Commentaire
This Restricted Council is held on the eve of the entry of the soldiers of Operation Turquoise into Rwanda. François Mitterrand would like a "brief ‘punch-style’" intervention. It is therefore a military operation in force and he asks if the RPF is "able to oppose it militarily". He has this terrible phrase: "Our intervention does not seem desired by anyone, even by those whom we want to save. No doubt they prefer that there are no witnesses to their victory. Thus he recognizes that this operation intended to save Tutsi could also contest the victory of the RPF. Admiral Lanxade, Chief of Staff, says: "We have very little information on the part taken by the RPF. The vacuum was made by the Tutsis". Also identifying the Tutsi with the enemy RPF, Mitterrand continues: "The Tutsis are going to establish a military dictatorship to impose themselves durably". And he concludes: "A dictatorship based on ten percent of the population will rule with new massacres". Lanxade exposes the connivance with the perpetrators of the genocide saying: "One of the problems is establishing technical contact with the F.A.R. maintaining reduced visibility". François Léotard, Minister of Defence, affirms that "the RPF is trying to completely take over Kigali and is making an effort on Butare and Kibuye". This announcement of an RPF offensive on Kibuye will prove to be false. It takes up the propaganda of the Rwandan interim government which assimilates to infiltrated RPF combatants the Tutsi survivors who are still resisting their killers in Bisesero, in the government zone. François Mitterrand flabbergasted by recalling that "we must not fail to denounce the genocide perpetrated by the Hutus". He attributes it to a fit of madness.
