lgf links to this article, which is well worth reading in full:
Belgium and France sent troops to Rwanda to evacuate their nationals from the country. Belgium withdrew its forces promptly and cut off military aid in a situation of civil war. French troops, however, stayed on. To Paris, Africa was the one place where the glory of the French empire could still live on. “Without Africa,” Mitterrand had written in 1957, “France will have no history in the 21st century.” Prime Minister Edouard Balladur explained that “France sees itself as a world power. This is its ambition and its honor.” And its “main field of action is Africa,” especially French-speaking Africa. But it was not just a matter of honor. Corrupt African rulers helped finance French political parties, aided with money laundering, provided sweetheart deals to well-connected French companies, and voted with Paris at the UN. And Mitterrand’s son was then head of the Africa Office at the Elysce and personally close to the Habyarimana family.
Habyarimana arrested almost 10,000 of his political opponents, while some 350 Tutsi civilians were massacred in the countryside, the killers acting under the authority of local officials. In early 1991, further massacres were carried out. The Rwandan army grew ten-fold from October 1990 to mid-1992, and France provided all the weapons, either directly or by secretly arranging foreign arms contracts from Egypt or South Africa. The Rwandan government gave a French military officer overall command of counter-insurgency operations, and the French staffed roadblocks, fired artillery, and served as advisers to Rwandan field commanders.
The conclusion:
France is the foreign country bearing primary culpability for Rwanda’s nightmare, but there is little in the record of the United States of which to be proud.
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