Again remember that Ladsous was second in command at the United Nations during these events. Yet there is no extensive paper trail linking him to his tenure. The reasons will become clear.
In an interview with leJDD in May of 2012, Ladsous spoke briefly about the genocide.
"On the surface, yes, they are failures of the UN," Ladsous confessed, "but it is above all the failures of the community of states that make up the UN, because the term was not defined clearly, realistic or reasonable. [The UN] "should have the courage to tell states that they can not ask us to do miracles."
France, Arms, and the Man
What Ladsous did not mention was that France was actively training members of the Interahamwe in the years and months leading up to the genocide. Given his position as DPR at the United Nations, it is difficult to believe that he did not have some understanding of France's role in arming Rwanda--an accepted fact in historical circles and in the volumes that have been written post-genocide.
In "Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide," investigative journalist Linda Melvern methodically outlines a series of arms deals from the years 1991-1992. By 1994, Rwanda was receiving $4 million annually from France, and in 1993 Rwanda cut a $12 million independent arms deal from an independent French company, DYL-Invest. $4 million in armaments disappeared during the transaction.
Rwandan historian Philip Gourevitch details arms shipments from France to Rwanda via the Goma airport as late as June 1994 and also during the height of the French "rescue mission," Operation Turquoise.
Melvern details that most of Rwanda's arms deals (meaning the government of Juvenal Habyarimana) were negotiated through the Rwandan embassy in Paris. After the genocide, it was discovered that all documents relating to France's relationship with Rwanda had been shredded. (page 57)
Melvern also quotes French journalist, Stephen Smith, who reported in the February 9, 1993 edition of "Liberation."
Smith writes:
In the far hills of Rwanda"France is supporting a regime which for two years, with a militia and death squads, has been trying to organize the extermination of the minority Tutsi"the death squads, organized in a Reseau Zero [Zero network] by the President's clan, are operating a genocide against the Tutsi as though it were a public service.
Also see footnotes 37, 38 and 39 in "The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide," by Gerard Prunier. The involvement of France is carefully documented.
Melvern and Prunier set the stage for a French conspiracy. But other voices emerged.
As noted here:
Janvier Africa, son of a Rwandan diplomat, and a former Interahamwe member, described French involvement:"We had two French military who helped train the Interahamwe. A lot of other Interahamwe were sent for training in Egypt. The French military taught us how to catch people and tie them. It was at the Affichier Central base in the centre of Kigali. It's where people were tortured. That's where the French military office was... The French also went with us Interahamwe to Mount Kigali, where they gave us training with guns. We didn't know how to use the arms which had been brought from France so the French military were obliged to show us." (Quoted in The Age, 23.6.94 p12)
As noted in "Human Rights Watch, Arming Rwanda - The Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses in the Rwandan War" key findings:
The Arms Project has obtained confidential documents concerning a $6 million arms sale to Rwanda by Egypt. The Arms Project has also received information that France's nationalized bank, Credit Lyonnais, made the $6 million deal possible through provision of a bank guarantee. The terms of this purchase, including the roles of Credit Lyonnais and France, had been secret. It included automatic rifles, mortars, long-range artillery, shoulder-fired rocket launchers, munitions, landmines, and plastic explosives.
In the book, "Hope For Rwanda," the late Andre Sibomana offers an accounting of the events leading up to the atrocities of 1994 to journalists Laure Guilbert and Herve Deguine. Sibomana was a Rwandan priest, the editor of Rwanda's oldest newspaper, Kinyamateka, and a leading human rights activist who chose to remain in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.
He raises questions about drug and arms trafficking by French arms dealers at the Kigali airport. They were allegedly supplying Iran. And it is here is where the French ties become impossible to ignore.
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