Portrait of Johan Swinnen
Johan Swinnen, Belgian ambassador in Rwanda from 1990 à 1994. testified in court on 8 October 2024 in favor of Charles Onana’s writings. Swinnen explained in court that he arrived in Rwanda six weeks before the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s first aggression of the country coming from Uganda, and left on the 12 of April 1994.
Swinnen stated that he wrote a 600-page book in 2016 “Rwanda mijn verhaal” (Rwanda, my experience), on his service in the country.
He underlined that he was a staunch believer at the time in the Arusha peace process.
Swinnen criticized the current simplistic, unilateral narrative on the Rwandan genocide which is according to him also reflected in the current Belgian law concerning genocide denial.
He stated his categorical refusal to lock the history of the genocide into a pensée unique, an intellectual orthodoxy, a fabricated narrative which does not tolerate any honest research, any nuance, any questions, especially any criticism of those who attest that the RPF was not searching a peaceful resolution and a power sharing agreement, but wanted all power for themselves, even to the detriment of Tutsis living in Rwanda.
In his words: "The slightest nuance which goes against the conventional wisdom, the pensée unique, is seen today as genocide denial."
Swinenn went on to recall a recent statement of Secretary of State Antony Blinken who clearly spoke of the collective suffering which all Rwandans experienced, the Tutsi, Hutu and Twa. He emphasized that denialists are also found amongst those who refuse to address the entirety of history, and in the pursuing or persecuting people motivated by a concern for truth, justice and sustainable development.
Swinenn asked: “why did the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) take up arms in 1990? and why did it violate the ceasefire in March 1993 and for example encircle Byumba (a city in Northern Rwanda A/N). What message was the RPF putting across through such actions? Furthermore, one million Rwandans were displaced due to the RPF attack in 1990, thus one out of every 7 Rwandans were living in deplorable and inhuman conditions, displaced in their own country.”
The lawyer of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) Patrick Baudouin, one of the plaintiffs, mentioned his own 1993 FIDH and Human Rights Watch report which had alerted on a possible genocide to take place in Rwanda, asking Swinenn to comment on it.
Ambassador Swinenn underscored that this specific FIDH/HRW report did not go into detail into the RPF massacres which were well known, nor the one million people that were displaced due to the RPF attacks. He called for a more holistic approach when addressing the genocide. The former ambassador emphasizes, among other things, that the RPF also had the Muhabura radio station which spewed hate messages, just as the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).
Ambassador Swinenn also underscored that many Tutsi living in Rwanda at the time told him they feared the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Such a damaging statement for the RPF, a statement which should warrent the reopening of all the Arusha tribunal trials, was ignored by the planitiffs.
Referring to Charles Onana’s book on the Operation Turquoise, which is at the center of this trial, Johan Swinnen added: “Nothing in the selected paragraphs justifies an accusation of genocide denial.”
He also underlined that there was a caricatural vision in Rwanda at the time of the division between the French being in favor of Habyarimana and the Belgians in favor of the RPF. Despite this simplistic vision that Belgium was pro-RPF, he was offered by the Rwandan interim government UNAMIR security protection in the aftermath of the assassination of President Habyarimana on the 6th of April, which he refused, considering there were other more urgent protection needs in the city.
Swinenn also stated that the Habyarimana government made too many concessions to the RPF: the RPF were given important posts within the government, as well as within the army where commander positions were shared giving 50% to the RPF and 50% to the Habyarimanan government and overall army posts were split with 40% going to the RPF and 60% to the Habyarimana government. With such advantageous positions given to the RPF during the peace process, Swinnen asks whether the movement actually wanted peace, or if it wanted all power to themselves.
The former ambassador emphasizes the importance of seeking the truth, as many questions still need to be resolved.
Swinenn explained that there are two kinds of trivialization: alongside the trivialization of the genocide, there is also the trivialization of the accusation of contesting the genocide. To those who are moved or indignant at those who plead for more truth and nuance, Johan Swinnen asks not to target the wrong target but to address the real deniers. “Indeed, I note that the slightest question, the slightest nuance or observation against what I call simplism or intellectual orthodoxy gives rise to serious recriminations. “
In a preface written for Congolese geopolitical expert Patrick Mbeko’s Rwanda, Malheur aux Vaincu 1994-2024 (Rwanda, Woe to the Vanquished 1994-2024), Swinnen asks in hindsight :” Was Belgium too harsh with Habyarimana and too accommodating with Kagame?” (p 24)
"Accusations of genocide denial and divisionism betray an incapacity for dialogue when they are less concerned with truth, justice and reconciliation than with the imposition of a catechism of repentance on a significant part of the local population. and the international community", Swinnen adds. (p 27)
He recalls a 2021 article he wrote for Le Soir newspaper with three other experts on the African Great Lakes region, Filip Reyntjens, René Lemarchand and Luc Henkinbrant, The crossing of Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, another form of negationism, as they were appalled by Rwandan pundit Patrick de Saint-Exupéry outright denial of the RPF crimes in Congo : “ It has been almost 25 years since Patrick de Saint-Exupéry and other authors have repeated the infamous accusation of genocide denial against those who, while unreservedly recognizing the crime of genocide against the Tutsis, have the audacity to highlights the mass crimes committed in Rwanda and subsequently in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the Rwandan Patriotic Front's army.” (p 29)
One can not help, knowing Charles Onana's decades long relentless denunciation of the on-going Holocaust in eastern Congo since 1996 and which has seen well over 10 million civilians killed and over 7 million internally displaced, if this French trial is not a part of the same insane and misplaced approach: another form of denial.
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