Rwanda vs France: What the Hell?

This keeps on getting weirder. Rose Kabuye, Rwanda's chief of protocol (no idea but it sounds important), is in front of a French judge now facing charges of inciting genocide. The thing is, this Tutsi and former Rwandan Patriotic Front member is widely regarded as having ended the genocide against her people.

She, along with president Kagame and anyone else in the former RPF leadership is charged by a French court for shooting down the plane that killed former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana. This is widely regarded as the excuse the Hutu power movement used to start massacring Tutsis in '94. The evidence, I'm told, is slim but let's just say, for the sake of argument, they're guilty.

The Rwandans (and a surprising number of French and international journalists, academics, soldiers and eyewitnesses) claim that the French are far more responsible for the genocide than they admit, calling for the arrests of former president Mitterand and other French politicians for aiding the Hutu Power movement prior to and through the height of the killings. The French are accused of supporting the genocidaires with a military intervention (called, of course, a humanitarian mission) and providing arms to the Hutu militias. Mitterand is commonly quoted as saying “a genocide in a place like Rwanda is no big deal” though this seems suspect. The evidence here is not slim, having been noted all over the place by just about everyone with a clear view of the conflict, except, of course, the mainstream media. Let's also assume France is guilty.

So the RPF, Tutsi exiles who eventually invaded Rwanda stopping the genocide and installing the current dictatorship, killed president Juvenal Habyarimana. Makes sense. Isn't that the point of a rebel group?

The French, a powerful capitalist state with important strategic interests in Sub Saharan Africa, militarily intervened in the conflict for their own economic good. Again, isn't that the point of the capitalist state: to promote its interests?

So both guilty parties did precisely what they were meant to do. Now France has dragged this Tutsi woman in front of a court accusing her of shooting the plane that sparked the Hutus to kill her people as an excuse to invade with the RPF. What the hell?

Even if she is guilty of the assassination how does that make her guilty of a totally premeditated, French funded, GENOCIDE against her own ethnic group. Amazing. What's the line again: "we condemn the apathy of the international community." What bullshit.

Update, now the Rwandan exile who is responsible for the statements from which the charge against Kabuye stems is denying the whole thing.