By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEW YORK (IDN) \u2014 A former senior Rwandan official linked to the deaths of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus has been found guilty of complicity in that nation\u2019s genocide, 20 years after the horrific crime occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laurent Bucyibaruta is the highest-ranking Rwandan to face trial in France over the 1994 massacres that took place in 100 days of mass killings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France has long faced pressure to act against suspected Rwandan perpetrators who took refuge on French soil afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time of the genocide, the French government had been a long-standing backer of the Hutu regime in power, which caused decades of tensions between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A separate French probe into the act that sparked the genocide\u2014the shooting down of Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana\u2019s plane\u2014was closed earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the heart of the case against the 78-year-old were several \u201csecurity\u201d meetings, either ordered or attended by Bucyibaruta, which prosecutors had argued were planning sessions for the killings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Specifically, the former chief officer of the southern province of Gikongoro was accused of having persuaded thousands of people to take refuge in the Murambi Technical School by promising them food, water and protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Days later, in the early hours of April 21, tens of thousands of Tutsis were executed in one of the genocide\u2019s bloodiest episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court also examined Bucyibaruta\u2019s responsibility in the massacre of around 90 Tutsi pupils at the Marie Merci school in Kibeho on May 7, 1994, and in the execution of Tutsi prisoners\u2014including three priests\u2014in Gikongoro prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his trial, Bucyibaruta denied any involvement in the killings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was never on the side of the killers,\u201d Bucyibaruta insisted. \u201cDid I lack courage? Could I have saved them? Those questions and regrets have been haunting me for over 28 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His lawyers called for the court to take \u201ca courageous decision\u201d and acquit him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trial involved more than 100 witness statements, including some from survivors from Rwanda, either in person or by video conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bucyibaruta has been in France since 1997 with myriad health problems. He was allowed to remain under house arrest during the trial to receive treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A report commissioned by the administration of President Paul Kagame asserts that France \u201cdid nothing to stop\u201d the massacres in April and May 1994, and in the years after the genocide tried to cover up its role and even offered protection to some perpetrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It concludes that France \u201cbears significant responsibility\u201d for enabling the genocide in Rwanda and still refuses to acknowledge its true role in the 1994 horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe French government was neither blind nor unconscious about the foreseeable genocide,\u201d the authors stress, disputing an earlier report by French President Emmanuel Macron, who concluded that French authorities had been \u201cblind\u201d to the preparations for genocide and then reacted too slowly. [IDN-InDepthNews \u2013 17 July 2022]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo credit: Shaun Swingler<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) \u2014 A former senior Rwandan official linked to the deaths of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus has been found guilty of complicity in that nation\u2019s genocide, 20 years after the horrific crime occurred. Laurent Bucyibaruta is the highest-ranking Rwandan to face trial in France over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,56,20,16,32,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"category-goal16","9":"category-human-right","10":"category-news","11":"category-regions","12":"category-sdgs-2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5854,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852\/revisions\/5854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}