Rwanda ‘ s Liberation
On France ’ s Half-Admission of Guilt , Time is Truth ’ s Greatest Friend
Lionel Manzi
President Paul Kagame , Meeting with Commission Duclert | Paris , 18 May 2021
As I reflected on President Emmanuel Macron ’ s recent visit to Rwanda , a saying which I once stumbled upon came to mind : “ The greatest friend of Truth is time , her greatest enemy is Prejudice , and her constant companion is Humility .” Indeed , the truth about France ’ s role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis has , for years , struggled to find its rightful place in the French society . On the one hand , many French continue to have a hard time reconciling the tales and myths around France ’ s “ enlightened ” civilization with the reality of their government ’ s complicity in the most heinous crime against humanity . On the other hand , racial prejudice , which adds insult to the injury of denying the humanity of genocide victims and survivors , distorts analytical frameworks by granting the benefit of the doubt to a government whose guilt would have been established decades ago had it not been a western superpower . But time is undoubtedly truth ’ s greatest friend ; and resilience , ideological clarity , humility and wisdom , among many other liberation values , have played an essential role in rendering France ’ s admission of guilt , albeit half-hearted , inevitable .
When , in 2015 , the then Rwanda ’ s head of the National Intelligence and Security Services , Lieutenant-General Karenzi Karake , was arrested by UK authorities , in yet another episode that demonstrates the west ’ s continued support to genocidal forces in their quest to criminalize the RPF-led government , President Kagame rightly underscored that such efforts would not produce their intended outcome for a number of reasons .
“ First it is France , second it is Spain , now third it is the UK … I think it is good . I really feel happy that of all , people , it happens to us , Rwandans . Maybe if it had happened somewhere else , it would just disappear . But here , it is happening to the right people . The right people who want to stand up to this and who will always stand up to this … We don ’ t have the power of wealth , of military strength , of technology , of all kinds of things that these countries have or pride in , but we have one thing or a couple of things … We have the power of resilience ,” President Kagame said . His speech was a stern condemnation of these manoeuvres and manipulations whose ultimate objective was , and still
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