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Ban: Genocide will haunt world
29/01/2008 20:12 - (SA)
Kigali - The Rwandan genocide will haunt the world's conscience for generations, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday as he visited a memorial for victims of the 1994 massacre during a landmark trip to Kigali.
The United Nations secretary general's visit comes as Rwanda seeks to mend ties with the international community, despite simmering resentment over the world's failure to prevent the genocide.
"The 1994 genocide will haunt the UN and the international community for generations," Ban said, after laying a wreath over a mass grave, where some 250 000 people were buried.
"The 1994 genocide shocked our consciences. The UN has learnt profound lessons from it."
Ban, who arrived late Monday with his wife and a large delegation, observed a long moment of silence in respect for the 800 000 people who died in the genocide, mainly members of President Paul Kagame's Tutsi minority.
Ban also held talks with Kagame and several other officials.
His spokesperson, Michele Montas, described the trip as being akin to "a pilgrimage... a way of paying homage to a country which has recovered from an extremely painful period".
The last time a UN secretary general visited Rwanda was in 2001, when Ban's predecessor Kofi Annan held talks in Kigali. Annan had also visited the small central African nation in 1998.
Resentment towards the UN for failing to prevent the genocide is still rife in Rwanda, and Annan had on several occasions admitted the world body's failure to take appropriate action.
"Neither the UN, nor the Security Council, nor member states in general, nor the international media, paid enough attention to the gathering signs of disaster," said Annan, in a 2004 speech marking the genocide's 10th anniversary.
He was head of UN peacekeeping at the time of the genocide, during which 800 000 people were massacred in the space of a few weeks.
A UN peacekeeping force was deployed in Rwanda in 1994 but it failed to stop the killing due to the absence of reinforcements, which required a UN Security Council vote.
Rwanda has since developed modern economic policies geared towards information technological and tourism.
"You have made remarkable progress. Many countries in Africa should learn from Rwanda," Ban said after his talks with Kagame.
Ban also discussed the situation in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, where the army, rebels and rival militias signed a peace deal on January 23 for the east, but a hindrance to it is the presence of armed Rwandan Hutus, some of them held responsible for the genocide.
A Rwandan general is second-in-command of a so-called "hybrid force" led jointly by the African Union and United Nations that is tasked with maintaining peace in Darfur.
- AFP
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