Kigali fell silent on Sunday, April 7. In the deserted streets, stores kept their curtains closed. Not a single red motorcycle taxi could be seen lined up along the sidewalks. Even the church bells had stopped ringing. Cordoned off for a few hours by the police, the Rwandan capital commemorated the 30th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsis. "Kwibuka," officials said: "Remember" April 7, 1994, when the worst of the crimes began. "Remember" how, for three months, Rwandans relentlessly slaughtered at least 800,000 fellow Rwandans.
With mass graves continuing to be unearthed across the country, Kigali has not forgotten, even though Rwanda has changed profoundly over the past three decades. Now renowned for its stability, immaculate pavement and perfectly trimmed hedges, the capital has become a showcase for the extraordinary fate of this country in Africa's Great Lakes region. It symbolizes economic success, a model political system and a rate of development unrivaled on the continent.
One man, who is as much revered as criticized, has been the driving force behind this renaissance: Paul Kagame, 66 years old, with 30 of them spent leading Rwanda. An authoritarian type of leader, he will seek a fourth term of office in mid-July, in a contest he is unlikely to lose. It was he who, as head of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, put an end to the genocide in July 1994 by seizing power in Kigali, and subsequently pursuing and bringing to justice those behind the massacres. It was he who, three decades later, rekindled the flame at the Gisozi Memorial, where the remains of 250,000 victims of the last genocide of the 20th century lie buried.
Then the official commemorations continued at the BK Arena, a huge enclosure with walls, ceilings and floor draped in black for the occasion. The hall, where 5,000 people had gathered, was illuminated only by a work of art symbolizing a tree whose "roots represent the memory of the past" and whose branches, according to the Rwandan government, "represent the protection that families did not have during the genocide and on which they can now count."
The threat of genocide is an issue for the present day, said Kagame, in an aggressive speech that lasted over half an hour and responded to allegations from the international community. With a number of reports corroborating Kigali's active support of the rebellion insurgency March 23 Movement (M23), which has resumed its offensive in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda has been called upon by several nations, including France, to stop providing aid to the insurgents. In essence, the Rwandan president has invoked the right and even the need for his country to defend itself. "We are witnessing an indifference similar to that which prevailed between 1990 and 1994. Are we looking for another million deaths?" said National Unity and Civic Engagement Minister Jean-Damascene Bizimana by way of a warning.
After 1994, "the genocidal forces fled to the DRC (...) with the support of their external backers (...). They conducted hundreds of cross-border terrorist attacks inside Rwanda over the next five years. The remnants (...) are still in eastern Congo (...). Their objectives have not changed, and the only reason this group, today known as FDLR [Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda], has not been disbanded, is because their continued existence serves some unspoken interest," said the president. He added that "Rwanda takes full responsibility for its own safety (...). We will always pay maximum attention, even if we are alone."
The Rwandan leader singled out the international community, which has been increasingly critical of Rwanda's government. "It was [the international community] which failed all of us, whether from contempt or cowardice," he said, standing before 11 heads of state and government. Several former presidents were present, including Bill Clinton, who was in power in Washington during the genocide, and Nicolas Sarkozy, who attended as a private individual, with his position as director of Accor frequently bringing him to Kigali.
France, which Kagame has repeatedly accused of complicity in the genocide, was especially targeted. Notably, the Rwandan president mentioned the case of Callixte Mbarushimana, who was allegedly involved in the murder of dozens of people during the genocide, including one of Kagame's cousins, and who is still living in France.
Arrested at the request of the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity committed in eastern DRC in 2009, this former UN employee was released for lack of evidence in 2011 after a year in detention. He returned to France, where he has enjoyed political refugee status since 2003, despite a legal investigation into a complaint of genocide lodged by the Collectif des Parties Civiles pour le Rwanda (Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda) in 2008. France only began trying suspected perpetrators of genocide in 2014, at a rate of two trials per year. Rwandan authorities and human rights NGOs have decried this slow pace of justice.
For 30 years, no sitting French president has attended the opening of a genocide commemoration ceremony. Emmanuel Macron also chose not to attend the 30th anniversary event in Kigali, citing a "scheduling problem." He was at that time on the Plateau des Glières, in eastern France, paying tribute to Second World War Resistance fighters. He instead instructed his Minister of Foreign Affairs Stéphane Séjourné and Rwandan-born State Secretary for the Sea Hervé Berville to go. This decision indicates that relations between Paris and Kigali have still not been completely smoothed over.
In 2021, a major step was taken. A speech by Macron acknowledged that France "bore damning responsibility in a chain of events that led to the worst" − but made no mention of complicity or guilt. These unprecedented words put an end to 25 years of diplomatic crisis. This year, France did not want to go any further. "I believe I said it all on May 27, 2021, when I was among you. I have no more words to add, no words to take away from what I said to you that day. And to tell you that my determination, that of France, is that we continue to move forward together, hand in hand," the French president said in a video released on Sunday.
These words have come across as backpedaling in light of language leaked by the Elysée on Thursday. "The Head of State will emphasize that when the phase of total extermination against the Tutsis began, the international community had the means to know and act (...) and that France, which could have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies, did not have the will" to do so. On Sunday, Kagame made his displeasure known to Paris. Speaking on behalf of the entire community, he emphatically stated, "Our people will never − and I mean never − be left for dead again."
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.