Alain and Dafroza Gauthier
The founder and president of Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda which prepares complaints against suspects of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, Alain Gauthier has testified before the Paris Court of Assizes how he knew about Rwanda and contributed to its justice in the wake of the Genocide without being scared by insults of genocide deniers who continue to increase every day.
This particular story of Gauthier, husband to Rwandan-French national Dafroza Gauthier can be traced from 1961 when the former was 11 years old. He watched a film on Uganda’s martyrs and told the white father priest who screened the movie: “I want to be like you. He summoned me and told me to be patient: “Pass your baccalaureate and we’ll see!”
Indeed, by 1968, he had enrolled at the Faculty of Theology in Strasbourg where he spent two years, after which he traveled to Rwanda for a voluntary teaching job in Minor Seminary of Save in Butare where Bishop Jean Baptiste Gahamanyi needed French teachers.
Only two years spent in Rwanda would be enough to give Gauthier a great connection and a strong bond with Rwanda.
In 1974, while in France, a parish priest of Save who was in holiday in his France hometown asked him to come and greet a young girl whom he had met in Rwanda.
“It was during the Christmas holidays that my story with Dafroza began,” Gauthier said adding that they later on got married and settled in France. They regularly visited their Rwanda’s new family until October 1990 when the RPF struggle started and made it hard for them to come.
However, in 1993, Gauthier started realizing that his second home, Rwanda was under threat and the Genocide was imminent. He thus started attracting the attention of French President Francois Mitterand asking him to intervene with his Rwandan counterpart to prevent such a tragedy.
In the end of February 1994, Gauthier’s wife went to Kigali to visit her mother, but she cut her stay short, her mother having asked her to leave. They would never see each other again because the mother would be killed on April 7,1994 in Nyamirambo, alongside other relatives.
Alain Gauthier speaking in Kigali after being awarded Igihango medal as Dafroza Gauthier looks on
“Our son Emmanuel, aged eleven, had only a few words to say: ‘ Mama, I will avenge you’.
We will spend the next three months trying to alert the press and the international community to what is
happening in Rwanda. In June, we organised a demonstration in REIMS to protest against France’s role in
Rwanda, under one slogan: ‘ RWANDA, la honte!” recalls Gauthier.
The Gauthiers would be able to return in Rwanda in 1996 where they initiated the pursuit of genocide suspects and they opened a case against Father Wensceslas MUNYESHYAKA, the priest of Holy Family- Sainte Famille church whose case was eventually dismissed after 25 years.
More cases will also follow until 2001 when Alain and Dafroza Gauthier started the Collectif des Parties Civiles pour le Rwanda(CPCR) and they continued the struggle to date.
Their struggle however, always comes with heavy costs, according to the witness. He gave a case of a colloquium he attended in France in 2002.
“A participant took the liberty of introducing me in the following terms: ‘ This white man only knows
Rwanda through pillow talk ’. My neighbour, Servilien SEBASONI, with whom I had come, pointed out that this
was Dr RWAMUCYO,” Gauthier said.
Since the foundation, CPCR filed complaints against 35 genocide suspects in France, many of whom were tried and others in process. Those in process include the one of Dr. Eugene Rwamucyo which is ongoing at the Paris Court of Assizes.
Already concluded include the case of Sosthène MUNYEMANA, Fabien NERETSE and Laurent BUCYIBARUTA.
According to the witness, their family goes through many challenges due to this search for justice. Alain Gauthier presented to court several abstracts of emails that targeted him, for having contributed to bringing Dr. Rwamucyo before court.
One of them dated October 6,2024 reads in part: “Through your omnipotence, you authorise those who must atend a public trial. […] The powerful pro-Tutsi trials in France led by the diabolical Franco-Tutsi couple of Alain and Dafroza Gauthier the sinister CPCR, you are sure to have already put the Court in your pocket so that nothing can come to the rescue
of the innocent Doctor RWAMUCYO…”
Rwanda recognizes efforts of CPCR in tracking and having the genocide suspects in France brought before justice.
In November 2017, Alain and Dafroza Gauthier were awarded with national order of friendship medals ‘Igihango’ in recognition for their exemplary service that has changed the country’s relationship with others.
