The Union of Rwandese Democratic Forces (UFDR), a Coalition formed by the Democratic Forces for Resistance (FRD), the Initiative Group for Reconciliation (GID) and the Rally for the Return of the Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda ( RDR), welcomes the publication of the report of the Independent Commission which was set up in May 1999 by the UN Secretary General, with the mission to establish the UN responsibility during the Rwandan genocide. Better late than never; because as the report points out, it is mandatory that the truth on the Rwandan genocide be known so that what has happened should never happen again, and to restore credibility for Rwanda and the United Nations, and more importantly to contribute to the reconciliation of the Rwandan people.

In its report, the Commission emphases the grave failings of the Security Council, of the UN Secretary General as well as the responsibility of some countries such as the United States, Great Britain, France, and Belgium. On this general point of view, the report constitutes an important element that should have come earlier.

However, this element is particularly useful today, because it corroborates the position many times expressed by UFDR member organisations on one side, and allows on the other side, to understand the disconcerting apathy of the United Nations Organisation and the destabilising role of some countries in the terrible crisis currently devastating the African Great Lakes region.

The UFDR however considers that many questions that should have been addressed by the Commission were kept in abeyance, notably that of the perpetrator and possible accomplices in the murder attempt that claimed the lives of two heads of states, the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and the Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira. That attack, as pointed out in many parts of this Commission's report, served as a detonator of the Rwandan genocide. Furthermore, the UFDR finds regrettable the fact that the Commission has confined itself on the April to July 1994 period, whereas the UNAMIR mission goes well beyond this period.

The UFDR is also amazed that on the Rwandan side, the report is based on evidence collected from one side in the conflict, that is the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and its collaborators. Until proven otherwise, one may think that the Commission has deliberately refused to meet personalities in exile who were members of the two successive transition governments before the assassination of President Habyarimana Juvénal, as well as members of the first RPF government who had to flee the country due to the deliberate RPF's policy of pursuing the massacres of innocent civilian populations. Such attitude can't in any way contribute to the reconciliation. With such approach from the beginning, it is quite normal that the genocide planning thesis centres on the testimony of Mr. TURATSINZE Jean Pierre, a person of dubious credibility as has been pointed out by Mr Twagiramungu Faustin to the Belgian parliamentary commission of enquiry. As this "important" witness has been handed over to UNAMIR for protection, the UFDR is astonished that he is not on the list of the Commission's witnesses and that he has not yet appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to testify against the "master-minders" of the genocide who have been arrested by the ICTR's Prosecutor.

The UFDR regrets moreover that the Commission did not recommend in its conclusions, the setting up of a global and more detailed commission of enquiry on the Rwandan genocide, from its origins to now, inside the country as well as beyond its boundaries. This enquiry may bring the prime culprits of the genocide, those of yesterday and those of today, including the ones currently in power in Kigali, to answer before the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania. It is on this unique condition that the "never again" will have a sense and that the national reconciliation between Rwandans will be possible.

Rwandans do not mourn only tutsis and "moderate" hutus who were massacred in 1994, but also other hutus and tutsis who have been massacred before and after that period by extremists from all sides.

Human kind and Rwandan people have lost more than 3 million people. For a meaningful work of reconciling the Rwandan people, which is incompatible with prejudices, judging on hear-say and globalisation, the UFDR reiterates once more its demand of an independent international inquiry on the death of President Habyarimana and the responsibility for the massacres of thousand of people at KIBEHO, KANAMA, GITARAMA and the whole North West region of the country, as well as on the massacres of hundreds of thousands hutu refugees in the former Zaire camps and in the jungle of the equatorial forest. These latter crimes have already been qualified as acts of genocide by the preliminary report of the United Nations ad hoc commission, which recommended a deeper enquiry.

If the UN authorities have to apologise to the Rwandan people, the UFDR firmly believes that the Secretary General does not have more responsibility than the person who was the President of the Security Council during the period under consideration. Whereas he is co-responsible of what happened, he does not assume criminal responsibility like some RPF members who are asking him to kneel before them. The UFDR considers uncalled-for the principle of requesting apologies from the UN to the Rwandan people trough the RPF government, which also carries proven heavy political, moral and material responsibility in the genocide of the Rwandan people. One can not forget at least the various ultimatums given by RPF to foreign troops to leave the country during the period of the massacres, as well as its different blocking attitudes to all solutions proposed to stop the massacres. Like in the past, the UFDR still refuses to support globalisation and collective responsibility. The UFDR reiterates its stand that responsibility must be individual and target people who failed to assume their responsibility or who have been directly involved in the genocide of the Rwandan people.

The UFDR finds relevant that the UN must apologise to the Rwandan people, all ethnic groups inclusively, but what Rwandans need first and foremost is that the UN take all necessary measures to put a final end to the extermination of the Rwandan people still going on. They especially need the whole truth on the genocide and their inalienable right to an impartial justice.

Done in Brussels, December 23, 1999

For the UFDR

Faustin Twagiramungu

Chairman

Former Prime Minister

On his Behalf

Charles Ndereyehe

Vice-chairman

Signed