Rwanda Youth Information Community Organization (rYico) has organised a programme of events in Brighton to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. Click on the link below for more details.

A bitter war of words has erupted between Rwanda and France just weeks before the central African nation marks the 10th anniversary of the genocide of 800,000 people. Western heads of state are due in the capital, Kigali, next month to commemorate the 100-day slaughter, which was sparked by the assassination of Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, on 6 April 1994. What should be a moment of sombre reflection is, however, being marred by a furious exchange of accusations, centred on a murder mystery that is as central to Rwanda's history as the Kennedy assassination is to that of the United States.

The One World Trust's lecture by Linda Melvern on 'Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide' will take place on May 18th at 6.00pm in Committee Room 6, Houses of Parliament, London.

The First Lady of Rwanda, Mrs Jeanette Kagame, will visit the UK Houses of Parliament on Tuesday, April 20th to mark ten years since the Rwandan genocide. She will be joined by Noreen Kaleeba, pioneer of HIV work in Uganda, founder of TASO and UNAIDS Community Mobilisation Programme Manager. Mrs Kagame will be the guest at an event organised by Survivors Fund (SURF), a UK based charity working to support survivors of the Rwandan genocide, and hosted by Brian Cotter MP, Survivors Fund Patron. As the founder of PACFA (Protection and Care of Families Against HIV/AIDS), a Rwandan programme which advocates for specific policies, strategies and actions to fight HIV/AIDS among women, children and families, Mrs Kagame will launch a campaign to access HIV/AIDS treatment for women who contracted HIV/AIDS as a result of being raped during the genocide.

April 7, 2004 marks ten years since the beginning of the Rwandan genocide, when nearly a million people were killed in ninety days while the international community largely stood by. In response, the Centre for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law has launched the Rwanda Commemoration Project: Genocide in Our Time, an international initiative that seeks to raise awareness of this anniversary and the important lessons of the tragic events in Rwanda.

This year is the 10th Anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. An international campaign is underway to mobilise to mark this anniversary - "REMEMBERING RWANDA". As our contribution to this campaign, we will be featuring this special section called Remembering Rwanda. We will also be publishing a special issue on Rwanda in April 2004 that will contain originally commissioned editorials covering key issues relating to Rwanda and the genocide.

Get involved! Organise an event in your institution, town, village or city. Send us information ([email protected]) about what you are doing to commemorate the anniversary and to provide solidarity to the rebuilding of Rwanda.

Efforts by the Rwandan government to rid the country of corruption continue, with 139 police officers targeted for dismissal over cases of indiscipline ranging from theft to bribe-taking, a senior police officer told IRIN on Tuesday. The blacklisted police officers would be paraded before the public "as soon as possible", the official, who requested anonymity, said. However, the officer did not say when the police officers would be dismissed, only hinting that most of them were constables.

One of the world's great centres of primate diversity is now a national park, created in one of Africa's smallest and most densely populated nations. With the help of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the government of Rwanda has recently established Nyungwe National Park, a rich landscape that contains 13 different types of primate, along with 260 bird species, and more than 260 species of trees and shrubs.

Janine Umuhoza was seven years old in April 1994 when her parents were killed during the genocide in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus died. On that fateful day, she bade the usual farewell to her parents before setting off to school. Later, Hutu militiamen marched onto their home compound and killed her mother, father and other members of the family. However, her two younger brothers and two sisters survived. As the eldest, and a lot sooner than she could have imagined, she became mother to her siblings in a country fraught with danger at the time.

The Rwandan Government has dismissed press speculation that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) shot down President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane in April 1994 as "baseless propaganda". In a lengthy article, published on 1 March, the Canadian daily, The National Post, said it had obtained a confidential United Nations report which provided detailed testimony from RPF informants on their own involvement in the attack on the plane.
Related Link:
Kgame triggered genocide, claims French probe
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=58&story_…

A report from the Auditor General's office in Rwanda says that several government ministries and parastals were involved in irregular tendering procedures in 2002, causing the country to lose millions of dollars and frustrating the government's efforts to reduce high levels of poverty nationwide. "The findings indicate that some public officials continue to cause the government losses by dodging the National Tender Board in order to siphon government funds for their own interests," the report for 2002, which was released last week, said.

April 7, 2004 marks ten years since the beginning of the Rwandan genocide, when nearly a million people were killed in ninety days while the international community largely stood by. In response, the Centre for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law has launched the Rwanda Commemoration Project: Genocide in Our Time, an international initiative that seeks to raise awareness of this anniversary and the important lessons of the tragic events in Rwanda. Read more by clicking on the link below.

Amnesty International has expressed concern over the prospect of renewed judicial executions in Burundi, following a speedy trial of four Rwandan men over a bank robbery that took place on 29 January in the capital, Bujumbura. In a statement, Amnesty said on Monday that the Rwandans were at imminent risk of execution. The men were tried on 23 February over the bank robbery during which one person died and a large amount of money stolen.

Rwandan officials have asked countries around the world to hold a minute's silence at noon on April 7 to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1994 genocide. "We would like the whole world to hold 10 minutes of silence - one minute for each year since 1994 - but some say that's too long," said Ildephonse Karengera, Rwanda's director of the genocide memorial.

Plans are underway in Rwanda to hold the biggest genocide commemoration event in the country since the 1994 genocide. April 7th, 2004 will be exactly ten years since the start of 100 days of genocide in which an estimated one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

This year is the 10th Anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. An international campaign is underway to mobilise to mark this anniversary - "REMEMBERING RWANDA". As our contribution to this campaign, we will be featuring this special section called Remembering Rwanda. We also plan to publish a special issue on Rwanda in April 2004. Get involved! Organise an event in your institution, town, village or city. Send us information ([email protected]) about what you are doing to commemorate the anniversary and to provide solidarity to the rebuilding of Rwanda.

Ibutsa Rwanda is a weekend of commemoration, reflection and celebration remembering those who died and recognizing the experiences of those who survived the genocide of Rwanda in 1994. Ibutsa Rwanda provides a cultural forum for the communities of Toronto to reflect on the meaning of the genocide, while also celebrating the music, dance, song, poetry, literature, films and art that characterize a vibrant and powerful Rwandan culture thriving today in Canada and in Africa. Ibutsa Rwanda honours survival and life and the responsibility of "those who know and must tell”.

Drawing on extensive research among Rwandese in Rwanda and Europe, and on his work with a conflict resolution NGO in post genocide Rwanda, the author argues that single, absolutist narratives and representations of genocide actually reinforce the modes of thinking that fuelled the genocide in the first place.

The international war crimes tribunals have made precedent-setting decisions on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch says in a new comprehensive book that organizes by topic the decisions of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. "The work of the two ad hoc tribunals represents the most significant effort since Nuremberg to bring perpetrators of the most serious crimes to justice," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program.

After six years the 20,000 refugees from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camp of Gihembe in Byumba (Rwanda) are not yet ready to return home because of continuing unrest in the eastern Congo. Most are Congolese Tutsis from Northern and Southern Kivu but also from the Nande and Hunde tribes of Northern Kivu and Bashis from Southern Kivu.