The recent arrest in Frankfurt, Germany, of the chief of protocol of the president of Rwanda, Lieutenant Colonel Rose Kabuye, has brought to a head the protracted political battle between France and Rwanda since the end of the Rwandan genocide and the coming to power of the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front)/RPA (Rwandan Patriotic Army) in 1994.

Her trial will be both about the uses and abuses of international law but unfortunately it may be more of the latter than the former. Who can try whom?

The previous genocidaire regime of President Juvénal Habyarimana was a most trusted French ally even among the abundant French lackeys in Africa of the post-neocolonial/cold war era. France's neocolonial interests in Africa were not just at the economic, political, security and intelligence levels but at personal and social levels with many of the leaders. Many of them denied pluralism and freedom of expression and punished harshly, any indication of dissension to their citizens but when it came to relations with France they were cross party. It did not matter whether it was the conservatives or the 'socialists', whether the government was the result of cohabitation or alliances of the Right or the Left, the francophone leaders maintained their alliance and influence in Paris.

The French establishment also had remarkable continuity in its Africa policy. Habyarimana was a close family friend of former President Mitterrand's son who was also the top advisor to his father on Africa! France had such close relationship with its former colonies that its colonial rival, Britain, envied it. France successfully intervened militarily, changed governments, removed and later restored 'errant' presidents like disposable towels: David Dacko or Jean Bedel Bokassa in the Central African Republic, Hissène Habré in Chad to mention just two countries. London had the same ambitions but was not really as successful as its Parisian cousins. French citizens held senior positions in many of the former French colonies in very sensitive ministries and departments, including security, intelligence, the presidential guards, finance, and defence. It used to be said that the old OAU (Organization of African Unity) was in reality a Franco-Africa Forum. At the height of the cold war the French–Africa summits used to be held in the shadow of the OAU so that whatever consensus the Africans reached could be undone by diktat from Paris. France's claim to being a global power rested on the loyalty of its African neocolonial allies, who with very few exceptions (such as Algeria and Guinea-Conakry, and later radical leaders like Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso, who broke ranks with tragic consequences) would vote for it at the UN Security Council or even in the OAU or ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States). For its part it guaranteed the longevity of the dictators, whether their citizens liked them or not. Even many of the opposition leaders in these countries were of the same frame of mind. They wanted to replace their rivals as the ‘darling of Paris’ and not to renegotiate the unequal terms. A classic case is President Abdoulaye Wade who used to come at election times to taunt former President Senghor, but soon after the election he would retire in Versailles, until the wind of change of the 1990s broke the unholy alliance and France began a forcible retreat from Africa.

'Tiny' Rwanda was one of the first bitter lessons that were to force France to reconsider its neocolonial project in Africa. On the 1 October 1990, rebel Rwandan soldiers who had been refugees in Uganda – and many of them part of the Uganda NRA army (National Resistance Army) – launched attack on Rwanda with the aim of returning to the country where their parents had been forced into exile as a result of genocide aided and abetted by the Belgians and the French. It was a David and Goliath battle and no one gave the rebels any chance. Even their only backer Uganda initially believed that the military pressure was necessary to force the Habyarimana government to negotiate with the rebels, integrate them into the army, and stop the government from discriminating against its own citizens or killing them. No one thought that the RPF/RPA could ever capture power. Hence the negotiations for peace under the auspices of the OAU in Arusha. It was a painstaking process but by the time the final documents were signed in Arusha both the political and military situation had overtaken the negotiations. Extremists within the Akazu (family cabal) that Habyarimana was hostage to accused him giving away too much. There were divisions within the ruling MRND (Mouvement républicain national pour le développement et la démocratie) and the various ruling cliques. It was the blasting furnace of a house divided against itself that Habyarimana was returning to from Arusha (with Burundi's president) when his plane was brought down with parts of it falling on his luscious presidential gardens. Within hours genocide against the minority Tutsi population and non-genocidaire so-called moderate Hutus including the prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and other prominent Hutus began and in 100 days 1,000,000 Rwandans had been slaughtered by the Interahamwe militia with the full backing and orchestration of their own leaders. The state was against its own people.

