Paris, 3 October 2024. The Court will examine on what Mr. Onana wrote in its book, "Rwanda, la verité sur l’opération turquoise" (Paris, 2019, Toucan editions). The three organisations considered that the author was at the source of denialist statements, denying the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, especially when he says: "if it were still necessary, that the conspiracy theory of the Hutu regime having planned a "genocide" in Rwanda is one of the most fraudulent of the twentieth century" (page 198).
The events to which Mr. Onana refers, have been recognised as genocide by international and national courts and by historians.
FIDH is an independent organisation
Faced with attempts to undermine its credibility and the validity of this legal action, FIDH recalls that it is an organisation independent of any government. FIDH criticises all authoritarian regimes and supports all victims of human rights violations. Therefore, FIDH has on numerous occasions denounced the human rights violations committed by Paul Kagame’s regime, both within Rwanda and beyond its borders.
The latest FIDH report on Rwanda condemns the shrinking of civic space in favour of Paul Kagame’s party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front. In June 2023, following a very long analytical article with the same observation, FIDH has published a press release denouncing Rwanda’s role in destabilising of the north-eastern region of the DRC. Regularly, FIDH highlights in media the crimes and human rights violations made by the Rwandan government.
Since 1993, FIDH has been one of the first organisations to raise the alarm about the ongoing genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Furthermore, FIDH has never ceased to seek accountability, including the one of the French army, as this article published on the 30th anniversary of the genocide shows.
Denouncing denial of the genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda, doesn’t imply the support of the Rwandan regime at power, nor does it preclude criticisms of the human rights violations committed by that same regime.