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| Africa Subsaharan |
| France rejects Rwanda's genocide accusations |
| 2008-08-09 |
| Official French reaction to the Rwandan accusation that French leaders, diplomats, and soldiers were complicit in the epic 1994 genocide in Rwanda was muted and curt. "Unacceptable," said both former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, and a diplomatic spokesman here during a sleepy week when most of Paris has decamped for vacation. Yet some French nongovernmental organizations, media, and intellectuals treated accusations that France aided and abetted Hutu government forces in the 100-day killing spree, which left more than 800,000 dead, as at least a subject for further inquiry. "There is something not clear in France's responsibility in Rwanda," argued a column in the Paris-based daily, Libération, though it noted that the report, by a Rwandan presidential commission, does not carry the significance of a body like the United Nations' Rwanda war crimes tribunal -- set up at the same time as the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Le Monde hit the subject slightly harder in a headline reading, "Rwanda's genocide: a duty to tell the truth." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 "Command Responsibility" as defined by The Hague tribunals, means: having the power to prevent war crimes and punish war criminals. The French had no such power. Similarly, the US has been accused of holding "command responsibility" viz the alleged 3000 persons who were either murdered or allowed to die unnecessarily in the custody of the Northern Alliance. Accusations that NA troops killed captives held in containers, have been recorded by US Military Justice authorities. Further, numerous graves of bodies of captives have been found in a small section of Afghanistan. However, CIA operatives were furious when they heard of the deaths. Why? Each death prevented use of a potential intelligence asset. Further, NA operatives were captured on video selling captive Chechens, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Uighars to states where they were probably tortured to death. Again, the CIA could have questioned same. The story, told as close to objectivity as leftists can get in "Taxi to the Dark Side," and "Afghan Massacre" isn't pretty but bad faith accusations against the CIA are unwarranted. Attribution of "command responsibility" to US and French officials who didn't lead or direct ground operations, is ludicrous. If UN forces compel same, then that would be a good excuse to turn their East River structure into its destined form: condominiums. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-08-09 03:01 |