French President asks Rwandans to forgive France for 1994 genocide: Current Affairs Special Series

Team Adda247 and BankersAdda are here with a Current Affairs Special Series. In this series, candidates will be introduced to current affairs topics daily, which will not only improve their general awareness but also will ensure that the candidates do not lack in any current affairs topic. Today’s Current Affairs topic is French President asks Rwandans to forgive France for 1994 genocide.

French President asks Rwandans to forgive France for the 1994 genocide

French President Emmanuel Macron has asked Rwandans to forgive France for its role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which about 8 lakh ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus died. 

What is Genocide? 

The intention or systematic plan of the killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or a particular group is called ‘Genocide’.  

French President Macron said at the genocide memorial in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, where more than 2.5 lakh victims are buried, that France had not paid attention to warnings of threatening slaughter and had for too long valued silence over the examination of the truth. President of Rwanda Pual Kagame said, his words were something more valuable than an apology.

In March French expert commission found that France had borne heavy and overwhelming responsibility for the genocide under the late president Francois Mitterrand but had not been complicit. 

In 2015, then-president Francois Hollande announced that the Rwanda chronicles would be declassified but two years later, after a researcher sought permission to study them, France’s Constitutional Council ruled that they should remain secret. 

President Macron got going the new inquiry, which allows experts to study French official files from the time. 

About Rwandan genocide in 1994 :

The Rwandan genocide occurred during the Rwandan civil war in 1994. Members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed militias during 100 days of this period of time. The intensity and brutality of the genocide caused shock worldwide, but no country interfered to forcefully stop the killings.