Rwanda remembers massacres
RWANDANS yesterday marked 30 years since the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed by government- backed extremists, shattering the small East African country which continues to grapple with the horrific legacy of the massacres.
Rwanda has shown strong economic growth in the years since, but problems remain and there are questions about whether genuine reconciliation has been achieved under the long rule of President Paul Kagame, whose rebel movement stopped the genocide and seized power.
Kagame, who is praised by many for bringing relative stability but vilified by others for his intolerance of dissent, led commemoration events in the capital, Kigali.
Foreign visitors include a delegation led by Bill Clinton, who was US president during the genocide, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Kagame lit a flame of remembrance and laid a wreath at a memorial site holding the remains of 250,000 genocide victims in Kigali in 1994.
The killings began after a plane carrying then- president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down over Kigali.
The Tutsis were blamed for downing the plane and killing the president, and became targets in months of massacres led by Hutu extremists. Some moderate Hutus who tried to protect members of the Tutsi minority were also killed.
Naphtal Ahishakiye, head of
Ibuka, a prominent group of survivors, said keeping the memory of the genocide alive helps fight the mentality that allowed neighbours to turn on each other.
Mass graves are still being discovered across Rwanda 30 years later, a reminder of the scale of the killings.