Zaire in refugee camps. These camps contained the Rwandan state military (FAR) which led to the invasion of Zaire by Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, known as the First Congo War. The area of French influence, known as Zone Turquoise, within the Cyangugu-Kibuye-Gikongoro triangle, was spread across a fifth of the country. Although it was meant to save lives and stop the mass killings, killings did occur. When the Hutu government moved the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille-Collines radio transmitter, a key tool in encouraging Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbors, into the Zone Turquoise, the French did not seize it. The radio broadcast from Gisenyi, calling on "you Hutu girls to wash yourselves and put on a good dress to welcome our French allies. The Tutsi girls are all dead, so you have your chance." The French did not detain the government officials they knew had helped coordinate the genocide. When asked to explain that in the French parliament, the French foreign minister of the time argued that the UN mandate given to the French contained no authorization to investigate or arrest suspected war criminals. Regardless, French President François Mitterrand claimed that the Operation had saved "tens of thousands of lives". The force left as the mandate of the operation expired on 21 August. The RPF immediately occupied the region, causing another refugee outflow. Controversy Opération Turquoise is controversial for two reasons: accusations that it was a failed attempt to prop up the genocidal Hutu regime and that its mandate undermined the UNAMIR. The RPF, well aware that French assistance to the government had helped blunt their 1990 offensive, opposed the deployment of a French-led force. By early June, the RPF had managed to sweep through the eastern half of the country and move south and west, while besieging Kigali in the center. The advance resulted in a massive refugee outflow, though the Hutu government was also implicated in encouraging the flight (see Great Lakes refugee crisis.) Regardless, the Zone Turquoise was created in the steadily shrinking areas out of RPF control. The RPF was one of many organisations that noted that the French initiative to safeguard the populace was occurring six weeks after it had become apparent mass killings were occurring in Rwanda. On 22 July, French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur addressed the Security Council, stating that France had a "moral duty" to act without delay and that "without