A report unveiled by the Rwandan government claims France played an active rol in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. It names 33 French political and military officials and called for them to be put on trial. France dismisses the report stating the inquiry had no independence or impartiality.

Kigali has repeatedly acccused France over it's role in the bloodshed. The latest allegations come with the publication of the report by a Rwandan commission of inquiry set up to investigate France's role in the widespread massacres. "The French support was of a political, military, diplomatic and logistic nature," the report says.

"French forces directly assassinated Tutsis and Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis. French forces committed several rapes on Tutsi survivors," said a justice ministry statement released after the report was presented in Kigali.

The 500-page report alleges that France was aware of preparations for the genocide, contributed to planning the massacres and actively took part in the killing. The 1994 genocide in the central African nation left around 800,000 people dead according to the United Nations, mainly ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu.

Covering up
"The French government's hands are covered with Rwandan blood". The report by the 'Mucyo Commission' indicates that French troops trained Interahamwe militia two years prior to the brutal genocide. The militia and the former extremist government soldiers spearheaded the mass-slaughter and atrocities. But France' s complicity goes beyond the preparations. French soldiers facilitated the genocide in the south-west of Rwanda, the report says. It alleges that French forces did nothing to challenge checkpoints used by Hutu forces in the genocide. "They clearly requested that the Interahamwes continue to man those checkpoints and kill Tutsis attempting to flee," it says.

Former French prime minister Edouard Balladur, former foreign minister Alain Juppe and then-president Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, are among 13 French politicians accused of playing a role in the massacres. Dominique de Villepin, who was then Juppe's top aide and later became prime minister, was also among those listed and the report also names 20 military officials as being responsible.

Kigali has previously accused Paris of covering up its role in training troops and militia who carried out massacres. France denies this and says its forces helped protect people during a UN-sanctioned humanitarian mission in Rwanda at the time,Operation Turquoise.

Prosecutions
Rwanda is calling for prosecutions. "Considering the gravity of the alleged facts, the Rwandan government asks competent authorities to undertake all necessary actions to bring the accused French political and military leaders to answer for their acts before justice," the ministry statement says.

Attached to the report was a list of the 33 accused French officials. Earlier this year France's foreign minister denied French responsibility in connection with the genocide, but acknowledged "political errors" had been made. Relations between Kigali and Paris have been strained since 2006, when French investigators accused Rwanda's President Paul Kagame of former President Juvenal Habyarimana's murder, sparking the genocide in April 1994..

Report
The report was presented by a commission of inquiry, composed of lawyers and historians. It spent two years probing France's alleged role through interviews with survivors and witnesses and submitted its findings to the government last November but it has only now been made public. Rwanda's President Paul Kagame last week already said there was 'strong evidence' of links between France and the extremist Hutu regime in place at the time of the genocide.

France's foreign ministry refused to comment on the new report. A Defence Ministry spokesman declared that the Rwandan inquiry had no "independence or impartiality" because its stated remit was to "gather evidence of the involvement of the French state" in the Rwandan genocide. The inquiry, it stated, had "no legitimacy nor competence" to conduct interviews on French soil because it had broken off diplomatic relations with France in November 2006.