Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France´s Role in the Rwandan Genocide
Andrew Wallis
FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED
The massacre of 1 million Rwandan Tutsis by ethnic Hutus in 1994 has become a symbol of the international community's helplessness in the face of human rights atrocities. It is assumed that the West was well-intentioned, but ultimately ineffectual. But as Andrew Wallis reveals in this shocking book, one country - France - was secretly providing military, financial and diplomatic support to the genocidaires all along.
Based on new interviews with key players and eye-witnesses, and previously unreleased documents, Walliss' book tells a story which many have suspected, but never seen set out before. France, Wallis discovers, was keen to defend its influence in Africa, even if it meant complicity in genocide, for as French President Francois Mitterrand once said: "in countries like that, genocide is not so important". Wallis's riveting expose of the French role in one of the darkest chapters of human history will provoke furious debate, denials, and outrage.
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About Andrew Wallis
Reviews for Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France´s Role in the Rwandan Genocide
Alex Duval Smith, The Independent
Powerful. Wallis produces plentiful evidence that some French officers were training the Hutus how to capture and tie up prisoners, how to slit their bellies so that their bodies wouldn't float... There is no part of the French past that needs honesty and a clear break more than this.
The Sunday Times
This book indicates the influence exerted by an ex-colonial power as a permanent member of the Security Council. On the difficult road that so many developing countries must travel towards the rule of law and human rights, as in the case of Rwanda, this interference and less than helpful involvement in the denouement of a civil war and genocide by different levels of the French Government is a reflection of self-interest and inept use of what should have been the moral authority of a world power. France could have led the charge to reinforce the UN mission through direct support to the Franco-African nations that were ready to come and stop the human catastrophe and civil war. The French government instead chose to intervene on the side of one off the most ruthless and destructive group of genocidaires in world history.
Romeo Dallaire, Commander of UNAMIR peace-keeping force in Rwanda, 1993-1994
Through the quality of his sources and the rigour of his analysis, Andrew Wallis renders France's complicity in the Rwandan Genocide undeniable.
Mehdia Ba, author of 'Rwanda, Un Genocide Francais'
Wallis leaves no stone unturned in his determination to build his case for complicity. Silent Accomplice sets out a very convincing case against France. The facts, quite frankly, represent an indictment that at some point will have to be answered.
John Honderich, Literary Review of Canada