\n French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday launched a bid to end a two-decade dispute with Rwanda over its 1994 genocide by appointing experts to shed light on the murky subject of France's actions in the country during the massacres.\n<\/p>\n
\n In a major development marking the 25th anniversary of the genocide, in which over 800,000 mostly Tutsi people were slaughtered, the French leader announced the creation of a commission of historians and researchers that will delve into the state's archives.\n<\/p>\n
\n The eight-strong team \"will be tasked with consulting all France's archives relating to the genocide... in order to analyse the role and engagement of France during that period,\" the presidency said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rwanda accuses France of having supported the ethnic Hutu forces behind most of the killing and of helping some of the perpetrators to escape, allegations Paris rejects.\n<\/p>\n
\n Friday's announcement was timed to coincide with a meeting between Macron and the Ibuka association of genocide survivors, the first such encounter with a French president.\n<\/p>\n
\n It comes a little over six months after Macron threw open the archives on another controversial chapter in French history relating to the 1954-1962 independence war with former colony Algeria.\n<\/p>\n
\n But it was unlikely to dispel the disappointment Macron caused among genocide survivors by turning down an invitation from Rwandan President Paul Kagame to attend this weekend's commemorations in Rwanda.\n<\/p>\n
\n The presidency cited scheduling difficulties and sent a young MP of Rwandan origin instead.\n<\/p>\n
\n Marcel Kabanda, the 62-year-old president of Ibuka France whose family was wiped out in the Rwandan genocide, hailed the creation of the commission as a \"strong gesture\".\n<\/p>\n
\n But he also urged caution.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We have often been disappointed, we have often been betrayed,\" referring to a 2015 promise by then president Francois Hollande to open the state's archives on the genocide which ended up being very limited in scope.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Hunting genocide suspects -\n<\/p>\n
\n The French presidency said historians would take two years to study the entire period from 1990 to 1994 to \"contribute to a better understanding and knowledge of the genocide of Tutsis\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Their findings will be used in material used to teach children in France about the genocide, the presidency added.\n<\/p>\n
\n The moves aim to definitively turn the page on quarter of a century of acrimony and mutual recrimination between France and Rwanda.\n<\/p>\n
\n Paris has always denied being complicit in the genocide, saying that UN-mandated French soldiers deployed in Rwanda in the final weeks of the genocide did their best under difficult circumstances.\n<\/p>\n
\n The perceived foot-dragging by France on bringing genocide suspects living in France to justice also aggravated the tensions.\n<\/p>\n
\n Macron announced Friday he would boost the judicial unit in charge of investigating Rwandan genocide cases so that suspects \"could be tried in a reasonable amount of time\".\n<\/p>\n
\n - Confronting France's past -\n<\/p>\n
\n Franco-Rwandan relations hit their lowest point in 2006 after a French judge recommended that Kagame be prosecuted by a UN-backed tribunal over the 1994 killing of Rwanda's president Juvenal Habyarimana, a moderate Hutu whose death triggered the start of the genocide.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebel force that eventually overthrew the genocidal Hutu regime, promptly broke off ties with France for three years.\n<\/p>\n
\n The turning point came in 2010 when former president Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged during a visit to Kigali that France had made \"serious errors of judgement\" in Rwanda.\n<\/p>\n
\n While falling short of an apology it was seen as a breakthrough in Rwanda, a former Belgian colony which France had jealously defended before the genocide as part of its sphere of influence in Africa.\n<\/p>\n
\n The relationship again hit turbulence under Hollande, but Macron's election set the stage for a new chapter.\n<\/p>\n
\n During a visit to Paris last year Kagame praised the 41-year-old Frenchman for taking a \"fresher\", less paternalistic approach to Africa than his forerunners.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It's a change from the neo-colonial positions of the past,\" he told Jeune Afrique magazine.\n<\/p>\n
\n Macron has presented himself as the representative of a new generation of politician unafraid to shine a light on France's past.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last September he acknowledged that France had instigated a system that facilitated torture during Algeria's 1954-1962 independence war, a conflict that also remains hugely emotive in France.\n<\/p>\n
\n He also announced that France would open up its archives on the thousands of civilians and soldiers who went missing during that war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday launched a bid to end a two-decade dispute with Rwanda over its 1994 genocide by appointing experts to shed light on the murky subject of France's actions in the country during the massacres. In a major development marking the 25th anniversary of the genocide, in which over 800,000 mostly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-40874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n