Rwanda genocide: SA says sorry

2004-04-07 18:19

Pretoria - South Africa apologised to Rwanda on Wednesday for not "crying out" loud enough when hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives in 100 days of genocide in that country in 1994.

South Africa was, at the time, engrossed in holding its first democratic elections after the fall of apartheid, President Thabo Mbeki told a commemoration ceremony in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

"Because we were preoccupied with extricating ourselves from our own nightmare, we did not cry out as loudly as we should have against the enormous and heinous crime against the people of Rwanda," he said in a prepared speech.

"For that, we owe the people of Rwanda a sincere apology, which I now extend in all sincerity and humility."

South Africa had contributed to the genocide through the apartheid government supplying some of the weapons used in the massacre, Mbeki said.

'Diabolical slaughter of innocents'

"When we acted on the request of your movement to ask the apartheid regime to stop the supply of the weapons of death, representatives of the oppressor regime in our country boldly asserted the precedence of profit... over the lives of the people of Rwanda.

"To that extent, we, too, as South Africans contributed to the diabolical slaughter of the innocents."

He hoped these truths would contribute to Rwanda's healing process, the president said.

"A time such as this demands that the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth should be told.

"It should be told because not to tell is to create the conditions for the crime to recur."

Mbeki said many questions still had to be asked and answered.

These included why the genocide happened in the first place, what did Africa do to stop it - and, if nothing, why?

"Why did the United Nations .. stand by as Africans were exterminated like pernicious vermin?

"Why did those who dispose of enormous global power... decide that the slaughter in Yugoslavia had to be stopped at all costs while the bigger slaughter in Rwanda should be allowed to run its full course?"

One also needed to ask, Mbeki said, what lessons had been learnt from the massacre.

Began after plane was shot down

He pledged South Africa's friendship and support in rebuilding Rwanda and the lives of its inhabitants.

Mbeki was among several leaders from Africa, the United States and Europe attending a ceremony to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.

The massacre began on April 7 1994, and ended 100 days later. Estimates of the dead varied between 500 000 and 1 million. The United Nations has put the number at 800 000.

Most of the victims belonged to the country's Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus who gave them shelter. The Hutu Interahamwe movement has been largely blamed for the violence.

The genocide started within hours after a plane carrying then-president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down.

- SAPA