France snubs Rwanda commemorations

Preparations in Rwanda for the commemorations for the 20th anniversary of the genocide were overshadowed by a major spat with France amid renewed allegations that Paris was complicit in the killings.

The French government announced it was pulling out of today’s events after Rwandan president Paul Kagame again accused France, an ally of the Hutu nationalist government prior to the 1994 killings, of having helped the murder of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis take place.

Speaking to the weekly Jeune Afrique, Kagame denounced the “direct role of Belgium and France in the political preparation for the genocide“, and said French soldiers who were sent to Rwanda when the killings started were both accomplices and “actors” in the bloodbath.