Monument

WASHINGTON — President Trump says vandals are to blame for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the spot where he had a stage built and hosted crowds for his July 4 celebration.

Trump made the accusation in a social media post on Sunday without saying why he believes it’s the work of vandals instead of trampled turf from the Independence Day festivities. The Republican president posted a photo showing a once-grassy area by the World War II Memorial, now patchy and brown across much of the sprawling turf.

“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump said on his social media website.

“Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!” he added.

Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals for damage to his renovation projects in the nation’s capital, often without evidence and sometimes despite opposing accounts from his officials. He lashed out at U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro this month after her office concluded that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the result of poor construction and not the work of vandals, as Trump claimed.

Authorities on Friday announced an arrest in connection with vandalism at the World War II Memorial, after the words “Clean hands dirty $” were found painted on the monument and bubbles filled a fountain. Pirro said felony charges were being brought against Melissa L. Farris, who was in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment.

A woman identified on her Facebook page as Melissa Lovewell on Thursday posted a video in which she is seen taking cans of spray paint from her bag and then painting the monument. “I will wait here to be arrested for spraying our veterans’ fountain,” she says. “It was me. I’m doing it. It’s on camera.”

The woman was identified by her Kentucky driver’s license as Melissa L. Farris of Elizabethtown, an arrest warrant says.

Charging documents in that case make no mention of the grassy area Trump is highlighting in his new claims. Authorities said Farris had been arrested previously for camping on federal property a few blocks from the World War II Memorial, but not the area cited by Trump.

That stretch of lawn is instead where a large stage was built and crowds gathered to hear from Trump and watch fireworks at a July 4 event celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary. Trump claimed without providing evidence that more than 400,000 people attended the event before a storm hit the area and delayed his remarks.

Photos from the time, taken by a streaming webcam atop the Washington Monument, show a large bandstand and seating areas covering nearly the entire lawn that Trump now says has been vandalized. Associated Press photos from the days that followed showed workers removing the structures, revealing brown, damaged grass underneath.

On Aug. 1, Trump posted a different photo of the same area that appears to show the numbers “86 47” — which federal officials have said constitutes a threat against Trump, the 47th president — emblazoned into the grass. He cited it as evidence refuting Pirro’s conclusion, calling it “a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass.”

“There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” he wrote.

Those numbers are not visible in the photo Trump posted to social media on Sunday.

Macron, who has acknowledged French ‘responsibility’ in the genocide, called the memorial a reconciliation ‘milestone’.

French President Emmanuel Macron has presented a memorial in Paris dedicated to the victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, as France pursues closer ties with the East African country and continues to grapple with its role in the historic atrocity.

Speaking at the inauguration event alongside his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame on Tuesday, Macron said the monument marked “the culmination of a long and patient quest for truth”.

“An unprecedented reconciliation has emerged between Rwanda and France,” said Macron. “This monument, while it is an achievement, is not an end. It is a milestone on a path we have opened.”

Dubbed “L’Archive” (The Archive), the monument consists of two black brass steles, and it bears an engraved tribute to the estimated 800,000 men, women and children, mostly ethnic Tutsis, massacred between April and July 1994.

The memorial’s inauguration comes five years after Macron travelled to Kigali and first acknowledged France’s failure to heed warnings of impending massacres in Rwanda.

Macron has said Paris and its Western and African allies did not have the will to halt the genocide, though he has stopped short of issuing a formal apology.

‘Requires real courage’

Speaking at the ceremony, Kagame hailed France’s efforts to assume its share of responsibility, and praised Macron for his “courage and humanity”.

“France was not alone in falling short, far from it,” said Kagame, who had long accused France of “complicity”.

“Many other countries did so as well, but none has gone as far as France in setting the record straight and accepting its part in the tragedy.

“Confronting historical responsibilities requires real courage because it generates a fierce opposition by those with a case to answer,” Kagame said.

When the genocide against the Tutsis occurred in 1994, France had been a long-standing backer of Rwanda’s Hutu-dominated government, leading to decades of tensions between the two countries, including a break in diplomatic ties between 2006 and 2009.

A commission set up by Macron and led by historian Vincent Duclert concluded in 2021 that France had been ⁠blinded by its colonial attitude to events leading up to the genocide ⁠and bore a “serious and overwhelming” responsibility ⁠for failing to foresee the slaughter.

However, it said there was no evidence that Paris was complicit in the killings.

‘Part of France’s public history’

Duclert said the unveiling of the monument was a “powerful” step. “The genocide against the Tutsi is now fully part of France’s public history,” he said.

The French courts, acting on the principle of universal jurisdiction to try the most serious crimes committed worldwide, have convicted several Rwandans for their part in the massacre.

In May, France’s judiciary ordered the resumption of an almost two-decade investigation into accusations that the widow of late Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, who has lived in France since 1998, was involved in the genocide.