Charles Auguste Onana | |
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 Onana in 2018 | |
| Born | 18 February 1964 |
| Alma mater | Sorbonne University Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 (Ph.D., 2017) |
| Occupations |
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| Criminal charges | Genocide denial |
Charles Auguste Onana (born 18 February 1964) [1] is a French-Cameroonian political scientist, investigative journalist, essayist, and publisher. In December 2024, he was convicted of genocide denial.
A graduate of Sorbonne University, [2] Onana obtained a Ph.D. in political science in 2017 from Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, with a doctoral thesis entitled Rwanda : l'opération Turquoise et la controverse médiatique (1994–2014) (trans: "Rwanda: Opération Turquoise and the Media Controversy (1994–2014). [3]
Since 2002, Onana has published several books about the African Great Lakes region and the tragedies that have affected the four nations that border it: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Rwanda, with particular emphasis on the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Onana has questioned the use of the term "genocide" in reference to the events that took place in Rwanda, and he has accused Paul Kagame of orchestrating the massacre of Tutsis and Hutus as well as the 6 April 1994 downing of the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, [4] a theory he details in his 2002 book Les Secrets du génocide rwandais : enquête sur les mystères d'un président (trans: "secrets of the Rwandan genocide: investigating the mysteries of a president"). [5] According to political scientist René Lemarchand, the book reveals few secrets and contains many biases. [6]
In 2004, journalist Christophe Ayad published an article in the French daily Libération , in which he called Onana and the French-Canadian journalist Robin Philpot, who were invited to participate in an international conference on Rwanda at Sorbonne University, "denialists". The authors subsequently filed a defamation suit against Libération. [7]
In 2005, Onana led a conference entitled "Silence on an attack: the scandal of the Rwandan genocide". He proceeded to investigate the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and published a book on the topic the same year, containing information he supposedly obtained from the international jurist Carla Del Ponte. [8] [9]
Onana's 2009 essay "Ces tueurs tutsi au cœur de la tragédie congolaise" (trans. "These Tutsi killers at the heart of the Congolese tragedy") was cited by French historian of genocide Hélène Dumas in an article in which she notes Onana's racist accusations about Tutsi women [10] and his validation of a supposed "plan for the conquest of the Great Lakes of Africa", a false narrative circulating since 1962. [11]
In 2019, Onana published the book Rwanda, la vérité sur l'opération Turquoise (trans. "Rwanda, the truth about Operation Turquoise), in which he declared that "the conspiracy theory of a Hutu regime planning a 'genocide' in Rwanda constitutes one of the biggest scams of the 20th century". [12] In an article for the Fondation Jean-Jaurès think tank, academic Serge Dupuis calls the book an "investigation conducted exclusively to exonerate", very poorly supported by sources, and whose objective is "the pillorying of the RPF" (Rwandan Patriotic Front). [13]
At an international conference held at the French Senate on 9 March 2020 on "60 years of instability in the Great Lakes region of Africa", Onana denounced the French-led 1994 Opération Turquoise and called out the crimes committed by the RPF during and after the genocide, as well as the inertia of the United Nations following the RPF's refusal of any humanitarian intervention in Rwanda. [14] [15]
In 2019, the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism filed a complaint against Onana for contesting crimes against humanity during a television interview about his book Rwanda, la vérité sur l'opération Turquoise. [14] [15]
Onana was indicted in January 2022, following a complaint filed in 2020 by the non-governmental organizations Survie, International Federation for Human Rights, and Human Rights League for breach of freedom of expression in his denial of crimes against humanity in the book. [16] He was put on trial in October 2024. [17]
The rationale for the trial has been contested by two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Denis Mukwege [18] and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. [19]
On 4 October 2024, Onana filed a complaint against the current Rwandan head of state, Paul Kagame, with the Paris public prosecutor, following "public threats" made against him. [20]
On 9 December 2024, Onana and his publishing director, Damien Serieyx, were found guilty by a Paris court of denying and downplaying the Rwandan genocide. [21] [22]
Onana is the manager of Éditions Duboiris, the publishing house that has issued most of his books. [23]
He has written on the role and actions of African soldiers during the Second World War, [24] [25] on René Maran, [26] on Josephine Baker and her involvement in counter-espionage on behalf of Charles de Gaulle from 1940, [27] on the involvement of the charitable organization Zoé's Ark in the 2007 kidnapping of 103 minors in Chad (co-written with the Chadian politician Ngarlejy Yorongar), [28] on the downfall of the former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo, [29] on the diplomatic relations between France, Israel, and the PLO during the tenure of former French president François Mitterrand, [30] and on Jean-Bédel Bokassa.[ citation needed ]
None of his books have been translated into English. [31]
In 2018, Onana was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize (together with Canadian radio broadcaster Phil Taylor) by the International Women's Network for Democracy and Peace in Belgium for his work on "the reconciliation of people through dialogue, respect for the human person, and social justice in the African Great Lakes region". [31]
Grégoire Kayibanda was a Rwandan politician and revolutionary who was the first elected President of Rwanda from 1962 to 1973. An ethnic Hutu, he was a pioneer of the Rwandan Revolution and led Rwanda's struggle for independence from Belgium, replacing the Tutsi monarchy with a republican form of government. Rwanda became independent from Belgium in 1962, with Kayibanda serving as the country's first president, establishing a pro-Hutu policy and a de facto one-party system governed by his party, Parmehutu. He was overthrown in a coup d'état in 1973 by his defense minister, Juvénal Habyarimana, and died three years later.
