During a ceremony this month in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, to celebrate the 27th anniversary of the genocide, President Paul Kagame praised the French report, saying it shows how ‘Rwandan lives were just pawns in geopolitical games.’
“We welcome this report as it is an important step towards a common understanding of what has taken place,” he said. Kagame said. “It even shows the desire for leaders in France to continue to have a good understanding of what happened.”
The report comes as Kagame increasingly faces criticism abroad over the handling of critics of his government, including the ongoing terrorism case against former hotelier Paul Rusesabagina.
In 2017, the Rwandan government commissioned Washington law firm Levy Firestone Muse to investigate France’s role in the Tutsi genocide. The firm’s report uses a variety of sources, including government reports, videos, documentaries, and interviews with more than 250 witnesses.
France and Rwanda have been arguing for years over how the genocide took place and the extent of French complicity. But relationships gradually began to thaw. In 2018, Mr. Macron Rwanda’s former Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo to lead the International Organization of La Francophonie, a coalition of French-speaking countries – a move widely seen as an attempt to strengthen relations with Kigali.
Mr. Kagame has also visited France at least three times since 2018, and French media have reported that Macron may visit Rwanda this year. Nicolas Sarkozy was the last French president to visit Rwanda in 2010.
In recent years, several cases related to the genocide have surfaced in French courts.
Last May, Félicien Kabuga, who is accused of financing the genocide, was arrested after more than two decades on the run. In July, a French appeals court launched an investigation into the plane crash that killed Mr. Habyarimana killed, ended, an event that launched the 1994 genocide and for which Kagame’s allies are blamed. And a Rwandan priest was arrested in France last week for his alleged role in helping those who killed people in his church during the genocide.