwanda has cut off diplomatic ties with France this week. I was even more surprised to read that the impetus for this action was a prosecutor in France bringing charges against Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, and eight other members of his government for shooting down the plane of the former president. The plane being shot down was blamed on Tutsis and was used to incite Hutus to kill Tutsis. From everything I have read, the killers of the president were hardcore Hutus led by the president’s wife and her family who were mad that he was making concessions to the Tutsi rebels. The same sources implicate France in being part of the cause of the genocide, prolonging the massacre and providing protection to the Hutus who eventually fled. In fact, I believe the wife of the former president now lives in France. From what I saw and heard in Rwanda, Rwandans have not been happy with France since the genocide for these reasons. Although it would be difficult to determine who are the actual criminals (France has also been implicated in destroying evidence at the crash site), it is quite true that Tutsi rebels led by Paul Kagame stopped the genocide without Western help (and in spite of Western support of the Hutus) and he was the main reason that the Tutsis did not slaughter the Hutus. If I was France, I would do everything possible to bury this past and not incite more publicity about their ugly involvement. Rwanda is lucky to have Kagame as a leader and they will do better with France out of their affairs once and for all.
Tags: Africa, Travel
vagabondrick
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