Rwanda Remebers Marks 20 Years Since The Genocide

Rwanda Marks 20 Years Since Genocide -- Voice of America

KIGALI, RWANDA — On the 20th anniversay of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, President Paul Kagame paid tribute to the victims and also took a swipe at the international community following a diplomatic rift with France.

African heads of state and foreign dignitaries joined commemoration events in the Rwandan capital, beginning with a ceremony to light the National Flame of Mourning at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

April 7 marks the day 20 years ago when ethnic Hutu militias began a killing rampage targeting Tutsis and moderate Hutus who would not take part in the slaughter. Some 800,000 people were killed within 100 days.

Kagame honored the victims at a memorial event at Kigali's Amahoro Stadium.

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More News On Rwanda Marking 20 Years Since The Genocide

Rwanda: Speech By President Paul Kagame At the 20th Commemoration of the Genocide Against the Tutsi -- AllAfrica.com/Government of Rwanda
Rwanda begins week of mourning, commemorates 20th anniversary of genocide -- Deutsche Welle
Sobs, cries as Rwanda marks 20th anniversary of genocide -- CNN
Wails, sobs: Rwanda marks 20 years since start of genocide -- CTV/AP
Rwanda genocide: UN ashamed, says Ban Ki-moon -- BBC
Rwanda president hits out at France during genocide commemorations -- Global Post/AFP
1 million killed by machete, club and gun: Rwanda remembers its genocide 20 years later -- CBS/AP
Weeping Rwandans told 'never again' 20 years after genocide -- Reuters
Rwandan president accuses France of direct role in 1994 genocide -- The Guardian
Rwanda bars French ambassador from ceremony commemorating 20th anniversary of genocide -- AP
Rwanda bars French envoy from genocide memorial after Paris pulls its minister -- Christian Science Monitor
France 'joins Rwandan people' in honouring genocide victims -- Global Post/AFP
Rwanda genocide commemoration in pictures -- BBC

Rwandans Remember The Genocide 20 Years Later

A woman walks past a banner that reads "Remembering 20 years" at the Kigali Genocide Memorial grounds as Rwanda prepares to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in the capital, Kigali, April 2, 2014. Noor Khamis/REUTERS

20 Years After Horrors, Rwanda Claims Rebirth And Renewal -- Christian Science Monitor

April 7 marks the anniversary of a genocide that killed 800,000 people in three months. For many Rwandans now, 'the people who killed, today they can be friends, they are people we do business with.'

In a stadium that two decades ago was a refuge for people fleeing the foot-soldiers of genocide, a concert stage is taking shape out of a lattice of scaffolding erected on the close-cropped grass.

On April 7, 20 years to the day since the killings started, some 50,000 Rwandans will gather here at the Amahoro Stadium in the capital, Kigali, to hear President Paul Kagame launch weeks of events to mark the anniversary.

Dancing, singing, and speeches praising the country’s renewal are planned to entertain the thousands expected to flood the track and fill the bleachers, where people once hid from the men with the machetes.

During 100 days in 1994, more than 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda, a mass killing that ranks with the worst horrors of the 20th century and still – to foreigners at least – defines this small central African country.

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More News On The 20th Anniversary of The Rwandan Genocide

Remembering 20 Years of Rwanda Genocide: Rwanda Prepares to Commemorate 800,000 People Killed -- IBTimes
Rwanda: The last genocide of the 20th century -- France 24
Unspoken trauma paralyzes Rwanda genocide survivors -- Daily Star/AFP
Rwanda's Youth Looks Forward 20 Years After Genocide -- Voice of America
Remembering -- and trying to forget -- Rwanda's genocide, 20 years on -- CNN
Rwanda, 20 years on: how a country is rebuilding itself -- Emma Howard, The Guardian
The President’s Assassins -- Slate
THE REFUGEE: "It was like hell, blood everywhere" -- Thompson Reuters
Rwanda wasn't what I thought it would be -- LeAnn Hager, Special to CNN
What to celebrate in Rwanda's genocide anniversary -- Christian Science Monitor editorial

Remembering The Rwanda Genocide

Murambi Genocide Memorial

Anniversary of Rwandan Genocide Brings Declarations, Warnings -- Voice of America

Rwanda is approaching the anniversary of one of the worst genocides in modern history that killed almost one million people. Officials stress that what happened 17 years ago must never happen again in Rwanda, the rest of Africa, and the world.

April 7, 1994 was the first day of a 100-day initiative led by one of Rwanda's three ethnic groups to exterminate another ethnic group. Almost one million people were killed by friends, neighbors and strangers influenced by a massive propaganda campaign.

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More News On The Anniversary Of The Rwandan Genocide

When the World Turned Its Back: James Nachtwey’s Reflections on the Rwandan Genocide -- Time Magazine
Rwanda commemorates genocide -- KBC
United Nations to Commemorate 1994 Rwanda Genocide at Headquarters, under Theme ‘Rebuilding Rwanda: Reconciliation and Education’ -- IEWY News

My Comment: it is hard to believe that it has already been 17 years.

