President Kagame brings a new message to France and Africa
By Laurent Rukwavu
The importance of the official trip which the Rwandan President gets ready to perform in France is not blindingly obvious. This visit is more worth than a simple chase of the normalization of relations between both countries. This visit goes beyond the commercials contracts. The official visit of the president Kagame in France at the invitation of the president Sarkozy is an obvious sign of the sovereignty of Rwanda. It means: » Our two countries speak of equal inequal « . And this fact pains the ordinary mentalities of Françafrique.
Note that these relations had been interrupted during three years, onthe initiative of Rwanda, further to mandates, legally and politicallydisastrous, thrown by a French judge against Rwandan personalities ofhigh rank. After Kouchner and Guéant, the president Sarkozy wenthimself to Rwanda to confess, in the form of excuses, « errors » and « blindly » which led France to get involved in the process of thegenocide of 1994.The purposes of reconciliation of Sarkozy in Kigali had raised theindignation of the servicemen and the French politicians who were inoffice during aforementioned genocide. Because it is definitely themwho represented the « blindly » of France before, hanging and afterthe genocide of Batutsi of Rwanda.
These same men, generals and ancient ministers, are sickened literally by the idea of the picture of the president Kagame today
accepting the military honours of the « Garde Républicaine » before being
received by the president Sarkozy on the flight of steps of the
presidential Palace.
Actual minister of Foreign Affairs of Sarkozy, Mr Alain Juppé, will be away. He didn’t
hesitate to demonstrate its hostility to the visit of Paul Kagame by
these virile purposes, but ô how babyish!: » I cannot shake the hand
of this man « . The protocol and the usage, in France, who want
minister of Foreign Affairs to be beside the President to receive a
foreign presidential deputation were swept just like that of contempt
by the Minister of State, Alain Juppé. Having learnt the insulting
words of Juppé, the President of Rwanda had this replica, courtesy of
France and its President, but scathing to the Minister, « the policy of
France is not just to Alain Juppe. »
To the rescue of the minister, a general in retirement, Didier Tauzin,
declares in the daily » Sud-Ouest » of August 29, 2011 regarding
visit of Paul Kagame: » I am mucked up All French army is mucked up.
France is mucked up « . Farther, regarding genocide, the general says:
it is » 200 000 deaths maximum « .
I do not know the state of mental health of the general Tauzin, but
its purposes call two conclusions « minimum « :
1. The invitation of the French President to his Rwandan counterpart »mucks up » France and all its army, asserts the general Tauzin.2. » 200 000 deaths » at the farthest in the head of the generalTauzin: is it pure ideological revisionism or did it perform a realcounting of bodies, since he was on place?
Are the clumsy and violent recriminations against the diplomaticaction of the president of the French Republic by a Minister of State,minister of Foreign Affairs, a simple cacophony or a cooperation notconfessed with his boss? Whatever the questions raised by the statements of some prominentFrench colonialists, the line of Paul Kagame can be altered by gossip,even hate and contempt.His visit in France is part of its action, in interest of its country. To the question of « Jeune Afrique », » Who is the man Kagame? « , theSenegalese writer Boubacar Diop said: » He has character, and itsleading role was decisive after genocide. If certain hate him in soirrational way, it is because they expect from an Africain head ofstate that he is hedonist, corrupt and especially tame. Kagamecorresponds in no way to this picture. » (In 10.06.2011, interview). Elsewhere, regarding the Ivory Coast, Kagame himself declares: » Thefact that, fifty years after independence, destiny of the people ofthe Ivory Coast, but also its economy, its currency, its politicallife, are still controlled by the ancient colonial potency posesproblem. The more I look at [the Ivory Coast], and the more I see theshade of a foreign movie director. » (« Jeune Afrique », 15.05.2011,interview). Here is the man who’s hated and feared by Alain Juppé, the general andtheir friends. This man could be a poor model in colonies. An exampleof absence of docility. Paul Kagame will fulfil an official trip inthe respect which demands strict reciprocity.
