2004-4-9
This is Steve Ember with In the News in VOA Special English.
Wednesday was the tenth anniversary of the start of widespread
ethnic killings in Rwanda. Thousands of people attended a national
burial ceremony in the capital, Kigali. They gathered there to honor
the victims and to show support for the central African nation.
The leaders of South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia attended
the ceremony. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was the only
Western leader to attend. Rwanda criticized Western countries for
not sending high-level officials.
During the ceremony, Rwandan
President Paul Kagame led Rwandans in observing three minutes of
silence for the victims. Earlier, he lit a flame at the new Kigali
National Memorial Center.
The killings in Rwanda began on April seventh,
nineteen-ninety-four, after a plane carrying the presidents of
Rwanda and Burundi was shot down over Kigali. Both leaders died in
the crash. Rwanda's President Juvenal Habyarimana was an ethnic
Hutu.
Following the crash, extremists in the Hutu government began a
plan to kill all of the country's minority Tutsi population and
politically moderate Hutus. An estimated eight-hundred-thousand
Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in three months of violence.
The killings ended when Mister Kagame's Tutsi-led rebel army
ousted the extremist Hutu government and seized control of the
capital. More than two-million Hutus later fled to nearby Democratic
Republic of Congo.In a speech during the ceremony in Kigali,
President Kagame said Rwanda takes the most blame for the mass
killings. But he criticized the international community for failing
to intervene to stop the killings. He also repeated accusations that
French officials helped train and arm the Hutu government soldiers
and militants who carried out the killings.
France has denied the accusations. It later withdrew its deputy
foreign minister from the ceremony in Kigali.
Rwanda is one of the world's
poorest countries. Many Rwandans are still suffering as a result of
the violence ten years ago. Many women were infected with the
disease AIDS during widespread sexual attacks. And thousands of
children lost their parents in the mass killings or from AIDS.
Human rights officials say the situation in Rwanda now is calm
and the government has control in the country. The International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is trying some of those accused of
planning and carrying out the killings. But tensions continue
between the Hutus and Tutsis. And human rights groups say there are
still very serious problems with the justice system because of the
failure of Rwandan courts.
Former President Bill Clinton and United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan have apologized for failing to intervene in
Rwanda. During a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland this week, Mister
Annan proposed a five-point action plan designed to prevent future
ethnic killings.
In the News, in VOA Special English, was written by Cynthia Kirk.
This is Steve Ember.