Rwanda begins 100-day mourning for genocide victims
Rwanda yesterday began 100 days of mourning for more than 800 000 people slaughtered in a genocide that shocked the world, a quarter of a century on from the day it began.
President Paul Kagame started off a week of commemoration activities by lighting a remembrance flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250 000 victims are believed to be buried, mainly from the Tutsi people. They are only some of those killed by the genocidal Hutu forces, members of the old army and militia forces called the “Interahamwe”, that began their bloody campaign of death on April 7, 1994, the day after the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu. Some were shot; most were beaten or hacked by machetes.
The killings lasted until Kagame, then 36, led the mainly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) into Kigali on July 4, ending the slaughter and taking control of the devastated country. Kagame, now 61 and who has been in power ever since, is leading the memorial to the dead.
After lighting the flame, accompanied by his wife Jeanette, African Union chief Moussa Faki and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Kagame is expected to make a speech. He will speak at the Kigali Convention Centre, a dome-shaped auditorium in the centre of the capital, a modern building emblematic of the regeneration of Rwanda since the dark days of 1994. Kagame will then preside over a vigil at the country's main football ground. The Amahoro National Stadium - whose name means “peace” in Rwanda's Kinyarwanda language - was used by the UN during the genocide to protect thousands of people of the Tutsi minority from being massacred on the streets outside. In past years, ceremonies have triggered painful flashbacks for some in the audience, with crying, shaking, screaming and fainting amid otherwise quiet vigils.
For many survivors, forgiveness remains difficult when the bodies of their loved ones have not been found and many killers are still free.
A quarter of a century on, the east African nation has recovered economically, but the trauma still casts a dark shadow. Kagame has kept an authoritarian hold as he steers the small, landlocked East African nation through economic recovery. Growth in 2018 was a heady 7.2%, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).
NAMPA/AFP
President Paul Kagame started off a week of commemoration activities by lighting a remembrance flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250 000 victims are believed to be buried, mainly from the Tutsi people. They are only some of those killed by the genocidal Hutu forces, members of the old army and militia forces called the “Interahamwe”, that began their bloody campaign of death on April 7, 1994, the day after the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu. Some were shot; most were beaten or hacked by machetes.
The killings lasted until Kagame, then 36, led the mainly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) into Kigali on July 4, ending the slaughter and taking control of the devastated country. Kagame, now 61 and who has been in power ever since, is leading the memorial to the dead.
After lighting the flame, accompanied by his wife Jeanette, African Union chief Moussa Faki and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Kagame is expected to make a speech. He will speak at the Kigali Convention Centre, a dome-shaped auditorium in the centre of the capital, a modern building emblematic of the regeneration of Rwanda since the dark days of 1994. Kagame will then preside over a vigil at the country's main football ground. The Amahoro National Stadium - whose name means “peace” in Rwanda's Kinyarwanda language - was used by the UN during the genocide to protect thousands of people of the Tutsi minority from being massacred on the streets outside. In past years, ceremonies have triggered painful flashbacks for some in the audience, with crying, shaking, screaming and fainting amid otherwise quiet vigils.
For many survivors, forgiveness remains difficult when the bodies of their loved ones have not been found and many killers are still free.
A quarter of a century on, the east African nation has recovered economically, but the trauma still casts a dark shadow. Kagame has kept an authoritarian hold as he steers the small, landlocked East African nation through economic recovery. Growth in 2018 was a heady 7.2%, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).
NAMPA/AFP
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