Rwanda gives French envoy 24 hrs to leave, cuts ties

Reuthers ^ | 11/24/06

[TexKat]

KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda has cut diplomatic ties with France and given the French ambassador 24 hours to leave the central African country, Kigali's foreign affairs minister Charles Murigande said on Friday.

"We in the cabinet have decided to cut our diplomatic relations with France. We have ordered the French ambassador to leave our country within 24 hours and given other French diplomats 72 hours to leave the country," he told Reuters.

Murigande also said Rwanda would close the French cultural center in the capital Kigali.

The move came as Rwanda recalled its envoy from Paris after a French judge called for President Paul Kagame to stand trial over the 1994 killing of a former leader, sparking the country's genocide of 800,000 people.

French foreign ministry officials had no immediate reaction to Rwanda's decision to break off ties with its former ally.

[AlaskaErik]

The battle occurred between March and May, 1954, and culminated in a massive French defeat that effectively ended the war. Dien Bien Phu was "the first time that a non-European colonial independence movement had evolved through all the stages from guerrilla bands to a conventionally organized and equipped army able to defeat a modern Western occupier in pitched battle."

The French set up their positions in a valley surrounded by mountains. Now how stupid is that? If the French would have had competent leadership the outcome could have been much different.

[AlaskaErik]

U.S. COMPLICITY IN RWANDAN GENOCIDE

Do tell.

My guess this is reference to the fact that the world, including the Clinton administration, did nothing for months while the genocide went ahead at full speed. By the time we got involved in August 1994, it was just to provide food and aid to those still alive in the refugee camps in what was then Zaire.

[Our man in washington]

Some facts here:

1. The day after that former Hutu leader was killed in 1994, the genocide began. The Hutus seemed to be looking for an excuse to begin the genocide. Most observers think radical Hutus killed that leader, not Kagame. If Kagame's Tutsi people had done it, how were the Hutus able to begin the genocide so quickly?

2. France supported the Hutus throughout the genocide while the Hutus killed the Tutsis. After it was over, one of the Rwandan officials asked a French official why they did so. The French position was that the Tutsis were doing guerilla operations from Uganda, which was an English-speaking country. The French didn't want an English-speaking country to exert influence over a French-speaking country. The Rwandan offical replied that in three months, one million French speakers had been killed.

France's behavior in the Rwandan genocide was so completely immoral that they have no right to lecture the U.S. on anything for another generation. Rwanda did the right thing by kicking the French out.