\u00a0Brussels, 28 May 2007 (FH) \u2013 The Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, in spite of having been cited by the Defence of Bernard Ntuyahaga, accused, before the Court of Assizes, the former Rwandan officer of having participated in the killing of the ten Belgian blue helmets in 1994 in Kigali. \u00a0\u00a0Guy Verhofstadt was cited as a reporter and as the vice-President of a senatorial commission in 1997 which was in charge with investigating the responsibilities of Belgian political and military authorities during the genocide of 1994. \u00a0\u00a0Mr. De Temmerman questioned the Prime Minister about the perpetrators of the attack of 6 April 1994 on the plane of President Juv\u00e9nal Habyarimana on the eve of the genocide which caused between 800,000 and 1 million deaths. \u00a0\u00a0According to him, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) of the current President Paul Kagame is the instigator of the attack, presented as the \u201ctrigger\u201d of the genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda. \u201cI have always said that if the blue helmets died, it\u2019s due to the ones who shot and caused chaos in the country\u201d, the lawyer explained. \u00a0\u00a0\u201cSaying that the one who shot is responsible for the death of the Blue helmets as well as for the genocide is a very short-sighted reasoning\u201d, Mr. Verhofstadt answered. Concerning the attack, he recalled that the lead of the FPR was \u201cone of the hypothesis, among other ones\u201d examined by the Commission of the Senate. \u00a0\u00a0The Prime Minister implicitly suspected Mr. De Temmerman of \u201cnegationism\u201d: \u201cThis argument basically denies that the genocide had been prepared and planned, with the purchase of weapons, the mobilization of people, propaganda of media\u2026 There is a word for not accepting those facts\u201d, he countered. \u00a0\u00a0\u201cIf the death of the blue helmets is linked to the attack, it is due to the rumour that they participated in it: They were killed because of that\u201d, the Prime Minister added. \u00a0\u00a0Then he referred to testimonies included in the report of the Senate, according to which Bernard Ntuyahaga received orders to disarm the Blue helmets and to bring them to the military camp of Kigali, where he then incited soldiers to hang them, by presenting them as being responsible for the attack. \u201cThis is not hypothetical, it is a fact, from eye-witnesses\u201d, Mr. Verhofstadt insisted. \u00a0\u00a0Bernard Ntuyahaga always denied any responsibility in the death of the blue helmets. He just brought them to the camp after having perchance met them near the residence of Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana they were in charge with escorting on 7 April morning. \u00a0\u00a0The death of Belgian commando led to the retreat of the Belgian contingent, the most operational one of the UNMIAR. \u201cIf the blue helmets hadn\u2019t been killed, I think we would have stayed and we could have saved a lot of people\u201d, Mr. Verhofstadt said. In 2000, he had presented apologies to Rwanda \u201cfor the attitude of Belgium and the international community\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0Heard earlier that day, the Prime Minister at that time, Jean-Luc Dehaene, said that there was \u201cno reason for Belgium to apologize\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0According to him, the responsibility for the Belgian retreat lies within the United Nations. \u201cWhen the UN decided not to strengthen the UNMIAR\u2019s mandate - which was already maladapted at that time - although we claim for it, we decided to withdraw our troops\u201d, he stated, adding that: \u201cI would have preferred that the international community, via the UN, presented apologies, rather than a small country which did what it could do\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0In accordance with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence at that time, Willy Claes and L\u00e9o Delcroix, he estimates that the information they had did not enable them to anticipate the organization and the later realization of a genocide: \u201cThe situation was very serious, but the genocide is an interpretation made afterwards\u201d, Willy Claes holds. Mr. Cl\u00e9ment, lawyer of the civil party, denounced a tranquilizing speech, full of self-satisfaction\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0On the contrary, Mr. Verhofstadt pointed out the \u201cbad approaches and decisions\u201d of the Belgian authorities which, according to him, conducted \u201clobbying\u201d before the Security Council of the United Nations, in order to retreat after the death of the blue helmets. \u201cBut unfortunately, I don\u2019t think that I would have taken a different decision at that time. That\u2019s the terrible thing about politics: the possibility of committing such big mistakes\u201d, he recognized. \u00a0\u00a0BF\/PB\/CV \u00a0\u00a9 Hirondelle News Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0Brussels, 28 May 2007 (FH) \u2013 The Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, in spite of having been cited by the Defence of Bernard Ntuyahaga, accused, before the Court of Assizes, the former Rwandan officer of having participated in the killing of the ten Belgian blue helmets in 1994 in Kigali. \u00a0\u00a0Guy Verhofstadt was cited as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-18739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirondellenews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n