Marking 30 years since the genocide, Bill Clinton and others joined the people of Rwanda

Rwanda’s genocide of 1994: a reminder of the failure of the French government to bring peace to a country that has nothing but democracy

The 1994 genocide is the thing that has kept me focused on my life for so long. The months of April to July 1994 were a time of incomprehensible horror, in which our beautiful country was dragged into hell by brutal violence and killings on a scale previously unimaginable. At times in the crisis, a number of thousands of people were butchered in a single day by machetes and other weapons. It’s not possible for us who were there to process the loss and the depravity of it being three decades later.

Kagame, who is being vilified for his intolerance of dissent and bringing relative stability, will lead somber commemoration events Sunday in the capital, Kigali. Clinton, the U.S. president in the genocide, is part of a delegation that is foreign.

The killings were ignited when a plane carrying then-President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down over Kigali. The Tutsis were blamed for downing the plane and killing the president. and became targets in massacres led by Hutu extremists that lasted over 100 days in 1994. Some moderate Hutus who tried to protect members of the Tutsi minority were also killed.

The international community was blamed for ignoring warnings about the killings by the Rwanda authorities.

Clinton, after leaving office, cited the Rwandan genocide as a failure of his administration. In a pre recorded video released on Thursday, the French president said that France and its allies didn’t have the will to stop the genocide. Macron’s declaration came three years after he acknowledged the “overwhelming responsibility” of France — Rwanda’s closest European ally in 1994 — for failing to stop Rwanda’s slide into the slaughter.

Since 1994, the ethnic composition in the country has remained largely unchanged. The Tutsis account for 14% and the Twa just 1% of Rwanda’s 14 million people. Kagame’s Tutsi-dominated government has outlawed any form of organization along ethnic lines, as part of efforts to build a uniform Rwandan identity.

National ID cards no longer identify citizens by ethnic group, and authorities imposed a tough penal code to prosecute those suspected of denying the genocide or the “ideology” behind it. Some observers say the law has been used to silence critics who question the government’s policies.

Rights groups have accused Kagame’s soldiers of carrying out some killings during and after the genocide in apparent revenge, but Rwandan authorities see the allegations as an attempt to rewrite history. In the face of genocide, Kagame’s forces showed restraint.

“It’s a time to learn what happened, why it happened, what are the consequences of genocide to us as genocide survivors, to our country, and to the international community,” said Ahishakiye.

Since the 1990s, when only survivors and government officials were involved, his country has come a long way. “But today even those who are family members of perpetrators come to participate.”

Rwanda’s de facto ruler: Kagame’s rift with the Tutsi exiles and their relations with Burundi

Kagame, who grew up a refugee in neighboring Uganda, has been Rwanda’s de facto ruler, first as vice president from 1994 to 2000, then as acting president. He was voted into office in 2003 and has since been reelected multiple times. A candidate for elections set for July, he won the last election with nearly 99% of the vote.

Rights activists say that the authoritarian Kagame is creating aclimate of fear that discourages discussion of national issues. Critics say the government coerced opponents to flee, jail them or make them disappear, as well as causing some deaths under mysterious circumstances. Kagame’s most serious political rivals are his Tutsi ex-comrades now living in exile.

The leaders of the two countries accuse one another of supporting armed groups. Relations have been tense with Burundi as well over allegations that Kigali is backing a rebel group attacking Burundi. And relations with Uganda are yet to fully normalize after a period of tensions stemming from Rwandan allegations that Uganda was backing rebels opposed to Kagame.