Rwanda wants to “clear up the diplomatic climate which has been poisoned since 1994” with France, the Kigali government said a day after the announcement of the restoration of diplomatic ties.
Asked about accusations that France was implicated alongside the then Hutu administration in the 1994 genocide, government spokesperson Louise Mushikiwabo said there was “no contradiction between turning the page and not forgetting”.
“In a sense that’s what’s happening within Rwanda,” she said, referring to the genocide in which 800 000 people, essentially minority Tutsis, perished between April and July 1994.
Paris has always denied accusations of involvement in the genocide.
“With the renewed ties between France and Rwanda, it is of course a delicate subject,” Mushikiwabo told Agence France-Presse in a telephone interview.
“But that is the role of diplomacy. We will exchange and try to understand each other on some points of historical reality,” said Mushikiwabo, who is also information minister.
Rwanda broke off ties with France in 2006 after French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere issued arrest warrants against nine officials close to President Paul Kagame whom he suspected of having been implicated in the shooting down of the plane of former Rwandan president, the late Juvenal Habyarimana.
The shooting down of the plane is considered to have triggered the start of the genocide.
Kigali continues to see the arrest warrants as “unjust” but does not expect to influence the course of justice in France by resuming diplomatic ties.
“The arrest warrants caused the break [of diplomatic ties], but it is a judicial matter which is independent of politics in Paris as in Kigali,” said Mushikiwabo.
The minister said the thaw in Franco-Rwandan relations started with the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.
“Right from coming to power President Sarkozy indicated that he was going to try to solve the problem with Rwanda.”
Mushikiwabo said there was no link between the resumption of relations with France and Rwanda’s joining the Commonwealth, a development also announced on Sunday. She called it “just a happy coincidence”. — AFP