The Rwandan government last night interpreted the long awaited French ballistics report on who shot down the Presidential plane that triggered the genocide in 1994, as exonerating itself entirely.

By Franck Petit

“With this report ends 17 years of manipulation, distortion of the truth and of a campaign against the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) that aimed to deny the genocide. This report is going to sanitize and reinforce the relationship between France and Rwanda”, declared the Rwandan ambassador in France Jacques Kabale.

The diplomat waited in person on Tuesday afternoon at the Parisian Justice Palace for the results of long awaited ballistic expertise on the plane attack that sparked the horrific violence of April-June 1994.

Six experts – in geometry, ballistics, explosives, arson and acoustics – selected by judges Marc Trévidic and Nathalie Poux, explained their conclusions during more than three hours in closed session, sixteen months after their investigations in Kigali in September 2010. There was no official confirmation of the  report's conclusions and the judicial inquiry continues, but it “definitely exonerates the RPF”, said Kabale.

According to Bernard Maingain, one of the RPF defence lawyers attending the hearing, experts said missiles shot at former President Habyarimana’s plane on 6 April 1994 were “extremely likely to come from the Kanombe camp”, held by the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR). It is alternatively “largely excluded” that they could have been fired from a site known as the ‘Masaka farm’ by the RPF Tutsis rebels, as the same French investigation had suggested under the reign of now retired Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière.

Kigali’s praise

Bruguière launched in November 2006 eight arrest warrants against RPF officials close to the current Rwandan president Paul Kagame In retaliation, Kigali broke off diplomatic relations with Paris for three years, before current president Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded in reinstating them. The presence of the Rwandan ambassador yesterday inside the Parisian justice hall was a clear symbol of that successful reconciliation. “For the Rwandan people, today’s report concludes a high quality investigation, required by impeccable French magistrates and driven by internationally renowned experts”, said the Rwandan government in a swiftly released press statement. Such positive energy from Kigali to Paris is rare.

First the experts confirmed yesterday what the Bruguière investigation had already said: the missiles fired at Habyarimana’s plane were two Russian-made surface-to-air portable Sa-16s. Then, the ballistics experts studied six possible trajectories, narrowed down to two - both of which came from the Kanombe camp, lead by the predominantly Hutu Rwandan army forces. The acoustics expert, who was called a year after the other five experts, played a decisive role. Studying how sounds could diffuse on the Kanombe airport site, he assured the court that the sounds heard by the two witnesses came from camp Kanombe and could not come from the too distant Masaka farm.

“Many [from the RPF side] claim victory after the release of the report. But there are still elements that need confirmation and further questioning”, said Habyarimana’s family lawyer Philippe Meilhac. “The kind of Russian missiles that have been fired needed some training and expertise that everybody knows we couldn’t find at the time inside the Rwandan army. Also, the acoustics expert largely changed the initial conclusions and gave a definitive orientation to the conclusions of the report, towards camp Kanombe. All of the parties to the proceedings now have three months to file observations and requests, which means that the report we have been given now might not be in its definitive version.”

Who carried out the attack?

“To me there is no doubt: the RPF can’t be responsible for the attack that led to the genocide”, said defence lawyer Bernard Maingain.

“We want the people responsible for the genocide found and punished”, declared French President Nicolas Sarkozy on 25 February 2010 in Kigali, Rwanda. Nearly eighteen years after the genocide, the only certainty is a fresh reconciliation between the two formerly bickering states.