Victoire Ingabire - Chair FDU-Inkingi

Kigali: Under fire from all sides including President Paul Kagame, opposition politician Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza on Wednesday blamed government for not doing enough to support Genocide survivors but without mentioning the word �Tutsi�, RNA reports.

In a statement, the FDU-Inkingi chief says it is �outrageous� that resources meant for Genocide survivors are being embezzled by government officials �to the extent that up to this moment, survivors lack basic essentials.�

Ms. Ingabire�s comments come as bitter criticisms are targeted at her from all sides � with some sections describing her as a Genocide denier � which is actually a criminal offense. Her trouble started on January 16, on arrival from exile, when she called for the recognition of Hutus supposedly killed.

A local daily The New Times branded her as �espousing double Genocide theory�. The following weeks have left her under Police investigation over the controversial comments � which she denies.

As the country commemorates 16 years after the mass killings, Ms. Ingabire says government needs to show �concrete actions� aimed at supporting survivors.

However, in her two-page statement, Ms. Ingabire does not mention the word �Tutsi�, instead referring to those who suffered from the ordeal as �survivors�. As for the actually killings, Ms. Ingabire calls them simply as �Genocide�.

A constitution amendment passed in 2007 recognises the mass slaughter as �Tutsi Genocide� � a move which abandoned the previously connotation of Rwandan Genocide. This essentially means that just calling it the Genocide is a criminal offence � with up to 25 years behind bars.

The FDU-Inkingi also claims government does not have a �concrete programme to protect� survivors against gruesome attacks, saying reports on investigations have never been made public. Ms. Ingabire also calls on the country not to be �prisoner to the past�.

Meanwhile, in the national stadium, the head of IBUKA � the survivors� umbrella group, Mr. Theodore Simburudali told President Kagame that new rules must be formulated to govern who visits memorial sites across the country.

Mr. Simburudali said with such a mechanism, individuals who he said insult the honour of victims in the guise of �political debate�, may not be allowed anywhere close to the sites. Without making any specifics or names, it was clear Mr. Simburudali was referring to the opposition critic Ms. Ingabire.

In addition to the social difficulties survivors live with such as poverty, IBUKA also expressed concern that remains of victims continue to litter different places. Mr. Simburudali said in places like Kibeho, Murambi and Musha � remains of victims have not been laid to rest.

IBUKA also raised new numbers of victims of the mass slaughter � saying 10,000 Tutsis were killed everyday for the entire duration of killings. Some 100 Tutsi bodies were flooded into Lake Victoria everyday through numerous rivers, according to Mr. Simburudali.

In a related development, in Belgium, the community sympathetic to survivors is also demanding that the Brussels administration change the words inscribed on the Genocide memorial site located in commune of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. According to IBUKA-Belgium, the inscription needs to change to �Tutsi Genocide� and NOT �Rwandan Genocide�.

Government and survivors argue the latter appellation negates the slaughter which was planned and targeted at Tutsis.

[ARI-RNA]

Here is the statement of Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the chairperson of UDF (FDU-Inkingi), at the genocide memorial period.
Kigali, 7th April 2010

Dear countrymen,

Today we are starting the commemoration of the Rwandan genocide period. On behalf of UDF party and its entire membership, the interim executive committee extends its deep sympathy to all Rwandan who lost their beloved parents, brothers and sisters, genocide survivors who were aggrieved by the genocide.
The memorial period should be an opportunity for all of us to think about this tragedy that befell our country. It should bring each and every one into devising ways and means of ensuring that innocent blood never be shed again.
It is painful to hear that, 16 years after the genocide, there are still people vowing to harm genocide survivors. It is unbelievable to hear that some of the aid meant for genocide survivors ends up in pockets of those who were supposed to manage them.
Indeed, there are reports of genocide survivors who are still languishing in abject poverty, unattended to, without shelter, and orphans still being at the mercy of charity.

It is not enough to denounce malpractices. People need actions. They need to see that the government is truly behind them. It is nonsense to denounce those who swindle survivors’ aid, without bringing them to justice, or transferring them to other offices in the civil service. It amounts to putting a finger in a wound.
This should be high on the agenda of the government, in order to ease suffering and regain confidence of all orphans and widows who were traumatised by the genocide.
It is urgent for the government to go beyond slogans and unveil plans of ensuring security for genocide survivors. It is high time for the security services to publish reports of investigations that were carried out into genocide survivors’ attacks. The victims are calling for help.

