The former French officer, Guillaume Ansell, revealed new details of the support and assistance provided by his country to the perpetrators of war crimes in Rwanda and its protection for them.

Ansell refused to remain silent about that era in which he participated with his companions and published in 2018 a book entitled "Rwanda .. The End of Silence", which narrates among its pages about his experience in that African country and denounces what he says are the lies of the state.

In the aftermath of the publication of Vincent Doclear's report, which sheds light on Paris' "grave responsibilities" in Rwanda, but without that amounting to an accusation of its involvement in genocide, Ansell tells his story to Agence France-Presse.

For reference, when he arrived in Kigali in 1994 as part of Operation Turquoise, which was officially presented at the time as a humanitarian mission, he was an artillery officer attached to a unit belonging to the Foreign Corps to direct air strikes.

Not human

Ansell says he went on an offensive mission to reach Kigali.

That is, he went to participate in the war in Rwanda and not on a humanitarian mission, indicating that he was not on the right side: our enemy is the Rwandan Patriotic Front (led by Paul Kagame), and our enemy is not the perpetrators of genocide.

She imagined the French forces landing in Provence in 1944 to find themselves on the side of the Nazis!

The government army welcomed us as friends and wanted us to help finish what they had started.

They were in big blood trouble and bragging!

Is this a joke?

The former officer adds that “France sent a message to the Rwandan army that we will not come and fight with them. They were really convinced that this is what we came to do .. and when we established the safe humanitarian zone, we saw all RAF units take refuge in it. Is this a joke? Can we offer them a safe haven? ”The commander explained to me that he was asked to accompany members of the government and the perpetrators of the genocide to the borders of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). We would like to stop them but we have orders to accompany them to the border. We have questions. Just in the meantime, I witnessed the arms delivery. I was asked to distract the journalists while the arms convoy was leaving. "

Structures of victims of the Ntarama massacre preserve the memory of the black era in the history of Rwanda (Al Jazeera)

Why am I writing the book?

There was a seminar headed by Paul Kells, and I was participating in it - and what the former officer spoke - and when he heard my testimony, he advised me not to disturb the image that the French carry about our intervention in Rwanda.

It took me 20 years to realize that what we did was wrong and that the policymakers had no intention of taking responsibility.

Soon after, I was threatened with informing me that it would be better not to lose my job, but I found it unacceptable that the French did not know what had been decided on their behalf, so I decided to write my testimony, which was published in 2018.

The pursuit of inner peace

And Ansell answers the question at the end of the interview about whether he feels at peace with himself, adding, "I will not be until we allow the French to judge for themselves what happened. The archive must be opened to all researchers, not some of them. The Doclear report is only one step," "But it is important. It allows the president to publicly acknowledge the failure of the Elysee. But we still have to fully analyze the facts, explain why we protect the perpetrators of the genocide, and the role of the army."

"I also find it embarrassing that we are not talking about moral and political complicity in the genocide, even if it is clear that there was no complicity in the legal sense. In any case, this political desire must continue to search for the truth."

A heavy responsibility

According to a statement by the Elysee Palace issued on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron received Vincent Duclair, head of the national commission established to investigate France's role in the genocide in Rwanda.

Macron during his meeting with Vincent Duclair, Chairman of the National Commission to Investigate France's Role in the Genocide in Rwanda (Reuters)

The official report concluded that France bears great and grave responsibility for the genocide against the Tutsi minority in Rwanda in 1994, through its alliance with the Hutu regime in power in the country.

According to the report submitted by a committee of historians to President Emmanuel Macron, France deliberately provided substantial and continuous military support to the then President of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana, despite his racist policy that encouraged the commission of crimes against this minority.

The report said that France - which intervened strongly in Rwanda - bears "a great and grave responsibility" in the events that led to the genocide against the Tutsi minority, and the conclusions of the report spoke about "France's gap in Rwanda," noting that "nothing proves its complicity." In extermination.

But the report accused the French authorities of turning a blind eye to preparations for the commission of those crimes, which claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people, according to a report issued by the United Nations.

The committee referred to the French failures between 1990 and 1994 when former Socialist President Francois Mitterrand was in power, and said that France "adapted" to the government in Rwanda at that time and did not change its position until it was too late.

In his comment, President Macron said that the report represents a big step forward in order to understand and define the nature of the role played by France in this country, stressing that it encourages the continuation of research efforts in order to uncover the facts and preserve memory about the genocide in Ronda.