IslandMix - Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Caribbean Entertainment

AND THEY STILL IGNORE US........


Story

Rwanda genocide continues to kill silently 10 years after the slaughter ended

RODRIQUE NGOWI
Canadian Press


Wednesday, April 07, 2004
ADVERTISEMENT



KAMONYI, Rwanda (AP) - When heads of state, diplomats and survivors gather to mark the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the 1994 genocide, Petronille Mujawamariya will be lying helplessly on a mattress in a gloomy mud hut, wondering how much more time she has to live.

Mujawamariya is one of thousands of women who were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as marauding gangs of extremists from the Hutu majority went from village to village killing and raping.

More than 500,000 people were killed by bullets, machetes, clubs and hoes during the 100-day slaughter that began on April 7, 1994. And a decade later, victims of the genocide are still dying.

On Wednesday, African leaders and western diplomats will gather with Rwandans in Kigali, the capital, to remember the dead.

Bedridden for three months, Mujawamariya, 30, is too weak to talk, but others around her were quick to describe the continued suffering.

"Ten years after the genocide, it is still killing us," said Immaculee Ingabire, an activist with the Coalition on Violence Against Women. "When people describe her (Mujawamariya), they say 'survivor,' but she is not a survivor."

The genocide was organized by the extremist-Hutu government then in power in the central African nation, and most of the victims were Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

Entire families were wiped out as the killers targeted men, women and children. Half a million girls and young women were raped in a "vengeful and sadistic manner," according to the UN Children's Fund.

Mujawamariya was one of thousands of minority Tutsis lured to a local government building in a village near this small town, where they thought they would be safe. But as soon as the villagers assembled, members of a government-backed Hutu militia marched in, raping and slaughtering the unarmed civilians.

A UN tribunal convicted Jean-Paul Akayesu, the area's mayor during the genocide, of 15 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and rape in 1998 for his role in the killing.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said Akayesu, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, facilitated the commission of the sexual violence, beatings and murders by allowing the violence to occur on or near local government property. It was the first conviction by the court.

There are no accurate figures of how many of those sexually abused were infected with HIV during the genocide, but between 10 per cent and 13 per cent of the nation's 8.2 million are infected with the deadly virus today.

When the genocide ended in July 1994, 43 per cent of the country's women were widows.

Rwanda also has one of the highest numbers of orphans per population in the world as a result of the twin tragedies of HIV/AIDS and the genocide - 1.2 million, according to UNICEF.

"Ten years later, the children of Rwanda are still suffering the consequences of a conflict caused entirely by adults," said Carol Bellamy, UNICEF executive director. "For them, the genocide is not just a historical event, but an inescapable part of daily life today and tomorrow."

More than 60 per cent of the population live on less than $1 US per day, and most HIV-infected people can't afford the anti-retroviral drugs needed to slow the effects of the disease.

"We see (genocide) for what it is in the continuing impact it has on the society, on the women who were sexually violated, who have HIV/AIDS and others who suffered," said Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, after meeting women in this small town 25 kilometres south of Kigali.

Prosper was the lead prosecutor in the Akayesu trial.

The genocide began hours after the mysterious shooting down of the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, on April 6, 1994. Tutsis, who now dominate the central African nation's government and army, say the slaughter began April 7 in part because they don't want the date to coincide with the shooting down of Habyarimana's plane - a date with political meaning for radical Hutus.

President Paul Kagame will light a flame on Wednesday in tribute to the genocide victims and inaugurate a national memorial where the remains of 250,000 people are buried in tombs and displayed in glass cases. On Monday, workers began exhuming the remains of some 200 people from a mass grave in Kigali and preparing them for burial at the memorial.

The leaders of Kenya, South Africa and Sudan as well as U.S. and European officials are expected to attend the ceremony. Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who headed the peacekeeping force, was also in Rwanda for the anniversary.


"family please pay attention to the suffering of our people,you think you have it bad...............READ IT AGAIN.............you have it better than you think.

I'm hoping to get tickets to go see this
FILM tonight....sad story as depicted in "Tears Of The Sun".

Very few of us take into account other issues not affecting us directly and are unaware of a world beyond the american boundaries and interests but we should be more cognizant about global picture, especially those related to the MOTHER LAND.