Dear countrymen,
It is paramount not to be hostages of history. We should be courageous enough to think about the long term. We should learn from the past, although it may not be an easay task. We should agree to join forces for the interests of our beloved country, in peace, unity and mutual respect. This is the heritage that we should leave to the future generations.

I will wind up by calling upon every Rwandan to remember our deceased, to remember what happened , but without forgetting the future.

May God bless you all

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza

Chairperson UDF-INkingi

Kigali: Brussels Police on Tuesday blocked dozens of Rwandan nationals who were preparing to hold a protest they call a vigil at the genocide memorial located in the commune of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, reports say.

The Genocide commemoration officially starts on April 07 � the date when the Tutsi mass killings started en-mass. The protestors have often chosen the date of 6 April, the day of the attack against the presidential plane to assert the link between the event and the start of the Genocide.

Belgian police told the small group that they cannot be allowed to converge at the Woluwe-Saint-Pierre site at the request of the government of Rwanda. The site was built in 2004 and each year vigils are held there on April 07 organised by the Embassy in Brussels.

According to reports, women could be seen weeping uncontrollably for having been refused to reach the memorial.

Over the years, such vigils have repeatedly been blocked. Last year, the day before, Sunday (April 6), about 60 Rwandans who were protesting in front of the court building were arrested by the Belgian police.

The protest, qualified as “negationnist” by the IBUKA association of survivors and the Rwandan Community in Belgium (RCB), had been prohibited by the Mayor of Brussels.

In an open letter sent to the mayor, Mr. Joseph Matata, the main organizer and President of the Center for the Fight against Impunity and Injustice in Rwanda (CLIIR), claimed that the protest was in the “memory of all the victims of the Rwandan genocide killed in Rwanda and in the DRC”.

Kigali considers such functions which are commonly held by Rwandan exiles as aimed at undermining the Tutsi mass slaughter � branded here as Genocide ideology.

[ARI-RNA]

President Paul Kagame: Only radicals change the world

During the April 7th genocide commemorative ceremony, President Paul Kagame accused the opposition leaders like Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza of practicing ‘political hooliganism’ and announced: “They call me Hitler”.
The crowd, which was supposed to be sad and mourning for the genocide victims, cheered and applauded, a way of saying to him: “Kagame, we are yours” and “Whatever it takes”.

That reminds me the famous speech addressed to the Saddleback Church members in April 2005 by Pastor Rick Warren, member of the Rwanda’s Presidential Advisory Council. See article: Rwanda: Presidential Advisory Council members meet in Kigali

In that speech, Pastor Rick Warren solemnly asked his followers to be as committed to Jesus as the young Nazi men and women who spelled out in mass formation with their bodies the words “Hitler, we are yours,” in 1939 at the Munich Stadium, were committed to the F�hrer of the Third Reich, a major instigator of a World War that claimed 55 million lives. In that speech, the now Kagame’s eminent official advisor said:
“Only radicals change the world…
Everything great done in this world is done by passionate people…
Moderate people get moderately nothing done
And moderation will never slay the global giants.”

Watch this video and you’ll have an idea of the kind of influence Rick Warren has on what’s going on in Rwanda and in the Great Lakes Region:

On behalf of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, and the American people, I would like to convey our deepest sympathies to all Rwandans who lost loved ones, friends, neighbors, and colleagues in the genocide. We join you today to pay respects to the victims � more than eight hundred thousand Rwandans � who lost their lives during the 100 brutal days of 1994. Rwanda bears the grave burden of this tragedy, but the international community has not forgotten and we will never forget. We live with the knowledge that we could have done more than we did. But, like you, we know that we must apply lessons learned from the past while looking to the future.

As we commemorate the genocide in solidarity and sympathy with the survivors, we look to Rwanda�s vision of its future. It is one enlightened by all Rwandans who live together in respect, commitment to reconciliation, and determination to make the lives of their children and grandchildren better in every respect than what they have known. Rwandans are a people of remarkable determination and fortitude. It is heroic work to rebuild lives.

Survivors have pushed on creating a new Rwanda, while living with mental and physical scars. Many refugees and former combatants have returned home and are living and working together throughout the country. Rwanda�s economy is growing steadily, attracting new investment and tourism. And to strengthen regional peace and security, we note that the Government of Rwanda has taken steps to rebuild its relationships with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other states of the Great Lakes region. The United States will remain a committed partner in Rwanda�s efforts to improve the well-being of its citizens and promote peace and stability in the region.

