Si les rebelles du FPR se méfient autant de l'opération Turquoise, c'est que la France n'a soutenu ces dernières années que le gouvernement en place

Lucet, Élise

Gringoire, Jean-François

Ghesquière, Hervé

23 juin 1994

19940623

19:30:00

CEST

Journal de 19 heures 30

Si les rebelles du FPR se méfient autant de l'opération Turquoise, c'est que la France n'a soutenu ces dernières années que le gouvernement en place

Le lancement de l'opération Turquoise a également semé une certaine discorde au sein des organisations humanitaires.

ScriptFrance3JournalDe19Heures3023061994.pdf

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- So it was this night, just after the UN authorization, that Operation Turquoise began. The first French soldiers entered Rwanda in the early afternoon. The beginning of the mission is to help thousands of refugees in Cyangugu.
- Boarding towards Bangui. It was at Roissy this morning: 200 French soldiers left to join the other troops deployed in Zaire via the Central African Republic. Same scenario in Istres this afternoon: the final implementation of Operation Turquoise entered its operational phase last night [June 22].
- While Jaguar planes were prepositioning themselves at the Zairian airport of Kisangani, troops were deployed at two bridgeheads on the Rwandan border: Goma and Bukavu. Around 3 p.m., first incursions into Rwanda. Objective: Gisenyi and Cyangugu, two towns where several thousand refugees are gathered.
- For now, it would only be small detachments of scouts responsible for identifying humanitarian needs. According to military sources, they were very well received by the authorities and the population.
- At the same time, on the diplomatic front, some countries have declared themselves ready to join France in its action. After Senegal, Guinea and Egypt could provide a few battalions to reinforce the 2,500 French soldiers.
- Silvio Berlusconi indicated that Italy could also send troops but on condition that all belligerents agree. We are far from it, the Rwandan Patriotic Front which fights the government forces, persists in seeing in the French action a real invasion.
- Indeed the Rwandan Patriotic Front has not changed its mind: it considers this operation as an attack. If the RPF rebels are so wary of France, it is because, until proven otherwise, France has only supported the government in place in recent years. A government against which the RPF has never ceased to fight.
- Jacques Bihozagara, "representing FPR Europe": "We are not ready to accept that they come. So we take them as aggressors".
- In search of international recognition, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which currently controls more than half of the country, cannot hold another rhetoric, specifying however that it will not seek French soldiers where they are.
- But it is in Paris that these senior officials make these threatening remarks towards France the day after a meeting with Alain Juppé. And apparently the misunderstanding between the RPF and the French authorities is far from over.
- Jacques Bihozagara denounces the partisan activism of certain collaborators of François Mitterrand who have so far prevented the President of the Republic from having a clear view of the situation in Rwanda. And today, although it is their wish, nothing authorizes the leaders of the RPF to hope for a significant change in the French attitude towards them.
- Theogene Rudasingwa, "RPF Secretary General": "The RPF is not hostile to France. There are many people in France who are opposed to the French intervention. We hoped for a positive change in French policy in Rwanda, hitherto interventionist. But this intervention shows that nothing is changing and that we are even going into reverse".
- Suspicious, the RPF still thinks that the intervention aims more to protect the perpetrators of the massacres than to save civilians and that the arrival of French soldiers definitely smacks of a trap.
- And the launch of Operation Turquoise has sown some discord within humanitarian organizations. Some of them, like MSF, are frankly in favor of France's intervention. She does not imagine that we can leave the civilian population without help. Others are more reserved, like the AICF, which would not like to see France interfere in Rwandan affairs.
- The main French humanitarian associations are familiar with the situation in Rwanda and have been working on the ground for many months. Yet opinions are divided on the French military intervention.
- In the Parisian staffs the remarks are dissonant. The AICF, International Action against Hunger, sums up the feeling of many NGOs: "Our country would have done better to abstain". Nathalie Duhamel, "AICF Managing Director": "France is not, given its past with Rwanda, the best placed to do so. When you want to intervene for humanitarian purposes, you still have to be able to have the agreement of all parties. We can worry about the possible abuses of this operation".
- On the other hand, at Doctors Without Borders, there is no ambiguity about the French intervention. Philippe Biberson, "MSF President": "We are for it. And we have to understand why: for more than 10 weeks in Rwanda, before our eyes, live, a genocide is being perpetrated. Genocide means that there is a planned, organized massacre of an entire population. And faced with this observation, there are no two things to do, it must be stopped".
- Finally, the Doctors of the World association is much more cautious and wants to be nuanced. Michel Bruguière, "Director General MDM": "I would say that we put two prerequisites for France's intervention: one, it recognizes its responsibility in what is happening today. And secondly, if it undertakes to arrest the executioners and try them".
- The humanitarian associations agree on at least two points: the military operation is risky and France will be quite alone in Rwanda.