Over three years since already strained relations were suddenly snapped, after a judge in Paris ordered the arrest of Rwanda’s senior government figures, French President Nicolas Sarkozy landed in the tiny African country on Thursday, seeking to win back a friend they lost in a most violent way.
President Sarkozy arrived in the gleaming and manicured capital of Kigali after visiting Gabon. It was only for a half-day stop in Rwanda, a country France used to hold heavy influence over, but the symbolism was enormous. Instead of using France’s larger-than-life reputation in Africa to broker deals, he was simply coming to make amends.
Touching down late morning in Kigali, President Sarkozy headed first to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial, the largest memorial of its kind in Rwanda, where roughly 250,000 people are buried. The memorial is the touchstone of Rwanda’s post-genocide identity and is the first place to go for visiting tourists, celebrities and politicians.
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“On behalf of the French people,” President Sarkozy wrote in the genocide memorial’s guestbook, “I bow before the victims of the genocide of the Tutsi.”
For President Sarkozy, this wasn’t just another stop on his African tour.
Plunged headlong
He is the first French President to visit Rwanda since 1994, when the country was plunged headlong into a deeply violent genocide, ending in the slaughter of 800,000 ethnic minority Tutsi and moderate Hutus. Historians and government officials in Rwanda cite the leverage France wielded with Rwanda in those days, and France has been accused of playing a powerful role in the genocide, especially through its cosy relations with the ‘Hutu Power’ politicians, who fuelled the bloodbath.
The Tutsi, who now make up most of Rwanda’s current government, have long held a dim view of France and her role. And for this, relations between the two countries suffered. Then, in 2006, a French judge issued indictments against nine senior members of the Rwandan Government, accusing them of shooting down the presidential plane in April of 1994 that ignited the genocide.
That plane, staffed by a French crew, had been a gift to the Rwandan Government from France.
After the indictments, Rwanda cut off relations and ordered the French ambassador to go. The indictments also provoked large scale protests throughout Rwanda. Since then, and even before it, France’s involvement in the genocide has been a common subject in speeches during the annual Genocide Memorial Week. France never apologised.
Because of the belated apology for – or more accurately the acknowledgement – of its past role, France will be eager to show that it cares, and that it can make up for the past.
This terrible crime
“What happened here is unacceptable, and what happened here requires the international community, including France, to reflect on those errors that failed to prevent and stop this terrible crime,” President Sarkozy said in French during a joint press conference with President Paul Kagame.
It was a measure of how wide the gap has grown between the two countries that his host spoke in English.
Although he did not outrightly apologise for France’s role in the genocide, President Sarkozy did admit there had been “serious miscalculations” and “errors of assessment” on the part of his country, implying the European power was eager to build a new relationship.
But for France, this is also very much about getting its groove back in a part of the continent it used to dominate. It lost Rwanda after the genocide, and most recently lost it even further when the country joined the British Commonwealth. Not only did the country leave France’s sphere of influence, but last year Rwanda dramatically switched the language of teaching and government from French to English, erasing the most explicit symbol of French influence in the country.
Rwanda, too, has now joined the Anglophone East African Community, along with Burundi. The Democratic Republic of the Congo – one of the largest French-speaking countries in the world – wants to join the EAC as well. Though both the Congo and Burundi retain heavy French influence, the practicality of English, as well as the prestige of the Anglophone world, means that France’s influence in this part of Africa continues to wane.
As France’s influence has dwindled, Britain’s and America’s have grown, and with it, Rwanda’s. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is one of President Kagame’s advisers, not to mention international boosters.
Most powerful countries
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Long considered one of the most powerful countries in the region despite its size, Rwanda has played a skilful role – for both good and bad – in war-torn eastern Congo.
The country remains a powerbroker in neighbouring Burundi’s politics, and Kagame’s austere and visionary leadership, especially touching on information-technology, fighting corruption, and attracting investment, has made much larger countries like Uganda and Kenya simply look bad. For France, being a player in the Great Lakes Region means playing with Rwanda.
But the new, “strong symbolic” visit by President Sarkozy, in which he promised to pursue a vibrant bilateral relationship, is not just important for France. While publicly Sarkozy and France seem to be the ones curtsying to Rwanda, President Kagame’s pragmatic approach to international relations also requires a newfound friendship with France.
Paris retains huge influence in DRC and Francophone central Africa as a whole, a backyard that Rwanda has vital interests in.
Moreover, some of Rwanda’s big-power allies like the US and Britain have become less starry-eyed in their attitude toward Kigali in recent years.
From their involvement with proxy armies in eastern Congo, to the controversial enactment of ‘security’ laws that are seen to impede individual freedoms, the Rwandans are no longer instinctively regarded as the persecuted angels of the region.
Fresh and passionate
Yet, while others grow skeptical, Rwanda will gain a fresh and passionate friend in France, eager to make up for its past wrongs.
In Kigali itself, the visit was of mammoth importance. The French Cultural Institute, aligned near the capita’s major traffic roundabout, has laid dormant for years. For many Rwandans, being patriotic and denouncing France in the most vivid of terms, has long been analogous.
While not everyone is thrilled with the renewed relations, more so genocide-survivor groups and Rwandans in the diaspora, the arrival of President Sarkozy has been seen as France’s way of apologising and, in the tragic narrative between the two countries, as a victory for Rwanda.
It is in that light that Elise Nzeyimana, a labourer in Kigali, spoke about the visit with pride.
“The other day, we were in the streets protesting against the French after they arrested one of our leaders,” Nzeyimana said. “Now the French President will be driving on the same streets. To me, this is a great achievement that should be applauded.”
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