Today, as we remember the victims of the genocide, we must also remind ourselves that such atrocities committed anywhere violate our collective humanity and dignity. Rwanda�s contribution to the peacekeeping efforts in Darfur are a powerful testament to a commitment to ensure that others will not be left to experience the pain and devastation that wreaked havoc upon Rwanda�s people sixteen years ago.

On this somber occasion, the United States applauds Rwanda�s progress and wishes its people continued success in their efforts in securing a peaceful, prosperous and democratic future.

[US Department of State - www.state.gov]

Kigali: The gacaca grass-roots courts that have judged more than one million people suspected of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide will close later than announced, the Gacaca Secretariat announced, as the country starts a seven-day national mourning period.

“We expected the cases we were hearing would have been finished in March, but it was not so,” Denis Bikesha, an official at Rwanda’s gacaca department is reported to have said.

As of March 15, the gacaca courts, based on the age-old concept of a village council, still had some 560 cases outstanding, he said.

Earlier this year Bikesha had said he expected the whole process to be completed by the end of March.

This is the third delay as officials scramble for what to do with cases that continue to arise.

Preventing future atrocities best way to honour Rwandan genocide victims � Ban

In Remembrance.

7 April 2010 � Securing justice for the victims of genocide and preventing future atrocities are the best ways to honour the hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered in Rwanda 16 years ago, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed today as the United Nations observes a global day of remembrance for the tragedy.More than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and Hutus were murdered in the tiny African nation, mostly by machete, during a period of less than 100 days beginning in April 1994.

In a message to commemorate the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, observed annually on 7 April, Mr. Ban said the UN is fully committed to securing justice and to preventing future atrocities.

Together, let us pledge our determination to prevent genocide as the best way to remember those who lost their lives so tragically in Rwanda

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), he noted, delivered the first-ever verdicts in relation to genocide by an international court. �These and similar actions from the halls of justice have sent a clear message to the genocidaires and would-be genocidaires. Simply put, their heinous crimes will not go unpunished.�

The Secretary-General urged Member States to cooperate with the tribunal, which is based in the Tanzanian city of Arusha, to arrest and hand over the remaining 11 fugitives as the court continues to deliver justice and ensure accountability.

�Together, let us pledge our determination to prevent genocide as the best way to remember those who lost their lives so tragically in Rwanda,� said Mr. Ban.

This year�s commemoration features a candle-lighting ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York with music performed by young Rwandan and international musicians.

The film As We Forgive, a documentary about the power and pain of reconciliation in Rwanda, will also be screened.

The UN Office in Geneva is marking the Day with a ceremony featuring statements by, among others, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. Ceremonies, film screenings and panel discussions are also taking place around the world, from Accra and Antananarivo to Bogot� and Brazzaville.

Also in connection with this year�s commemoration, a student videoconference entitled Rebuilding After Genocide: Justice, Reconciliation and Reintegration will be held tomorrow. It will connect students in New York, Illinois and Mexico City with representatives from the ICTR, the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission and the National Service of Gacaca Courts in Rwanda and a Rwandan genocide survivor.

[UN News Centre - www.un.org/]

Kigali: The Catholic Diocese in the U.S state of Minnesota is preparing a function to commemorate the appearance of the Virgin Mary to seven children in Kibeho (Western Rwanda) which supposedly gave them visions of the future Tutsi Genocide, RNA reports.

To mark this appearance, a prayer retreat is being organized on April 24 at St. Timothy in Minneapolis. Organisers say through this event, it is hoped people will feel closer to their Catholic family around the world.

The retreat will include music, confession, Mass and adoration. Retreatants will also eat a unique Rwandan meal, hear Rwandan music and learn about the apparition of Our Lady of Kibeho, according to The Catholic Spirit, a newsletter of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minnesota.

Kibeho was part of former Gikongoro prefecture where on November 28, 1981, the Virgin Mary reportedly surfaced. Available information suggests that the government at the time used the appearances for political reasons.

In the years that followed, government-leaning media especially Radio Rwanda reported that the Virgin Mary had approved the killing of Tutsis and that President Juvenal Habyarimana was with her in Heaven.

