Rwanda marks genocide anniversary

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Ten years after the ruthless slaughter of 800,000 people in an ethnic genocide, Rwandans paid tribute to victims and heroes yesterday in ceremonies marked by matter-of-fact descriptions of unimaginable brutality and public displays of grief.

During the proceedings, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda harshly criticized France, which supported the Rwandan regime that perpetrated the genocide. During three bloody months in 1994, members of the majority Hutu tribe executed a detailed plan for the extermination of the minority Tutsi ethnic group and its Hutu sympathizers. Kagame blamed France more than any other country.

"They knowingly trained and armed government soldiers who were going to commit genocide," Kagame said during a speech at the national stadium.

Kagame's blunt remarks were followed by speeches by dignitaries from Africa and Europe that were characterized by vows of "never again" and expressions of apology from other nations that did not help to stop the killing in 1994.

"We did not cry out as loudly as we should have against the enormous and heinous crime against the people of Rwanda that was committed in 1994," said South African President Thabo Mbeki. "For that, we owe the people of Rwanda a sincere apology, which I now extend in all sincerity and humility."

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, whose country has apologized previously for failing to stop the genocide, also sounded a contrite note. "We all share part of the responsibility, some because they did not do enough, others because they remained indifferent," he said.

Kagame, while accepting the apologies, also gently chastised his compatriots for having led the country down such a brutal path.

"We Rwandans have to take primary responsibility for what happened 10 years ago," he said.

Leading an army of Tutsi exiles, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Kagame invaded the country and put a stop to the killing in July 1994.

The United States was represented at the ceremony by Pierre-Richard Prosper, the ambassador-at-large for war crimes. On Tuesday, Prosper announced that the United States would spend $1 million on care for survivors of the genocide, many of whom are women who became infected with HIV when they were repeatedly raped.

"We need to do more for the survivors," Prosper said. "We are still deeply in the aftermath of the genocide."

Early yesterday morning, Kagame also dedicated a genocide memorial in Kigali where the remains of about 250,000 people, who were killed in the capital, were interred in burial chambers after having been removed from mass graves, pit latrines, and unmarked sites where they have languished for a decade. Kagame also lit an eternal flame at the site.

The memorial also includes a museum, partially financed by the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, that documents Rwanda's history, and the roots and events of the genocide. Aegis Trust, a British genocide research charity group, designed and built the museum on behalf of the city of Kigali in a bid to memorialize the genocide for future generations.

Recognizing that the illiteracy rate is high in Rwanda, Aegis relied heavily on pictures and exhibits to tell the story of the genocide. "It is a very visual place," said James Smith, the project's director.

The centerpiece of this week's commemorations was an international conference on genocide prevention and a four-hour ceremony in Rwanda's national stadium before an audience of 28,000 that included many genocide survivors.

The conference saw the return to Rwanda of now-retired Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian officer who headed a United Nations mission to this east African country in 1994 and whose pleas to intervene were ignored at UN headquarters in New York.

Dallaire, echoing comments he made in a recently published book, "Shaking Hands with the Devil," castigated Western nations for not caring about the lives of poor Africans.

"The international community did not give one damn about Rwanda," he said. "The Rwandans did not count."

During yesterday's ceremony, one unnamed survivor stood in front of a microphone and recounted a harrowing tale of being pursued by murderous militias, and thrown in a pit with corpses. Several people in the grandstands wailed uncontrollably, and at least two had to be carried from the stadium.

A few minutes later, when the president of a Rwandan genocide survivors' association began recounting the steps that have been taken to bring individual killers to justice, a woman in the audience began screaming, "Please let me tell you how it was." She was carried out of the stadium.

Kagame's criticism of France reflected the country's longstanding ties with the Rwandan regime of President Juvenal Habyarimana, whose assassination on April 6, 1994, was the signal for Hutu extremists to enact their plan to kill Tutsis, in part using French-supplied weapons.

The French government cut short a visit by its junior foreign minister, Renaud Muselier, saying serious allegations "contrary to the truth" had been made against it.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.