Franceâs largest bank is facing serious accusations after three NGOs on Thursday said they filed legal action against BNP Paribas alleging âcomplicity in genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanityâ during Rwandaâs 1994 genocide.
The suit alleges Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP), as the bank was known before its merger with Paribas in 2000 to become BNP Paribas, âparticipated in financing the purchase of 80 tonnes of arms that served to perpetrate the genocideâ despite the fact, it claims, âthat the bank could not have doubted the genocidal intentions of the authorities of the country for which it authorized the transferâ of funds. The groups note that a United Nations arms embargo was in effect at the time.
The genocide in the tiny central African country claimed 800,000 lives, mostly from Rwandaâs ethnic Tutsi minority, between April and July 1994.
The three NGOs leading the charge are Sherpa, an anti-corruption group that defends victims of economic crimes, Ibuka France, an association that defends survivors of the genocide, and the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda (CPCR), a group based in France that pursues claims against genocide suspects. Sherpa earned headlines recently when it filed a lawsuit against the Swiss-French cement giant LafargeHolcim alleging the company financed Islamic State group in Syria.
In their complaint against BNP, the NGOs claim the bank âauthorised two transfers of funds [totalling more than $1.3 million] on June 14 and 16, 1994, from the account that the National Bank of Rwanda held with BNP towards an account at the Swiss bank UBPâ held under the name of Willem Tertius Ehlers. The groupâs complaint says Ehlers, a South African national and former secretary to South African leader P.W. Botha, owned an arms brokerage firm called Delta Aero at the time.
The suit claims Ehlers and Rwandan Hutu colonel ThĂ©oneste Bagosora concluded an arms sale in the Seychelles on the day after the second transfer of funds. It says the weapons were officially purchased by Zaire, as the Democratic Republic of Congo was then known, but with two Rwandans in the delegation that travelled to the Seychelles. The groups cite testimony given by Bagosora himself before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda describing the transfer of weapons from the Seychelles to Goma, on Zaireâs border with Rwanda, and then into Rwanda.
Bagosora, now 70, is serving a 35-year sentence for crimes against humanity in connection with the genocide.
For its part, BNP Paribas has yet to respond to the substance of the allegations. âWe have learned through the media about a lawsuit being filed,â a BNP Paribas spokesperson told news agencies on Thursday. âAt this time, we do not have sufficient information about it to enable us to comment on it.â
A separate complaint was filed on Wednesday against "X", or persons unknown in the French legal parlance, for âcomplicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against humanityâ during the Rwandan genocide by Survie, a French group that âdenounces all forms of French neo-colonial intervention in Africaâ.
Survie wants an inquiry to be opened. âThere are strong suspicions about the involvement of French politicians and military personnel in the cooperation with the Rwandan government before, during and after the genocide,â said Safya Akorri, Survieâs lawyer, according to Le Parisien, which alongside Radio France broke the news about the complaint.â It is up to the judiciary, and not civil society, to help in understanding their role and establishing possible penal responsibility.â
Survie had filed a prior complaint that was dismissed last fall.
In the latest issue of the French quarterly XXI, editor-in-chief Patrick de Saint-ExupĂ©ry looks at similar allegations as relayed by an unnamed civil servant who had access to still-classified French archives from the time. Saint-ExupĂ©ryâs piece accuses the ElysĂ©e Palace of ordering the re-armament of Hutu authorities in the wake of the genocide. His source claims a memo to that effect was signed by Hubert VĂ©drine, the palaceâs secretary general at the time under late Socialist president François Mitterrand.
âFor more than 20 years, associations, historians, the French judiciary have been asking for access to these archives. For 20 years, these archives have rested, ferociously protected,â Saint-ExupĂ©ry told FRANCE 24âs French language Journal de lâAfrique. âSo it obviously begs the question today of the opening of these archives and I believe that today is the issue.â
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(c) 2017 FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS