In August 1994, Walfroy Dauchy was a volunteer for the Red Cross and was on mission at the Zairian airport of Goma. Guillaume Victor-Thomas was responsible for air logistics for the French army. Did the two men meet? Did they discuss? Monday March 13, in front of the 17e room of the Paris court, their possible meeting sparked heated debates and fueled a river hearing of more than 7:30 hours. At the heart of the case is a sensitive file: did France sell arms to extremists? Hutus just after the Tutsi genocide?
Walfroy Dauchy ures us that yes. He claims that Guillaume Victor-Thomas explained to him that he delivered boxes to the Rwandan government in exile, when the latter had just exterminated a million Tutsis and had taken refuge in what was still Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). ). “Look, it’s business. If it’s not me, it will be someone else, M. Victor-Thomas would have told him. If someone bought pain au chocolat from me, I would sell pain au chocolat. There, it’s guns, I sell guns. »
In March 2019, Walfroy Dauchy told his testimony to journalists Benoît Collombat, from the investigation unit of Radio France, and Laurent Larcher, specialist in Africa on a daily basis. The cross. The first wrote an article on the France Inter site and broadcast a video by Walfroy Dauchy. The second interviewed him for his book Rwanda, they speak (Seuil, 2019) and reported his words. They are all three sued for complicity in defamation by Guillaume Victor-Thomas.
A credible story according to journalists
Walfroy Dauchy told reporters about his encounter with a man ” relaxed “, “tanned”, “with a Glock pistol in his belt”. He claims to have met Mr. Victor-Thomas two or three times. When he asked him what he delivered, Mr. Victor-Thomas reportedly replied: ” Weapons. We are asked to deliver arms, we do it… It is for the legal government of Rwanda. »
He then worked for the company Spairops (contraction of Special Air Operations), created by his father. The latter has teamed up with the famous Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, and must provide jumbo jets as part of the military-humanitarian operation Turquoise, decided on June 22, 1994 by the security council of the UN, for “put an end to the macres wherever possible, possibly by using force”. The operation is based at Goma airport. “I carried out logistics operations on behalf of the Ministry of Defense in a private context, precise at the helm Guillaume Victor-Thomas. My role was not to know the contents of the shipments. We only offered planes to the French army. I don’t remember having met Mr. Dauchy. »
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