By James Karuhanga
France, which maintained close ties with the genocidal regime in Rwanda,
has been accused of blocking justice with regard to the 1994 Genocide
against the Tutsi.
Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana
The criticism comes days after a French court ordered a local
administrator to grant a permanent residence to Agathe Kanziga, the
widow of former president Juvenal Habyarimana.
Kanziga is among several prominent members of the former Rwandan regime who are wanted back home on genocide charges.
The Versailles Court of Appeal ordered the Prefect of Essonne to issue
Kanziga with a residence permit after a long legal battle.
Over the past few years, the former First Lady, one of the top Genocide
fugitives living in France, has repeatedly been arrested and released by
French authorities, under circumstances that have baffled rights groups
and French citizens well versed with events of 1994.
Kanziga is suspected of being a key figure in the creation of a clique
of extremists, Akazu, which hatched and executed the Genocide plan.
French national Sharon Courtoux, says that: “For France to be home to so
many Génocidaires, it is primarily because the French government at the
time [1994] had strong ties with the Habyarimana regime. Many former
Rwandan officials studied in France and kept in touch. And then, there
are the links established by the Catholic Church. Father (Wenceslas)
Munyeshyaka was picked up in the Congo in 1994, during a visit there by
French bishops.”
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