for the Paris court, “no complicity” of the French army can be established in Bisesero
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Seventeen years after the opening of a judicial investigation and twenty-eight years after the facts, the Paris court ordered, Wednesday, September 7, a dismissal of the investigation targeting five French officers in Bisesero, a village from the west of Rwanda. Jean-Rémi Duval, Marin Gillier, Jacques Rosier, Jean-Claude Lafourcade and Etienne Joubert were notably prosecuted for “complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity” for acts that occurred in June 1994, at the end of the genocide of the Tutsi, while the French army was deployed in Rwanda as part of Operation Turquoise.
“Following numerous investigations carried out by ten magistrates successively seized or co-seized, the judges considered, in accordance with the assessment of the Paris public prosecutor’s office, that the elements of the procedure did not establish any complicity by aid or assistance to the forces genocidaires on the hills of Bisesero », prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement. This decision was expected, none of the officers involved having been indicted at the end of the investigation concluded in July 2018, a necessary step before a possible trial.
On the hills of Bisesero one of the most dramatic episodes of the Tutsi genocide took place, which left between 800,000 and 1 million dead in the spring of 1994. Early in the afternoon of June 27, Jean- Rémi Duval and a dozen special forces soldiers ride in a Jeep towards the village. Hundreds of Tutsi refugees then came out of their hiding places, “starving, totally destitute and seriously injured”, according to the instruction, to be healed and saved. Lieutenant-Colonel Duval listens to them, then he turns back with his men. Back in the town of Kibuye, he claims to have alerted his hierarchy to the situation, and in particular Colonel Jacques Rosier, head of special operations, even if the latter disputes it.
When the soldiers returned to Bisesero on June 30, the hills were covered with corpses. In three days, nearly 2,000 Tutsi were exterminated by Interahamwe militiamen and villagers.
“The impression of having been fuses”
“Keeping in mind that the instructions were not to remain on reconnaissance at night, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Rémi Duval, who had […] lightly armed and was not provided with any first aid kit, considered that it was not in a position to ensure the safety of the refugees, indicates the dismissal order, a 101-page document that The world consulted. He therefore did not wish to take the risk of a confrontation with the militias and considered that he could not afford to leave [ses] men at risk of their lives […] Jean-Rémi Duval did not refrain from protecting the refugees of Bisesero to knowingly help or assist the perpetrators and co-perpetrators of the crime of genocide. »
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