03 July 2009 - 13H51
Fifteen years after the genocide, how much has changed?
FRANCE 24 reporter Willy Bracciano looks at Rwanda 15 years after the genocide, when Hutus killed around a million of Tutsis in a hundred days. Despite peace and reconciliation, how much has actually changed?
The orphaned victims of the genocide
Donata is 23 and was herself a child herself when the massacres took place. She raised six children who were orphaned by the brutal killings which claimed almost 100,000 lives in one hundred days.
Have things really changed between Tutsis and Hutus?
‘Focus’ takes us to Rwanda 15 years after the genocide, where people are learning to live together and to forgive. Former torturers live alongside their past victims.
But while memories of the horror begin to fade, echoes of the genocide continue to mark relations between Rwanda and its former ally, France. Diplomqtic relqtions between the two countries were cut three years ago when Paris initiated legal proceedings against current president Paul Kagame. But the diplomatic impasse may also see some changes.
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Comments
Bad journalism
Very disappointing report, extremely unbalanced and it looked pretty much like a government propaganda film to me. Indeed, much has been achieved since the genocide, but at an extremely high cost and the risks of failure remain enormous. The lack of democracy, monopolisation of power by an anglophone tutsi minority, not to mention the ongoing war and looting of resources in congo, make the rwandan case a morally dubious gamble more than a model for africa to follow. Rwanda has undoubtedly managed to put a lid on its ethnic cleavages for now, but im not sure its managed to tackle the issues in a constructive way as the report claims. Burundi tried the same strategy before (under an equally repressive tutsi regime), and it ended with yet another civil war. Insha'allah, Rwanda will have a better outcome.
PS: lack of political opposition is called dictatorship, not consensual democracy.
good reporting
I do not hear much about Rwanda in the press. It's good to see that there is some attempt at reconciliation and peace. Must be very disturbing to see the skeletons of people being washed up in the rain.
I wonder how the international commutinty would have reacted to the events in 1993/1994 if Rwanda was oil rich?
Get your facts right
Yes, some of the current members of the Rwandan Government were indeed rebels. Rebels that fought to stop a genocide that the International Community failed to stop and instead provided access and safe heaven for the perpetrators into DRC. It hardly took a year before the genocide perpetrators started launching cross border attacks, massacring hundreds of civilian populations. Rwandan troops only resolved to cross the border after repetitive calls to the UN and the IC to secure the Rwandan border had failed. All this is on record for those who want to understand beyond the simplistic cliche of Congo's natural resources. You don't stop a genocide and let it resume just because it is launched from a foreign territory. And, as deeply sad as the loss of millions of Congolese innocent lives is; they were not killed by machetes or bullets. Those numbers correspond to the increased percentage of deaths as a direct and indirect result of a war that involved various belligerents.
Get the facts right
Yes, some of the current members of the Rwandan Government were indeed rebels. Rebels that fought to stop a genocide that the International Community failed to stop and instead provided access and safe heaven for the perpetrators into DRC. It hardly took a year before the genocide perpetrators started launching cross border attacks, massacring hundreds of civilian populations. Rwandan troops only resolved to cross the border after repetitive calls to the UN and the IC to secure the Rwandan border had failed. All this is on record for those who want to understand beyond the simplistic cliche of Congo's natural resources. You don't stop a genocide and let it resume just because it is launched from a foreign territory. And, as deeply sad as the loss of millions of Congolese innocent lives is; they were not killed by machetes of bullets. Those numbers correspond to the increased percentage of deaths as a direct and indirect result of a war that involved various belligerents.
Reconciliation is Good But it must be Just
It's a good effort to reconcile the two-hutu & tutsi. But we woulld like to see also justice done for all the wrongs done aginst the Congolese. What happened in Rwanda was a genocide,...and what about what happened in Congo? %.% million people died...we better not think they are not human beings. It was avoidable but what Uganda and Rwanda did is unforgattable, killing and raping. ALl because of natural resourse but used other ideas like going after the militia, was the current regime not militias?