'It meant the end of my life'
2005-04-08 10:06
Kigali - Rwandans reburied the bodies of more than 20 000 victims of the 1994 genocide who had been dumped in mass graves as the country marked the 11th anniversary of the massacre.
The reburials on Thursday were a gesture meant to restore dignity to the victims of the genocide in which more than half a million died in a killing frenzy. Rwandans marked the massacre with a week of mourning.
Many survivors said the memory of the government-orchestrated massacre remains fresh. Catherine Umutoni, 27, said April always brings tears and memories of 13 relatives killed by Hutu extremists during the 100 days of massacres.
The genocide started just hours after the president's plane was mysteriously shot down over Kigali late on April 6 1994. Hutu militiamen, known as Interahamwe, set up roadblocks across Kigali and on April 7 began hunting down Tutsis and moderate Hutus and killing them.
Still coming to terms
President Juvenal Habyarimana had been pressed to implement a power-sharing accord with the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front after three years of civil war.
The top military leaders of Habyarimana's government put into action a plan to kill all the remaining Tutsis in the country of seven million. Tutsis made up an estimated 14% of the population.
The organisers of the genocide used the radio to order Hutu civilians to kill their Tutsi neighbours and direct the slaughter.
Umutoni heard her father's name read over the radio on April 7 as an enemy of the state.
"To me, the announcement meant the end of my life on earth," she said.
"I saw many of my neighbours among the militia, it was incredible, I couldn't believe it, and what took me by surprise is that many were staunch Christians," she said.
Only 200 Tutsis escaped - among them Umutoni.
Since then, many of the suspected militia have been convicted of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Umutoni now takes care of three younger sisters and her daughter - the product, she said, of a rape that took place during the massacre.
"Living with this child is a great test for me, but she is my blood, I have to take care of her," Umutoni said.
Human rights groups have criticised the newly established legal process aimed at bringing perpetrators to justice but advocates see them as a way to deal with crimes that implicate 10% of Rwanda's population.
"We shall not tolerate anyone sabotaging this process we started of revealing the truth about genocide, which to us is a way of forging a way of having Rwandans live together in harmony," President Paul Kagame said at the burial of 250 genocide victims in Murambi. - AP
- SAPA