Goma is the capital and largest city of the North Kivu Province in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located on the northern shore of Lake Kivu and shares borders with Bukumu Chiefdom to the north, Rwanda to the east and Masisi Territory to the west. The city lies in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift, and is only 13–18 km (8.1–11.2 mi) south of the active volcano Mount Nyiragongo. With an approximate area of 75.72 km2 (29.24 sq mi), the city has an estimated population of nearly 2 million people according to the 2022 census.
Opération Turquoise was a French-led military operation in Rwanda in 1994 under the mandate of the United Nations. The "multilateral" force consisted of 2,500 troops, 32 from Senegal and the rest French. The equipment included 100 APCs, 10 helicopters, a battery of 120 mm mortars, 4 Jaguar fighter bombers, 8 Mirage fighters, and reconnaissance aircraft. The helicopters laid a trail of food, water and medicine enabling refugees to escape into eastern Zaire. Opération Turquoise is controversial for at least two reasons: accusations that it was an attempt to prop up the genocidal Hutu regime, and that its mandate undermined the UNAMIR. By facilitating 2 million Rwandan refugees to travel to Kivu provinces in Zaire, Turquoise setup the causes of the First Congo War.
François-Xavier Verschave was primarily known as one of the founders of the French NGO Survie ("Survival"), over which he presided since 1995, and as coiner of the term Françafrique, an expression for France's neocolonialism, a specific type of neocolonialism which has been imposed upon the former colonies of the French Empire by France.
Paul Barril is a former officer of the French Gendarmerie Nationale. He authored several books about his military career, touching sensitive political subjects of the Mitterrand era.
Bernard Lugan is a French historian who specialises in African history. He is a professor at the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN) and the editor of the journal L'Afrique réelle. Lugan previously taught at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 and at the special military school of Saint-Cyr until 2015. He served as an expert witness for Hutu defendants involved in the Rwandan genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Close to the far-right, Lugan is a self-declared monarchist and right-wing anarchist.
Patrick de Saint-Exupéry is the son of Count Jacques de Saint-Exupéry and the Countess de Saint-Exupéry, born as Martine d'Anglejan. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the aviator and writer, was the cousin of his grandfather. Patrick started his career in journalism at age 19 after winning a young reporters award.
Jerry Robert Kajuga was national president of the Interahamwe, the group largely responsible for perpetrating the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi people in 1994. Born to a Tutsi father and a Hutu mother, Kajuga concealed his background and presented himself as being of pure Hutu descent. This is notable as Hutu Power extremist groups considered Hutus who married Tutsis to be race traitors, and Kajuga went to great lengths to conceal his identity.
The 1973 Rwandan coup d'état, also known as the Coup d'état of 5 July, was a military coup staged by Juvénal Habyarimana against incumbent president Grégoire Kayibanda in the Republic of Rwanda. The coup took place on 5 July 1973 and was considered by many as a betrayal.
Thaddée Nsengiyumva was the Bishop of Kabgayi in Rwanda. He was killed at Kabgayi during the Rwandan genocide.
The role of France in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi has been a source of controversy and debate both within and beyond France and Rwanda. France actively supported the Hutu-led government of Juvénal Habyarimana against the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front, which since 1990 had been engaged in a conflict intended to restore the rights of Rwandan Tutsis both within Rwanda and exiled in neighboring countries following over four decades of anti-Tutsi violence. France provided arms and military training to Habyarimana's militias, the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, which were among the government's primary means of operationalizing the genocide following the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6, 1994.
Scholastique Mukasonga is a French-Rwandan author born in the former Gikongoro province of Rwanda. In 2012, She won the prix Renaudot and the prix Ahmadou-Kourouma for her book Our Lady of the Nile. In addition to being a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Mukasonga was rewarded in 2014 with the Seligmann Prize against racism and intolerance and in 2015 with the prize Société des gens de lettres. She currently resides in Normandy, France.
