France must face 'difficult truth'
Rwanda on Sunday called on France to face up to the "difficult truth" of its role in the 1994 genocide, amid a diplomatic spat ahead of commemorations marking the 20th anniversary of the killings.
"For our two countries to really start getting along, we will have to face the truth, the truth is difficult, the truth of being close to anybody who is associated with genocide understandably is a very difficult truth to accept," Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said.
She said is was "impossible for our two countries to move forward if the condition is that Rwanda has to forget its history in order to get along with France."
The French government announced that it was pulling out of today's commemorations after Rwandan President Paul Kagame again accused France, an ally of the Hutu nationalist government prior to the 1994 killings.
A total 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the four-month killing spree triggered by the assassination of Rwanda's Hutu president Juvénal Habyarimana.
Paris has repeatedly denied the accusations and insisted that French forces had striven to protect civilians.
The French foreign minister at the time of the 1994 massacres, Alain Juppé, said Kagame's comments were a "falsification of history".
Kagame notably said that France had not "done enough to save lives" by mounting Operation Turquoise in the west of the country, and had not only been complicit but "an actor" in the massacre of Tutsis.
Juppé said it was "intolerable that we are being designated as the main culprits." He urged the French president, François Hollande, and the government to "defend without ambiguity the honour of France, and of its army and diplomats".
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