Calls for ethnic tolerance
2004-04-06 21:30
Dar es Salaam - A Tanzanian government minister on Tuesday called for ethnic
tolerance in Africa to avoid a repeat of Rwandan-style genocide
elsewhere on the continent.
"Social tolerance among the people is the best way to avoid such
a problem in the future," Tanzania's minister of state in charge of
good governance, Wilson Masilingi, said in a speech at a gathering
here to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Speaking during the ceremony in Tanzania, Rwandan Minister of
State for Land and Environment, Patricia Hajabakiga, reiterated
that the 1994 genocide could have been prevented had the
international community taken note of a series of earlier events.
"Preparations (for genocide) were known, recorded and debated
and requests to stop them were denied," she said.
"Even during the genocide, there were enough forces to contain
the blood-thirsty government forces and Interahamwe (Hutu
extremist) militias," Hajabakiga added.
"There were UN peacekeeping forces, French troops and other
armies ... all that was required then was to say no to genocide,"
she said in her speech.
Rwanda will on Wednesday commemorate the 10th anniversary of the
genocide which began on April 7, 1994, and ended 100 days later
with up to a million people dead.
- SAPA