At the retreat in Minnesota, those in attendance will will watch �Hold on to Hope,� a DVD presentation of the life of Immacul�e Ilibagiza, who survived the Tutsi Genocide. Ms. Ilibagiza will also lead them in meditation via DVD.

[ARI-RNA]

Kigali : As Rwanda begins a week of official commemorations of the 1994 genocide today the last village courts set up to try those who took part in the killing of 800,000 Tutsis are preparing to shut down, closing a chapter in the long process of healing.

For the past five years thousands of Hutus have been brought face to face with survivors and their families in traditional tribunals. These have sentenced many of the killers to long terms in jail while promoting reconciliation among those who still live alongside their victims� families.

The gacaca courts have dealt with almost 1.5 million cases and most of the backlog of those accused of taking part in the genocide has been cleared. There are fears, however, that some villagers are using this unique system of justice to settle scores with neighbours, and the Government wants any remaining cases to be tried in regular courts.

Rwanda has promised to preserve the evidence that has emerged from these informal tribunals as part of the effort to ensure that racist ideology and the genocidal mania it spawned is never again allowed free rein.

Documents and archives will be added to the main genocide memorial centre in Kigali and to those set up across the country on sites where men, women and children were maimed, tortured, raped, bludgeoned and hacked to death in a frenzy of killing that lasted 100 days.

Every year Rwanda commemorates the start of the genocide on April 7, the date when the pre-arranged plan to exterminate the Tutsi minority was triggered by the shooting down of the aircraft that was carrying President Habyarimana.

Young people will march today to the main national stadium on a �walk to remember�. The event has been organised by Peace and Love Proclaimers , a local youth organisation linked to the Aegis Trust, a British-based organisation that helped to set up the Genocide Centre in Kigali, where 250,000 victims are buried. The genocide will also be remembered at a service in Southwark Cathedral.

Despite progress in reconciliation the trauma still hangs over Rwanda. It is already distorting the presidential election in August, making it a sensitive and dangerous time.

President Kagame, leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front � which swept in from exile in Uganda in 1994 to drive out the genocidaires � has laid down tough penalties for anyone attempting to exploit lingering suspicion between Hutu and Tutsi. Genocide deniers and apologists face criminal charges. Rwandans admit that this is a curb on free speech but point to the laws in Germany that make Holocaust denial an offence.

Human rights organisations accuse the Government of using the genocide as a pretext to bar those considering standing against Mr Kagame. Two weeks ago Victoire Ingabire, a Hutu exile who returned recently from the Netherlands, was detained at the airport when she attempted to leave. She has caused uproar by speaking of a double genocide and claiming that many Hutus were killed by returning Tutsi exiles in 1994. She claims that she is being silenced because of her opposition to the President.

Few doubt that Mr Kagame will be re-elected � the country has a healthy growth rate of 5 per cent and he has made progress in reconstruction, education and fighting corruption. However, he has been criticised for his secretive style of government and it is feared that any poll may be tarnished by the lack of any credible opposition.

The most sensitive issue is the legacy of the genocide. Most of the Government is drawn from Tutsi exiles who returned in 1994, and they are resented by many as a clique.

Mr Kagame has banned any official distinction between Tutsis and Hutus and insists that Rwandans must work together � but there is an ever-present fear that the animosities could be rekindled. Rwanda is small and crowded, vulnerable to tensions if land or the economy is squeezed.

And across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo still lurk the former interahamwe killers, a reminder of the tribalism and extremism that wreaked mayhem 16 years ago.

[ARI-RNA]

In a 45-minute tirade, President Kagame fired at Ingabire, the west and the Generals. "They call me Hitler... but I'm not bothered"

Kigali – President Paul Kagame on Wednesday accused foreign critics of trying to impose values on Rwanda as well as preferring �hooligans� to govern the country � categorically singling-out opposition politician Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, RNA reports.

In a firry 45-minute address to mark the 16th anniversary of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide, Mr. Kagame accused the opposition � specifically naming Ms. Ingabire in person, of �political hooliganism�. The President also accused the critics of �abusing me� in the name of freedom of expression, but said he is �not bothered at all�.

�Some people here want to encouraging political hooliganism,� he said in English, before going into a tirade of attacks on Ingabire, as the crowd behind him was in constant applause.

