2024-04-08 01:06:29
The massacre lasted for 100 days, until in 1994 In July, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel militia captured Kigali. Most of the Tutsi were killed, but moderate Hutus also became victims.
April 7, that is, the day when the Hutu fighters in 1994 started the massacre, President Paul Kagame traditionally lit a commemorative fire at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. It is believed that more than 250 thousand people are buried there. victims.
Mr. Kagame laid wreaths on the mass graves while the army band played. He was accompanied by foreign guests – heads of several African states and former US President Bill Clinton, who called the genocide the biggest failure of his administration.
“Rwanda has been completely humbled by the scale of our loss. And the lessons we have learned are carved in blood,” said Mr. Kagame in Kigali during a solemn ceremony.
“The international community has failed us all, whether out of contempt or cowardice,” he said.
The failure to stop the killings still casts a pall of shame on the international community. French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to issue a statement on Sunday saying France and its Western and African allies “could have stopped” the bloodshed but lacked the will to do so.
Mr Kagame will also deliver a speech at the capital’s 10,000-seat arena, where Rwandans will later light candles and pray for those killed.
Sunday’s events marked the start of a week of national mourning, with life in Rwanda effectively coming to a standstill and national flags lowered to half-mast.
Music will not be played in public places and on the radio, and sports events and films will not be broadcast on television unless they are related to Kwibuka (Remembrance) 30.
The United Nations (UN) and the African Union will also hold commemorations.
The massacres cannot be forgotten, said former Czech diplomat Karel Kovanda, who was the first UN ambassador to publicly name the 1994 massacre. after the events of the genocide almost a month after the beginning of the killings.
“The page cannot be turned,” he told AFP in an interview in Kigali, calling for efforts to ensure “the genocide does not sink into oblivion.”
in 1994 April 6 At night over Kigali, the plane of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down. After the death of the president, Hutu extremists and the Interahamwe group began to rampage in the country.
Their victims were shot, beaten or chopped, and the killings were fueled by brutal anti-Tutsi propaganda broadcast on television and radio. According to the UN, at least 250 thousand people were raped. women. Every year new mass graves are found in the country.
According to Rwanda, hundreds of genocide suspects remain at large, including in neighboring countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Only 28 persons have been extradited to Rwanda by other countries in the world.
in 2002 Rwanda established community tribunals where victims heard “confessions” from their persecutors, but human rights watchdogs said the system was also flawed.
Today, Rwandan identity cards do not indicate whether a person is Hutu or Tutsi. Genocide is taught in high schools through a tightly controlled curriculum.
2024-04-08 01:06:29