13.04.07 - RWANDA/GENOCIDE - " COWARDICE AND COMPLICITY OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY"

RWANDA/GENOCIDE - COMMEMORATION AT KIGALI : « COWARDICE AND COMPLICITY OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY » DURING THE GENOCIDEKigali, 13 April 2007 (FH) – During a commemoration organized on Wednesday evening in the premises of the Official Technical School (ETO) in Kigali town, officials and survivors denounced, with cries of pain and under tears, “the cowardice and the complicity” of the International Community and the United Nations force in Rwanda (UNMIAR) during the genocide of 1994, a Hirondelle Agency correspondent noticed. “In the middle of the Tutsi genocide, the UNMIAR left thousands of persons at the ETO to the mercy of their executioners”, Ambassador Richard Sezibera, special correspondent of President Paul Kagame for the Great Lakes region, criticized. “That’s called cowardice for a soldier, within the International Community, it’s called complicity”, the diplomat added. This district was under the control of the Belgian contingent of the UNMIAR. Ibuka, the main organization of the genocide’s survivors wants to sue Belgium for this abandonment. Under tears, cries, and sobs several testimonies evoked the pains of the 11th April 1994. Testimonies of suffering alternated with those of the International Community’s wrongdoings. During this evening, Belgium, former colonial power of Rwanda, was accused of having inoculated the virus of ethnical hatred into Rwandans which culminated with the genocide of 1994. Also in the dock was France which, according to testimonies, trained, set out, supervised, and supported the genocide’s machinery. The former Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the United Nations were accused of having looked on the Tutsi’s genocide since 1959, without saying anything. The contributions insisted on the necessity of bearing in remembrance the genocide in the hope of making the International Community repent and think about reparations. ESR/ER/CV © Hirondelle News Agency