UN Report Accuses Rwanda Of Genocide In Congo

Among the Hutus who fled to DR Congo in 1994 were many of the militiamen responsible for Rwanda's genocide. Photo from The BBC

Leaked UN Report Accuses Rwanda Of Possible Genocide In Congo -- The Guardian

Unprecedented investigation by human rights commissioner says Hutu deaths 'cannot be put down to margins of war'

The United Nations has accused Rwanda of wholesale war crimes, including possibly genocide, during years of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

An unprecedented 600-page investigation by the UN high commissioner for human rights catalogues years of murder, rape and looting in a conflict in which hundreds of thousands were slaughtered.

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More News On the UN Report Accusing Rwanda of Genocide

UN DR Congo 'genocide' draft report - key excerpts -- BBC
Leaked UN Report Levels Serious Accusations Against Rwanda -- UN Dispatch
Congo butchery resembled Rwanda genocide: UN lawyer -- AFP
Rwanda accused of war crimes -- Sydney Morning Herald
Draft U.N. report accuses Rwandan army of genocide -- The Hindu
UN: Attacks on Hutus in 1990s could be genocide -- AP
Bombshell UN report leaked: 'Crimes of genocide' against Hutus in Congo -- Christian Science Monitor
UN uncovers possible genocide in Congo: report -- AFP
Rwanda Rejects Report Alleging Role In Possible Congolese Genocide -- NPR
Rwandan Government Slams United Nations Report Alleging Genocide in Congo -- Bloomberg
Statement by the Government of Rwanda on Leaked Draft UN Report on DRC -- Financial Post

What Started The Rwandan Genocide?

Rwandan genocide survivor Pacific Rutaganda, 48, is seen in this February 2004 file picture looking out of the door of a church full with human skulls and bones in the town of Ntarama where he survived an ethnic massacre that killed several hundred people during the central African country's 1994 genocide. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

Probe Shows True Cause Of Rwanda Genocide -- Time Magazine

(NAIROBI, Kenya) — Rwandan Hutu soldiers shot down the Hutu president's plane on the eve of the 1994 genocide, according to a government-commissioned inquiry that formally assigned blame for the crash that sparked the slaughter of more than 500,000 people.

The Rwandan panel also concluded that the Tutsi rebels fighting the president at the time could not have shot down his plane, citing witnesses who described what appeared to be missiles fired from inside or near a military barracks. Those rebels were led by the man who is now Rwanda's current president.

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More News On The Rwandan Genocide

Hutus blamed in Rwandan leader's death -- CBC
Hutus 'killed Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana' -- BBC
Extremist Hutu Officials Blamed in ’94 Rwanda Assassination -- New York Times
Rwanda says Hutu radicals killed president in 1994 -- Reuters
Rwandan Report Blames Hutu for 1994 Assassination -- Voice of America
Rwandan inquiry concludes soldiers shot down presidential plane on eve of 1994 genocide -- Canadian Press
Rwanda genocide: Will new report close the book on who started it? -- Christian Science Monitor

News Updates On The 15th Anniversary Of The Rwanda Genocide

Legacy Of Rwanda's Genocide: More Assertive International Justice -- The Christian Science Monitor

Out of 800,000 deaths emerged a new system of justice and more peacekeepers. But will either prove effective or enduring?

Johannesburg, South Africa; and Kigali, Rwanda - Like the Holocaust of Jews and others during World War II – the scale and shame of the world's inaction during the Rwandan genocide still staggers the mind.

Fifteen years ago today, men and women picked up machetes and murdered their neighbors by the hundreds of thousands. And the world watched. The 100-day massacre has since inspired books and Hollywood movies, and left a mark on the global conscience, prompting international campaigns for intervention, such as in Darfur.

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More News On The 15th Anniversary Of The Rwandan Genocide

15 years later, Rwanda remembers the massacre -- CNN
Rwanda Commemorates 15th Anniversary of Genocide That Killed 800,000 -- Voice Of America
Tears mark 15th anniversary of Rwanda genocide -- CNN
Rwanda marks genocide with vigil -- BBC
U.N. marks anniversary of Rwandan genocide -- UPI
Why the US didn't intervene in the Rwandan genocide -- Christian Science Monitor
U.S. Says It Failed to Stop Rwanda Killings -- Wall Street Journal
How to help Rwanda -- Times Online commentary

Hutu Rebels Drop Guns, Return To Rwanda

Soldiers pass through a DR Congo government check point on the edge of Goma Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES (The Telegraph)

From Christian Science Monitor:

Rwanda's Army is flushing FDLR fighters out of Congo.

Ruhengeri, Rwanda - Joseph Karege wanted to give up his gun and come back to Rwanda long before the tide turned against him and his fellow Hutu militiamen.

Until last week, Mr. Karege was a member of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan Hutu militia accused of committing the 1994 genocide of more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Millions of Hutus, afraid of reprisals, fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo just as the genocide ended; they have been hiding in the inhospitable jungle there ever since.

Last month, Rwanda – which considers the FDLR an existential threat – announced it had sent troops into Congo to get the rebels out once and for all.

