 Regional SADC force ends Lesotho mission Maseru, Lesotho (AFP) Nov 28, 2018 - Some 200 soldiers deployed a year ago to bolster security in Lesotho after the killing of the country's top army commander have left the landlocked kingdom, an official said Wednesday. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional bloc, deployed a force after Khoantle Motsomotso was shot dead in barracks by officers from a perceived rival faction. The shootout occurred two months after elections and rocked hopes of ushering in a new era of stability in the volatile country. The seven-nation SADC force, which included 207 military personnel, 15 intelligence officers and 24 police officers, was deployed for an initial six months which was later extended to a year. The mission was deployed to help "strengthen peace and security" in the kingdom, SADC spokeswoman Barbara Lopi told AFP. "It's completion of a mission." At a ceremony last week to mark the end of the mission, SADC executive secretary Stergomena Lawrence Tax hailed "good progress" in restoring security. "There is significant improvement in the working relations amongst the various security agencies, the government and civil society," she said. Prime Minister Thomas Thabane said the SADC mission left Lesotho "with the confidence that our security agencies would now respect civilian authority and conduct their services as mandated by the constitution." Known as Africa's Switzerland because of its mountainous scenery, Lesotho has a long history of political instability having also suffered coups in 1986 and 1991. In 2015, a former army chief was gunned down by soldiers who claimed that he was resisting arrest outside the capital Maseru.
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French judges have rejected a bid by survivors of Rwanda's genocide to reopen an investigation into claims that French troops were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people they had promised to rescue.
A source close to the case said Wednesday that three war crimes judges had on November 22 dismissed the bid to reopen an investigation that symbolises deep wounds between Rwanda and France over the 1994 slaughter.
Six survivors, backed by human rights groups and other plaintiffs, had launched a legal case in 2005 accusing French soldiers of abandoning Tutsi civilians in Bisesero, western Rwanda, in June 1994.
The probe was shut down in July as no one had been charged during 13 years of investigation.
The survivors say French soldiers had promised to rescue terrified Tutsis hiding in the hills of Bisesero at the height of the killing on June 27, 1994.
The troops arrived only three days later -- after hundreds of people had been massacred by genocidal allies of the Hutu government which had been backed by Paris for years.
Their deaths came nearly three months into the 100-day killing spree that left an estimated 800,000 people dead, most of them members of the Tutsi ethnic minority.
In October, the plaintiffs' lawyers filed a request urging investigators to take further action despite the case being closed, including seeking testimony from soldiers and journalists who were nearby on June 27, 1994.
But the judges ruled that further enquiry would "not be useful to ascertain the truth, nor reasonable given how long proceedings have been underway".
Patrick Baudouin, a lawyer for the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, said the plaintiffs intended to appeal the latest decision.
France's support for the ethnic Hutu forces which carried out most of the slaughter has been a source of deep acrimony in its relations with Rwanda ever since the genocide.
France has admitted mistakes but denied Rwandan accusations of complicity in the mass killings.
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