The Presumption of Right

Imagine a former colonized state that emerges after decades of foreign domination with an antagonistic population cynically, and to a large extent, spuriously, divided by religion and race.
Suppose that half of that embittered population had been historically targeted for extinction and further suppose that after being armed by a powerful benefactor with its own ulterior goals the aggrieved "tribe" seizes on a chance to do unto their erstwhile brothers what had once been done unto them. No-- this is not a reference to the massacre taking place in Gaza. This is the basic story behind the Rwanda genocide of 1994. In that case the mighty benefactor is not the United States but 'enlightened, humanitarian' France.

The International Times offers this telling description. "There is remarkable television footage shot in the first days of the genocide in Rwanda. It shows a large room in the French Embassy in Kigali filled floor to ceiling with shredded documents. This was probably the paper trail that might have revealed the depth of involvement between the Elysée Palace and the Hutu faction responsible for massacring hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and opposition Hutu."

The French had been bolstering the Hutus from Rwanda's independence in the 1960s. The majority Hutu rule was deemed democratic but the country functioned as a one-party state. Discrimination against the Tutsis and the human rights abuses against them were largely ignored. By 1990 some one million Rwandans were living as refugees in neighboring states, most were Tutsi who had fled during the anti-Tutsi pogroms. When in October 1990, the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded from neighboring Uganda the French immediately sent elite troops to defend the regime in Kigali and in the three years of civil war that followed the French military and French-supplied weaponry ensured the Hutus' survival.

The most striking aspect of what the Rwandan inquiry has exposed are the disturbing parallels between the the Bush/Likudnik neocons vis a vis the Middle East and the Mitterand government.

"As a result of its investigation the French Senate discovered how policy towards Rwanda had been made by a secretive network of military officers, politicians, diplomats, businessmen, and senior intelligence operatives. At its center was Mitterrand. French policy had been unaccountable to either parliament or the press."

There is a larger lesson to be learned by these parallel tragedies. Beyond the danger and repugnance of using "race" as a pretext for economic exploitation, leaders would be advised to understand that once the murder and destruction has been done and the dust finally settles you may be even further away from your objective, if that objective in fact remains attainable any at all.

Just as the neocons are determined to divide the Sunni Arabs and believe they can counter Iran's influence by destroying Hezbollah and Hamas, Mitterand devoutly believed he was safeguarding French interests. For Mitterand and the French elite, the Rwandan Patriotic Front was exactly that-- a front for a Washington-led Anglophile invasion into its former colonies. And despite the manipulated ethnic hatreds, as the BBC describes it, there was much for France to defend.

"Most cities in French-speaking Africa have an unmistakably Gallic air about them: the tree-lined boulevards, the outdoor cafes, the ubiquitous baguettes are signs that links with the former colonial power remain strong.

Until recently, governments in Paris behaved as if independence had never happened. French money kept mismanaged economies afloat, and bought allegiance from friendly governments.

And just as resisting the "Anglo-Saxons" (i.e the Americans) is a perennial concern of French officialdom, curbing US influence has traditionally been a cornerstone of France's African policy.

In recent years old Africa hands in Paris were appalled when Ugandan-backed guerrillas overthrew French proteges in Rwanda and Zaire: many felt that Washington - through President Museveni of Uganda - was casting its net across mineral-rich central Africa."

The irony is that after aiding and abetting the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans France has completely lost its hold over the country. The young generation refuses to speak French and emphasize their loathing for their former masters by boasting their new mastery of English.

Now that Rwanda's Kagame government have officially charged France with complicity in the genocide the scapegoating and counter-recriminations have begun. Kingsley Moghalu, a former special counsel of the Tribunal, claims in his latest book, "Rwanda's Genocide: the Politics of Global Justice" that if Mr Kagame and the Tutsi rebels he led in April 1994 shot down the President's plane, then they were responsible for triggering the genocide.

For those seeking to justify unconscionable slaughter it is masterfully expedient to be able to pinpoint say the downing of a plane or the launching of a deadly rocket as the catalyst- the fait accompli-- for the ensuing murderous reprisals. The calls for blood thus becoming "right" overnight.

Critics of such thinking may be forgiven for suggesting that such a theory is like saying the acts of a few violent Jewish anarchists in the 1930's are responsible for the Holocaust.