'Genocide' teachers suspended
2008-01-21 11:34
Kigali - About 50 Rwandan teachers, suspected of disseminating "genocide ideology", have been suspended from working, local human rights league Liprodhor has reported.
"According to official sources, the Minister of Education Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya last week suspended 50 or so head teachers, teachers and curriculum developers accused of facilitating the 'ideology of genocide' in their establishments," Liprodhor indicated on its website.
Perpetrated by Hutu extremists, the April-July 1994 genocide saw 800 000 lives lost - according to the United Nations - primarily minority Tutsis.
Almost 15 years later, anti-Tutsi messages stemming from the education system were still being unearthed.
"Tutsis are snakes, we're sick of them and we will kill them," reads a copybook taken from Mataba secondary school in Province du Nord.
'Never commit adultery with a Tutsi'
Mujawamariya and her Secretary of State Joseph Murekeraho had been interrogated by a parliamentary commission, which found that an ideology of genocide remained strong in 84 out of 637 Rwandan secondary schools.
A 400-page report from the commission compiled copies of anonymous manuscripts seized from numerous schools in the country.
Gaseke Secondary School, about 30km from Kigali, circulated 10 Hutu commandments that had been published before the genocide by the extremist newspaper Kangura.
"Never commit adultery with a Tutsi woman. Never become friends with a Tutsi," states doctrine from Gaseke school.
The parliamentary committee was not satisfied with Mujawamariya and Murekeraho's explanations and had decided to question them again at a later date, not yet announced.