�Some people just come from nowhere�useless people�I see every time in pictures some lady who had her deputy � a Genocide criminal, talking about �there is Genocide but there is another��that is politics�and the world is also saying �the opposition leader���

The President was referring to Mr. Joseph Ntawangundi, the aide to Ms. Ingabire who was recently sentenced to 17 years for Genocide.

�They call me Hitler�

In a culmination with loud applause and clapping from the audience, President added: �To that we say a big no. And if anybody wants a fight, then we will give them a fight�.

The President dismissed the notion of free expression as promoted by his foreign critics such as campaign groups, saying Rwandans know what freedom means more than anybody else can teach them. He also attacked those he described as �constantly meddling in our politics� by propagating and making up �lies� about his government.

The President warned his critics of hiding behind freedom of express to �abuse me� but also added that he does not �give a damn�.

�They break tool, they call me Hitler�am not bothered at all�I just hold them in contempt,� he said amid more applause. He wondered how his critics attack him and �at the same time complain about press freedom?�

�You are even free to abuse people, you have no respect for anything�and you turn around to complain that you have no freedom to express yourself? �What more do you want to express about yourself or about others?�

�Ni watu gani awo?�

Mr. Kagame said �bad national politics converged with bad international politics� to cause what was being commemorated at today April 07 for the next three months.

�Who are these giving anyone here lessons honestly? �Ni watu gani awo? �who are these? …are these Rwandans complaining? �or have they sent you to complain on their behalf? …� he wondered in a mixture of English, Kinyarwanda and Swahili, amid applause.

He added: �These Rwandans you see here and elsewhere are as free, as happy [and] as proud of themselves, like they have never been in their lives.�

The President accused the west of preferring to criticize his government but do not want to be held responsible for their role in the Genocide. He also said the west was undermining �our dignity�, �our values� and �our pride�, arguing that democracy took time to get to the current level in their countries.

�They wake up in the morning, distort [the] situation, tell lies about everything�plus they are responsible for many of the things that put here today to commemorate this Genocide�,� he said.

��yet when they talk about freedom of expression, they don�t want you to express yourself about their responsibility in this Genocide�What freedoms are you teaching me if you cant take responsibility for the politics that killed one million people in Rwanda.�

The Generals

He added: �I know those who say it and support that, know it is wrong. But [it] is an expression of contempt these people have for Rwandans and for Africans�that they think Africans deserve to be led by these hooligans.�

Turning his guns on the government officials who are fleeing the country apparently complaining about �no political space�, the President accused them of �running away from accountability�.

�These Generals fleeing the country should not be taken seriously,� he said, in apparent reference to ex-army chief Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, who has political asylum in South Africa.

Earlier, Sports and Culture Minister Joseph Habineza also attacked the man behind the Hollywood movie �Hotel Rwanda�. Mr. Habineza did not name Mr. Paul Rusesabagina but was clearly referring to him.

Using poetic speech, the Minister also fired at the vocal opposition causing laughter in the otherwise somber occasion, saying they are blocking the reconciliation among Rwandans.

Paul Kagame lights the flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center

Earlier, in the same stadium amid silence as thousands waited for the arrival of the President, loud cries could be heard from difference sections as survivors erupted in emotional bursts. They continued all through the hours-long function � indicative of survivors remembering their traumatic experiences.

At exactly 12:00, a minute silence was observed in the stadium, as with other areas where commemoration activities were ongoing.

A women survivor narrated how she has rebuilt her life very successfully over the last sixteen years. Her ordeal started on April 07 in Kigali, that by April 12, she could barely move herself as she had been machetted on several parts of her body. The advancing RPF rebels saved her and others on this date � providing all sorts of aid.

As part of the national vigil, local musicians including those from within and outside of Rwanda sung emotional songs composed for the commemoration. White was the top colour they were dressed in � with some combinations of black trousers.

A group of about 200 children � wearing white dresses and purple coverings on their heads delivered a moving presentation in a mixture of English and Kinyarwanda. All through the act coupled with singing, poems and messages of hope for the survivors, traumatic outbursts could be heard as people were driven up by emotion.

Earlier, President Kagame led a brief vigil at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center where some 250,000 victims are laid to rest. In the courtyard of the Centre, the President lit a flame, which will burn for 100 days in symbolic recognition of the 100 days of the Tutsi slaughter.

Commemorative activities were taking place at village level across the country. In Kigali, city authorities organised a procession from Kacyiru to the national stadium in the afternoon.