“We have an overwhelming responsibility, but there is no one responsible”, regretted Thursday September 8 on franceinfo Guillaume Ancel, former officer and author of Rwanda, the end of the silence published by Belles Lettres (2018), while the French Army benefits from a dismissal of the investigation into the Bisesero massacres, in Rwanda, in June 94. Several associations of survivors of the Rwandan genocide accused the French mission Turquoise of complicity in genocide, accusing the soldiers of having knowingly abandoned for three days the civilian refugees in the hills of Bisesero, in the west of the country. “The people we supported were genocidaires”, he explained. “It was the Élysée which controlled everything at the time”he underlined, regretting that “the secretary general of the Élysée at the time, Hubert Védrine” was not questioned “on his role in this case”. Seventeen years after the opening of the judicial investigation, the judges followed the prosecution and ordered a general dismissal, considering that there was no proof of a possible complicity of the French army. Yet, according to him, “there are responsibilities that have not yet been established”.
franceinfo: What is your reaction after the announcement of this dismissal?
Guillaume Ancel: I’m sorry about that and, at the same time, I understand that. I’m a little sorry because it was a key moment to show that it had been the responsibility of the military command. I understand this because the Duclert report which had been requested by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, clearly determined that our intervention in Rwanda was a French disaster and that the political responsibility was heavy and overwhelming. But what is unfortunate is that justice has not punished anyone. We have an overwhelming responsibility, but there is no one responsible. For example, the secretary general of the Élysée at the time, Hubert Védrine, was never asked about his role in this affair. Bisesero is emblematic of the duplicity of the French military intervention: we showed the whole world that it was a humanitarian operation, when in fact we were there only to fight, to put back in place the government that we had been supporting for four years and who was committing genocide.
What was the role of the military in Bisesero?
It is abnormal that the military command did not understand, when we were faced with survivors on the hills of Bisesero, that we could not tell the whole world, that we were there to take care of them and left them to their fate. I remember all the same, because it is a point which is not said by the judges, that it is the disobedience of some of my comrades in arms which made it possible to save the last survivors. Command didn’t want us to deal with it. They were so tormented by orders from Paris to go and fight against the soldiers across the way that they didn’t even understand what we saw with our eyes, it was that the people we supported were genocidaires.
Were the soldiers aware of what they weren’t doing?
Yes, very clearly. It’s the first day of the Turquoise military intervention. We are on the 75th day of the genocide. My comrades in arms, special forces soldiers, cross the hills of Bisesero. They were told that they probably had spies from the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Paul Kagame’s army opposite. In reality, what they come across are survivors of atrocious massacres. And it was only three days later, on June 30, that several of my comrades decided to disobey without saying so and that they brought journalists to the scene to force the French command to react to international opinion. Only then will we take care of the survivors. I am in a combat unit, the Foreign Legion, which is a few tens of kilometers from the place of Bisesero. We are mobilized not to take care of the survivors of Bisesero, but to continue to fight against the RPF because, in reality, France has requested a humanitarian mandate to go and carry out war action in Rwanda for the benefit of the genocidaires. .
“People are covered with wounds. They are ghosts, zombies. When they ask to help them, the French command evacuates the French soldiers and forbids them to return to this area.”
Guillaume Ancel, former officerat franceinfo
Are you aiming directly at the Élysée?
Of course, it’s the Élysée. It was the Élysée which controlled everything at the time. And moreover, this is what the Duclert report established. What I find unfortunate is that there are no sanctions taken against the people who are responsible for what the Commission of Historians has described as a French disaster. There should also have been sanctions against certain soldiers because, yes, they obeyed. But since the Nuremberg jurisprudence, it has been established that an officer is responsible for the orders he gives. He can’t say ‘I simply obeyed the Élysée’. He did not have to obey the Elysée for such orders.
The associations are appealing this dismissal pronounced by the courts. Is there still time to establish responsibilities?
There are responsibilities that have not yet been established. The judges go too fast when they say that we close the subject because there is no intention to participate in the genocide. It’s obvious. That wasn’t the question. I never had a comrade in arms who intended to participate in the genocide. On the other hand, in Bisesero, the fact that we abandoned 2,000 survivors to their fate and that, when we intervene again much too late, three days later, there are only 700 left, it is a responsibility of the French command . Why did they make these decisions? In reality, we know it is because the Élysée imposed on them. But precisely, it is to seek out the responsibilities and to sanction them so that it serves as a reference for the future. That tomorrow, when a French officer will receive an order which is totally disconcerting, that he can say, ‘there is no question that I do this because I do not want to be sanctioned by justice one day’. This is what is missing in the Bisesero affair, it is a condemnation for example.