France in Rwanda. Guilty neutrality

The CRASH team invited you to the screening-debate “France in Rwanda. Guilty neutrality” on Monday 11th of February 2019 from 6 to 8pm, in the 1rst floor room of the 8 rue Saint-Sabin. A documentary film by Robert Genoud and Claudine Vidal (Director Emeritus for research at the CNRS, member of the CRASH scientific committee at MSF), and produced by EUP. Before and after the screening, Claudine Vidal and Jean-Hervé Bradol, both actors of MSF mobilization between 1994 and 1998 launched the discussion.

In Rwanda, the genocide against the Tutsis started in April 1994. Twenty-five years ago. In 1998, in Paris, the National Assembly launched a fact-finding campaign on the military operations led in Rwanda by France, other countries and the UN, between 1990 and 1994Column “For a parliamentary commission of inquiry on the role of France between 1990 and 1994. In Rwanda, what France? ” Published on March 3rd 1998 in Libération..The meetings were mostly public, several MSF members were constantly attending and reported immediately on the Internet. Following this active watch, it was decided to produce a movie: an inquiry, an observation of the parliamentary work, along with a retelling of the positions held by MSF, the military and political commitments in France, the reactions they elicited, and finally the humanitarian practices between 1990 and 1994. 

This movie calls for questions that still hold relevance today, at least at MSF: on the appropriateness of calls for parliamentary inquiries along with the publicity around the debates and documents; on the alerts to the risks of mass crimes and on public usage of said alerts; on the ability of humanitarian teams to intervene during episodes of extreme violence; on the necessary situational inquiries and short stories to which MSF must commit to understand the events and potentially anticipate the worst.