07.04.11 - RWANDA/GENOCIDE - EXHIBITION ABOUT THE HISTORY OF GENOCIDE SET UP IN KIGALI STADIUM

Kiglai, April 7, 2011 (FH) - Celebrating the 17th anniversary of the genocide, Rwanda has set up in April  its first giant exhibition on the history of the massacres in Kigali stadium.

1 min 9Approximate reading time

 "I lost my life in the genocide" reads the inscription at the entrance of the exhibition, next to a big picture of a 7-year old killed on April 11, 1994.

The kid had promised his family that he would become a doctor. When he saw militiamen and gendarmes getting closer to the place where he stood, he told his mother : " Don't worry, the UNAMIR will save us", a guide explains to the visitors.

This kid was one out of around 5.000 Tutsis who had sought refuge at the ETO school in Kigali. They were finally let alone by the Belgian contingent of the UNAMIR, then killed by the Interahamwe.

The exhibition also shows examples of hate speeches delivered before the genocide, in the extremist newspaper Kangura or on Radio Télévision libre des milles collines (RTLM), and pictures of road-blocks made of human bodies, militiamen holding tools and weapons, churches filled with slaughtered people.

The exhibition also shows pictures of a few Hutus who saved Tutsis, risking their own lives.

Then, images of the RPF taking control of the situation and stopping the genocide are displayed.

Tough images of the life after genocide for people contaminated by the HIV can also be seen in the stadium, as well as pictures presenting the work of the ICTR and of gacaca justice.

At last, "a picture of hope" figures Rwanda rising from the ashes while a local documentary,  "Dreams of future", shows survivors  testifying that future sounds promising.

The exhibition will be open until the end of April.

SRE/ ER/GF  

© Hirondelle News Agency