Never Again Rwand Governance and Rights Team
President Paul Kagame lays wreath at memorial site as the African country commemorates 1994 genocide in which more than than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed.
Rwandans accept held a solemn commemoration of the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu who tried to protect them were killed.
President Paul Kagame on Thursday laid a wreath at a memorial site where more than than 250,000 people are buried in the capital, Kigali. The anniversary marked the beginning of a week of somber events.
Kagame said he opposes any attempts to rewrite the history of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The killings were perpetrated past extremist Hutu over a period of 100 days.
Some rights groups have accused Kagame'due south soldiers of carrying out some killings during and later on the genocide in apparent revenge, but Rwandan authorities strongly deny this accusation.
Kagame said that his group had shown restraint in the face of genocide.
"Imagine people existence hunted down twenty-four hour period and night for who they are. Also imagine if those of us who were conveying arms, if we had allowed ourselves to pursue those who were killing our people indiscriminately," he said.
"First of all, we would exist right to do and so. But nosotros didn't. We spared them. Some of them are still living today, in their homes, villages. Others are in government and business organisation."
Kagame, who is widely credited with stopping the genocide, has become a polarising figure over the years equally his critics accuse him of leading an authoritarian government that crushes all dissent.
Merely he is also praised by many for presiding over the relative political stability allowing Rwanda'south economy to grow.
Kagame aimed his speech at those criticising his justice system on the dorsum of hundreds of genocide fugitives withal at large.
"You can fifty-fifty imagine people who doubt our justice organisation, withal Rwanda abolished the death sentence in its laws not because everyone influenced or put pressure on us at a time when information technology had so many people to be justifiably hanged. And you turn and say that we do non take justice," he said.
"Rwanda is a small country but big in justice. We believe in the rule of law."
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'Never Again'
"What happened in Rwanda was the upshot of a failure of political systems … and seclusion," Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the African Wedlock Committee, said at an result at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia'due south capital Addis Ababa.
He hailed Rwanda for its "spectacular" reconstruction and reconciliation efforts over the past virtually three decades.
"As Africans, we should come together equally i to commemorate ane of our continent'south darkest days," said Promise Tumukunde Gasatura, Rwanda's permanent envoy to the AU.
"The phrase 'Never Again' is an enduring phrase which has echoed effectually the world in response to genocide – from the Holocaust to Bosnia, to Cambodia, to Rwanda."
The mass killing of the Tutsi was ignited on April 6 when a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down and crashed in Kigali, killing the leader who, like about Rwandans, was an indigenous Hutu.
The Tutsi were blamed for downing the plane, and although they denied it, bands of Hutu extremists began killing them, including children, with support from the army, police and militias.
The AU Commission and Rwanda'due south mission to the AU accept jointly organised a 100-24-hour interval celebration under the theme of "Call back, Unite, Renew," with events scheduled to be held from April 7 to July 3.
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Source: TRTWorld and agencies
Source: https://www.trtworld.com/africa/rwanda-marks-genocide-anniversary-vows-never-again-56167
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