"To claim that all the testimonies imply negationnism or manipulation on behalf of France which wants to hide its role in the genocide, is a pure lie. [...] It is the French, who became friendly with Habyarimana and his entourage, who made it so that I am an orphan [...] At which price, thus, can I forget the death of my father, my mother, my six brothers and sisters and those of my other family members? Which genius can invent a similar story? What I say is authentic. [...] Kagame calls it revisionism while knowing that he is the one who started this genocide, and who made it possible", said Abdul Ruzibiza.
"Since this cry of anger and this oath of sincerity, estimated Vidal and Guichaoua, Ruzibiza has not varied his account, whether it is in his book, during his testimony at the ICTR, or to many international media. Today, they write, Ruzibiza states that his preceding testimonies were "made up" and that this applies to the book which he attests to have written and which we wrote, one, the preface and, the other, the epilogue".
"We remind, however, that this book has 494 pages which only 15 pages are devoted to the attack against the plane of President Habyarimana. In his statements, Ruzibiza intervenes only on this episode to affirm that on this subject he made up everything. We had, however, the occasion to verify, before the publication of this work, that a number of information given by the author were also given by other testimonies, others that those known by Ruzibiza.
Today we are not convinced that Ruzibiza can prove that he lied about everything since 2003 and, in particular, before the ICTR, whether it be on the attack or on other points. As for the motives of Ruzibiza's retraction, the two French academics added, we only know what he said and that we do not have to discuss it. It belongs to the concerned courts to react to this claim of false testimony", write Guichaoua and Claudine Vidal.
PB/MM/SC/GF
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