Against all odds the RPF/RPA ended genocide, defeated the army that was backed by France, Belgium and some African countries in June 1994. To forestall total defeat the French launched Opération Turquoise which provided the defeated army opportunity to regroup while the Interahamwe was able to march people from Rwanda into the Congo. Fugitives and refugees came together and the former held sway in the camps but also had the support of the crumbling state of Mobutu. France could not forgive the RPF/RPA in Rwanda and two years later another French ally, Mobutu, (supposedly leading the largest francophone country in the world!) was removed from power by a coalition of regional military alliance led by Rwanda and Uganda. France could neither save Habyarimana nor Mobutu. Meanwhile post-cold war winds of democratic change were sweeping across the rest of Africa, including former French colonies, making France unsure of its role. It lost its nerves and was no longer able to proclaim its idealism of égalité and fraternité drowned as it was in the blood of innocent Africans as a result of its alliance with some of the most brutal regimes across Africa. Instead of reading the signs of the times it fell back on the colonial default of rivalry with the British and their American cousins. It could not accept that African armies defeated it in both Rwanda and Zaire and was therefore of the view that it must have been the CIA and the British, a smokescreen that many Africans unfortunately swallowed. This is not to say that the British and the Americans and other vested interests were not involved, but the essential root and initial solution to the conflicts were dictated by Africans. The politics of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ later propelled different kinds of convenient alliances. But both Mobutu and Habyarimana were consumed by the fires of xenophobia and genocide that they ignited.

Since 1994 France has been trying to wash its conscience of the genocide in Rwanda through denial and counter-narrative. Finally in 2006 a judge sitting in some obscure village in France issued an indictment against President Kagame and nine other top RPA officials for bringing down Habyarimana's plane. Even if that was true, for which only the French have the evidence, how could the plane crash have led to genocide if genocide was not already being planned? Have people forgotten the famous fax to the UN saying 'we will all be killed' which was never acted upon? The government of Rwanda and its military and political allies in the French and Belgians, the OAU, Bill Clinton's White House, the UK government, the UN, the UN Security Council and most of the powerful people, countries and institutions who could have prevented the genocide failed the people of Rwanda. Some of them are now overcompensating by pouring aid into Rwanda and also by being too cautious or ashamed to lecture Kagame's regime on democracy and human rights. But the French have not only been reluctant to accept their complicity but have also been shamelessly and tirelessly trying to nail Kagame as a means to reverse the defeat he inflicted on them – not once but twice – and accelerating their retreat from Africa. Politically they have continued to provide cover for genocidaire elements who still believe that they could return to power in Kigali.

Whatever our opinion of Kagame's regime we should not be deceived that the French indictments have anything to do with justice. It is the guilt trip of a former imperial power whose hands are drenched with the blood of innocent Africans. But now that they have got Lieutenat Colonel Rose – who went to Germany knowing full well that she could be arrested – it is a challenge to the French to put their much vaunted evidence in the public domain. She has shown extreme courage by insisting that she should be tried in France. The same France that has not cooperated with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha trying the genocidaire suspect leaders is putting all efforts into knowing who killed the chief genocidaire. The same France who along with Belgium and other countries including Germany and some African countries that is still harbouring many of the leaders of the genocide is now indicting those who ended it.

Rwanda has its own list of wanted people and indicted French soldiers and politicians which no one is helping it to enforce, but France can indict and arrest whoever it pleases. What kind of international law is this? And for how long must poachers continue to play game park-keepers? How can there be respect for international law when powerful countries treat its principles like an à la carte menu? Instead of confessing its sins, demonstrating genuine remorse before asking for forgiveness, France is demanding absolution through judicial vendetta.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is general secretary of the Global Pan-African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda, and is also director of Justice Africa, based in London, UK.
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