Ruanda (Continuación)

MundoÁfrica,

We are used to seeing aged Holocaust survivors with faded photographs, telling their stories to remind the young and forgetful. So it is shocking to meet a 31-year-old genocide survivor with memories so fresh they bleed.

I talked to Freddy Mutanguha in a field of white crosses, near a half-finished monument to perhaps 800,000 victims of the Rwandan genocide. "My mom," he recalled, "gave money to be killed by a bullet, because she saw the machetes and knew what they would do to her. But the bullet was too expensive."

The mass violence of Hutu against Tutsi left a nation of corpses -- and a nation of stories.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfricaEuropaUnión Europea, ,

The hastily arranged car boot sale outside the French Embassy in downtown Kigali last Monday did good business. On offer were laptop computers, televisions, three-piece suites and, well, even the cars themselves. Given the decision taken by the Rwandan Government ten days ago to expel the French Ambassador, his staff and to close all official French buildings in the tiny Central African country, there was clearly little expectation of a return.

Behind these scenes of gloomy embassy employees packing and selling their diplomatic and domestic baggage is a recent history between France and Rwanda steeped in a mire of blood and guilt.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

The Guardian published an article that centred on a five-month-old report on the Murambi genocide site in Rwanda (Two years late and mired in controversy: the British memorial to Rwanda's past, November 13).

Two years late for what? It may have been desirable to open the memorial centre two years ago, but no opening date had been set. The Aegis Trust, a British charity, was asked by the Rwandan government to help convey the genocide story at Murambi, where 50,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in 1994. We do not drag our feet on such projects. We completed a much larger exhibition in Rwanda's main genocide museum, the Kigali Memorial Centre, in just four months in 2004; but remote Murambi poses a different set of challenges.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Par André Guichaoua, professeur à l'université Paris-I, témoin-expert auprès du bureau du procureur du TPIR depuis 1996 (LIBERATION, 23/05/06):

epuis plus de dix ans, les commémorations du mois d'avril donnent l'occasion aux autorités rwandaises de rappeler les responsabilités internationales dans le déclenchement et l'accomplissement du génocide des Rwandais tutsis. Cette année, la relance des accusations a été particulièrement agressive. Parmi les autorités et puissances étrangères, le président Paul Kagame a nommément dénoncé à plusieurs reprises, les Nations unies, la France et la Belgique (par exemple le 26 avril, lors de diverses interviews accordées au cours de sa visite au Canada).…  Seguir leyendo »