Jean Hatzfeld is a French author and journalist who wrote extensively about the Bosnian War and the Rwandan Genocide in Rwanda.
Cyprien and Daphrose Rugamba were a married couple from Rwanda, who introduced the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Emmanuel Community to their country in 1990. Cyprien Rugamba was a member of the Hutu ethnic group. He was considered by many to be a Rwandan who created art for all people due to the general impression that his works, which included actors from all ethnic groups, embodied a concentrated focus on writing about Rwandan history and culture, regardless of ethnicity. His wife Daphrose was an ethnic Tutsi. They were both assassinated in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The cause for their canonization in the Catholic Church was opened in 2015.
Vénuste Nshimiyimana is a Rwandan-born Belgian journalist. He is a presenter of the daily One o'Clock News show for the Great Lakes Region on Voice of America. He is a former presenter for the BBC TV bulletin programme and the weekly news roundup for BBC Hebdo. As a senior team manager, he was editorially responsible for BBC Afrique’s TV output.
In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House of Canada; it has also been translated into Dutch and French. The book describes alleged war crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Rwanda's ruling political party, during its ascent to power in the 1990s.
Filip Reyntjens is professor emeritus at University of Antwerp. His academic training is in constitutional law, but he later pivoted towards the study of politics especially of the Great Lakes region of Africa.
France–Rwanda relations are the international relations between France and Rwanda.
Kinyandonyi is a village in the Rutshuru Territory of the North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kinyandonyi is situated 10 km east of the city of Kiwanja in Bukoma groupement, in the Bwisha Chiefdom and 85 km north of the capital of the province Goma. The region is inhabited by the Hunde people as well as some remaining autochthonous populations of African Pygmies, including the Twa people and the Mbuti people. In addition to the Hunde, Twa, and Mbuti, there are other ethnic groups, including the Nyanga, Lega, Kumu, Hutu and Tutsi.
Rwanda: Le silence des mots is a documentary written by Michael Sztank and Gaël Faye directed by Gaël Faye and produced by Babel Doc, release in 2021.
L'inexorable enchaînement» de l'histoire s'appuie également sur une explication cachée, secrète, cryptique. La théorie du complot tutsi mondial n'est pas nouvelle. On en trouve des récurrences dans la propagande extrémiste. Mais là encore, la vulgate raciste n'a rien perdu de sa vigueur. Ainsi, en 2009, Charles Onana rend compte de la guerre au Congo en exhibant un « Plan de conquête de l'Afrique des Grands lacs ». Les menées conquérantes des Tutsi ne datent pas d'hier puisque le fameux plan aurait été défini en 1962 à Nyamitaba au Zaïre. C'est le journal Kangura qui nous offre la meilleure mise en contexte de ce « document ». Il vise à réveiller la vigilance des Bahutu en leur montrant la ruse et la perfidie caractéristiques des Batutsi qui, nantis de leurs femmes et de leur argent, travaillent à imposer leur suprématie sur l'Afrique des Grands lacs. (Trans.: The "inexorable chain" of history also relies on a hidden, secret, cryptic explanation. The theory of the global Tutsi conspiracy is not new. It is found in extremist propaganda. But here again, the racist vulgate has lost none of its vigor. Thus, in 2009, Charles Onana reported on the war in Congo by exhibiting a "Plan for the conquest of the Great Lakes of Africa". The Tutsi's conquests are not new since the famous plan was supposedly defined in 1962 in Nyamitaba in Zaire. It is the newspaper Kangura that offers us the best contextualization of this "document". It aims to awaken the vigilance of the Hutu by showing them the cunning and perfidy characteristic of the Tutsi who, equipped with their women and their money, work to impose their supremacy on the African Great Lakes.
Jean-Pierre Chrétien indique en 2005 que "Les « éditions Duboiris » où Charles Onana a publié ses ouvrages et ceux des auteurs qui lui sont proches sur le Rwanda et le Congo, sont en fait une SARL monopersonnelle de M. Onana lui-même" et mentionne "Le caractère plutôt confidentiel de cette maison, non répertoriée dans les listings professionnels habituels, ni même dans l'annuaire" (Trans.: "Jean-Pierre Chrétien indicated in 2005 that "Éditions Duboiris", where Charles Onana published his works and those of authors close to him on Rwanda and the Congo, are in fact a single-person Private limited company of Mr. Onana himself" and mentioned "The rather confidential nature of this house, not listed in the usual professional listings, nor even in the directory"
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