Working together with the Congolese army, the combined troops launched a joint military offensive against the FDLR, hoping to drive the remaining 6,000 fighters out of the bush and across the border to Rwanda, where the Tutsi-dominated government promises them a fair chance at a new life.

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My Comment: A number of these Hutu Rebels are still continuing the fight, but this war is finally coming to some sort of conclusion.

Planner Of Rwandan Massacres Convicted Of Genocide

Former Rwandan Army Col. Theoneste Bagosora, right, arrived with his co-defendant Col. Anatole Nsengiyumva at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on Thursday in Arusha, Tanzania. Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

From New York Times:

PARIS — A senior Rwandan military officer charged with being one of the masterminds of the 1994 slaughter in Rwanda in which bands of Hutus massacred hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus was convicted by a United Nations court in Tanzania of genocide on Thursday and sentenced to life in prison.

In a statement, the United Nations tribunal said that it had sentenced the officer, Col. Theoneste Bagosora, and his accomplices, two other Rwandan military officers who were also on trial, Maj. Aloys Ntabakuze and Col. Anatole Nsengiyumva, to life imprisonment for “genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.” But a fourth co-defendant, Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, was acquitted of all charges against him and the court ordered his release.

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More News On Rwandan Genocide Conviction

Planner of Rwandan massacres convicted of genocide -- Yahoo News/AP
Rwanda says satisfied with ex-officer's genocide conviction -- AFP
Rwandan genocide mastermind sentenced to life in jail -- Times Online
Former Rwandan Army Colonel Convicted Over 1994 Genocide -- Voice Of America
Brain behind Rwanda genocide gets life -- Euronews
Profile: Col Theoneste Bagosora -- BBC
FACTBOX-The Rwandan Genocide -- Reuters

U.N. Court To Rule On Rwanda Genocide Planners

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

NAIROBI (Reuters) – A U.N. court trying the masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide will pass judgment on Thursday on a former army colonel accused of being an architect of the 100-day slaughter.

The Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has accused Theoneste Bagosora, 67, of being in charge of the troops and Interahamwe Hutu militia who butchered some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

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France Took Part In Genocide: Rwandan Report

A picture taken on June 27, 1994 shows French soldiers on patrol passing by ethnic Hutu troops from the Rwandan government forces near Gisenyie, about 10kms from the border with Zaire. France played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled Tuesday by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted. (AFP/File/Pascal Guyot)

From The AFP:

KIGALI (AFP) - France played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled Tuesday by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted.

The indicting report accused a raft of top French politicians of involvement in the massacres, threatening to further mar relations between the two countries, which severed diplomatic ties in November 2006.

"French forces directly assassinated Tutsis and Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis... French forces committed several rapes on Tutsi survivors," said a justice ministry statement released after the report was presented in Kigali.

The 500-page report alleged that France was aware of preparations for the genocide, contributed to planning the massacres and actively took part in the killing.

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More News On France And The Rwanda Genocide

Rwanda accuses France over genocide -- Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Rwanda accuses France of genocide -- Al Jazeera
Rwandan Report Alleges French Role in Genocide -- Voice Of America
Rwanda accuses France directly over '94 genocide -- Reuters
France took part in genocide: Rwandan report -- Sydney Morning Herald
France refuses to comment on Rwanda genocide claims -- Canada.com

My Comment: I first heard about French complicity in the genocide from Romeo Dallaire almost 10 years ago in a speech that he gave at McGill Univerisity in Montreal. Being the U.N. commander on the ground he had a bird's eye view to the genocide, and in particular the French Government's direct involvement.

I am sure that he and many others like him must be happy with justice finally coming around to address this genocide. From what I remember of his speech, the French have a lot to be ashamed of.

Cindy McCain's Trip To Rwanda During the Height Of The Genocide

Cindy McCain

From Townhall:

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Cindy McCain's first visit to this country in 1994 was during the high season of roadblocks and machetes and shallow graves.

Following a call for help from Doctors Without Borders, McCain had assembled a medical team with the intention of setting up a mobile hospital in Rwanda. Arriving by private plane in mid-April, a couple of weeks into the massacres, she realized that the chaos made deploying her team impossible. At the airport, she paid for the use of a truck and set out for Goma in then-Zaire, where hundreds of thousands of refugees were also headed.

"I never saw anyone harmed," McCain recalls, "but I saw the bodies along the roadside." Checkpoints were manned by 12- and 13-year-olds with AK-47s. "The kids were drinking -- bottles of Guinness, I remember. They would point their guns at you. They wanted money. We paid." Along the way, she picked up several abandoned young people, later given to the care of an Irish charity.

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My Comment: I was surprised to read this article. I was never aware that she had gone to Rwanda during the height of its genocide. If I was her husband I would never have permitted her to go .... but she went with her husband's blessing.

I am glad that people like Barack Obama, Cindy McCain, and others who are in public life make the effort to travel and be witness to a war zone. Everyone who goes through such an experience (myself included) always come back appreciative of what we have, and sensitive to what war is all about.