Protesting at what they insist is France's role in their nation's genocide, Rwandans from all walks of life have united in fury at calls last week by a French judge for their President Paul Kagame to be arrested.
Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in anger at the allegation Kagame and nine of his aides were behind the downing of a plane carrying his predecessor in 1994 - the event that unleashed the slaughter of some 800,000 people.
"It is actually proving to be a uniting factor for Rwanda," Emmanuel Kamasa, a lecturer at the School of Finance and Banking in the capital Kigali, told Reuters. "Look at the people protesting: it is a combination of both Hutus and Tutsis, and not just the genocide survivors."
Many Rwandans say the West turned a blind eye to the killings, which targeted minority ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. And worse - Rwanda has accused France of training soldiers it knew were plotting to commit massacres.
France has denied any wrongdoing. After French anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere called for Kagame to stand trial, Kigali severed diplomatic ties with Paris, closed a French school and entertainment centre and stopped FM broadcasts by Radio France International.
"It is not a secret that had the French not been here, a genocide probably would not have occurred," said Antoinette Murerwa, a half-Hutu survivor whose Tutsi mother was killed.
"Now how does the world just keep silent as the French try to destroy again what we have built?" she asked, demonstrating near the French embassy and waving a placard: "We are tired of bullies. France keep off the affairs of Rwanda."
"MORAL GROUND" Local radio airwaves crackle with talk shows castigating the French, newspaper headlines criticise Paris, and state-owned television has started re-broadcasting genocide documentaries - which are normally reserved for a week of mourning each April. "There is nothing to hide about the French role in the genocide," said one survivor of the killings, Pierre Niyonshuti.
"Their support for the Hutu extremists was open and in broad daylight. They have panicked because their dirt was about to be exposed in the on-going probe commission," he told Reuters. Rwanda set up an investigation last month into any French role in the genocide - which officials say could lead to a legal action before the International Court of Justice.
Kagame has always blamed Hutu extremists for shooting down the plane carrying Juvenal Habyarimana because they were angry with the former leader for talking to Kagame's Tutsi rebels. Judge Bruguiere's investigation followed a complaint by the families of the French crew flying the aircraft and Habyarimana's widow Agathe.
Kagame, who is revered by many survivors after his rebels stopped the genocide, has immunity under French law. Bruguiere's calls for a UN tribunal to try him have incensed his fans. "France has no moral ground to stand on," said one protesting student, Epimaque Gatare. "They are simply guilty."
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