President Kagame brings a new message to 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 the both countries. This visit goes beyond the commercial contracts. The official visit of the President Kagame in France, at the invitation of President Sarkozy, is an obvious gesture of the sovereignty of Rwanda. It means:  » Our two countries speak of equal in equal ». And this fact pains the ordinary mentalities of Françafrique.

Note that these relations had been interrupted during three years, on the initiative of Rwanda, further to mandates, legally and politically disastrous, thrown by a French judge against Rwandan personnalities of high rank. After Kouchner and Guéant, the president Sarkozy went himself to Rwanda to confess, in the form of excuses « errors » and « blindly » which led France to get involved in the process of the genocide of 1994.

The purposes of reconciliation of Sarkozy in Kigali had raised the indignation of the servicemen and the French politicians who where in office during aforementioned genocide. Because it is definitely them who represented the « blindly » of France before, hanging and after the 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 received by the president Sarkozy on the flight of steps of the presidential Palace.

Actual minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Alain Juppé, will be away. He didn’t hesitate to demonstrate his hostility to the visit of Paul Kagame, by these virile purposes, but ô babyish!: « I cannot shake the hand of that man ». The protocol and 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 Juppé ».

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 the French army is mucked up. France is mucked up ».

Farther, regarding genocide, the general says : it is « 200,000 deaths maximum ».

I don’t know the state of mental health of the general Tauzin, but its ideas call two conclusions « minimum »:

1. The invitation of the French President to his Rwandan counterpart « mucks up » France and its all army, asserts the general.

2. « 200.000 deaths maximum » at the farthest head of the general Tauzin. Is it pure ideological revisionism or did he perform a real counting of bodies, since he was on place ?

Are the clumsy and violent recriminations against the diplomatic action of President Sarkozy by his Minister of Foreign Affairs, a simple cacophony or a cooperation not confessed with his boss? Whatever the questions raised by the statements of some prominent French colonialists, the line and the purposes of Paul Kagame can not be altered by gossip, even hate and contempt. His visit in France is part of his action, in interest of Rwanda.

To the question of « Jeune Afrique »: « Who is the man Kagame? », the Senegalese writer Boubacar Diop said: « He has character and his leading role was decisive after genocide. If certain hate him in so irrational way, it is because they expect from an African Head of State that he is hedonist, corrupted and especially obeing to their orders. Kagame corresponds in no way to this picture ». (June 10, 2011).

Elsewhere, regarding the Ivory Coast, Kagame himself declares:  » The fact that, fifty years after independence, destiny of people of the Ivory Caost, but also its economy, its currency, its political life, are still controlled by the ancient colonial potency, poses problem. The more I look at [the Ivory Coast], and the more I see the shade of foreign movie director ». (« Jeune Afrique », May 15, 2011).

Here is the man who’s hated and feared by Alain Juppé, General Tauzin and their friends: Kagame could be a good example of leadership in Africa. An example of autonomy. Paul Kagame will fulfil an official trip in the respect wich demands strict reciprocity.

This text has been corrected on September 9, 2011.

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