Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• 27 August 2010
• CS Monitor
• By Jason Stearns, guest blogger

As opposed to what some press accounts may have you believe, the UN mapping report is not a report on the Rwandan genocide of Hutu refugees in the Congo. The sections on the massacre of refugees is a small part of a 565-page report that chronicles many different mass atrocities between 1993 and 2003…

But you need to know what the report talks about, I don’t expect you to read 565 pages. Here are the first highlights of the report, chronicling the period between 1993-1996.

• News source:
• 22 August 2010
• African Press Agency

Rwandan President Paul Kagame in what looks like a radical move to silence critics questioning his democratic credentials has offered to form a government of national unity with the opposition candidates and their parties who lost to him during the recently concluded presidential elections, APA learns here Saturday.

• News source:
• 17 August 2010
• TIME
• By Krista Mahr

Residents living along the shores of Lake Kivu in central Africa have always appreciated – and feared – its power. In Swahili, the word mazuku, or “evil wind,” refers to pockets of deadly, odorless gas that seep from the lake, killing whatever happens to be in its path. Two hundred and fifty feet below the surface of Lake Kivu, which covers an area of roughly 1000 square miles on a natural border between Rwanda and Congo, some 250 cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide is lurking, along with another 65 cubic kilometers of methane. Every so often, some escapes.

Yesterday, the Guardian’s east Africa correspondent Xan Rice wrote about Rwanda’s efforts to harness some of that deadly potential for clean energy.

• News source:
• 12 August 2010
• BBC
• By Will Ross

This week the National Election Commission in Rwanda officially announced the re-election of President Paul Kagame, with 93% of the vote.

But his re-election comes amid criticism that opposition voices have been unfairly suppressed.

Hanging over all politics in Rwanda is the memory of the genocide 16 years ago…

Listen to Will Ross’s report

• News source:
• 11 August 2010
• journalism.co.uk
• By Rachel McAthy

Rwanda needs to “get to grips” with a more open press following the re-election of president Kagame, according to a British journalist who produces a news wire from Kigali.

Graham Holliday, who runs the Kigali Wire spent a week on the campaign trail, working in tandem with a Reuters correspondent and photographer…

“I think this is a problem that impacts Rwandan journalists more than foreigners,” he told Journalism.co.uk. “However, it is definitely an issue for all journalists. It’s something I hope Rwanda can get to grips with in the coming months and years. The government, quite rightly, points to the hideous role of hate media during the Genocide in 1994. They want to minimise the chances of that ever re-emerging. However, there are some very good arguments that the time is now right to start opening up the media space.”

• News source:
• Originally published 27 July 2010
• All Africa
• By Phillip Kurata

Ariane Inkesha has a vision that 50 years from now Africa will have been transformed by education.

• News source:
• 1 August 2010
• Guardian | Observer
• Stability and an economic boom have made the president the overwhelming favourite to be re-elected next week, but the opposition has been brutally silenced
• By Matteo Fagotto

Triumphal rallies … are becoming a daily routine in the presidential campaign of the Rwandan strongman. On 9 August the RPF leader will seek another seven-year mandate in an election widely seen as a formality. With a huge budget advantage over his three opponents, Kagame is expected to win as smoothly as in 2003, when he gained more than 95% of the votes. The only female among the contestants, Alvera Mukabaramba, has already accepted the inevitable defeat. “Beating Kagame is almost impossible,” she acknowledges. “He has done so well for this country, rebuilding it from scratch after putting an end to the bloodiest page in our history.”…

• News source:
• 30 April 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Gerald Caplan

April is the cruelest month for genocide survivors. When Governor-General Michaëlle Jean was in Rwanda acknowledging Canada’s feeble efforts during the 1994 genocide, she found herself in the middle of the country’s annual period of commemorative mourning. I’ve been there several Aprils and it’s a grim, trying, often traumatic time for victims and perpetrators alike.

Why April? By some weird fluke, both the Armenian genocide and the Jewish Holocaust also have anniversaries in April. So the memorialization of the three indisputably classic genocides of the 20th century, those that fit every criterion of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, all occur within the same 30-day period.

• News source:
• 28 April 2010
• By EGARA KABAJI

A great deal has been made of the so-called ‘‘Rwanda miracle’’. Rwanda is seen as a typical example of a country that has risen from the ashes. There is no doubt President Paul Kagame has steered his country to prosperity in just about 16 years after perhaps the most horrendous event in African history – The genocide which claimed about one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

However, going by new developments in the country, Rwanda’s greatest test is yet to come. This test will determine if the country fits the description of a democratic haven of peace in Africa.

• News source:
• 21 April 2010
• CTV
• By Canadian Press

KIGALI, Rwanda — Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean used a state visit to Rwanda to deliver an official apology on behalf of Canada for its failure to act during that country’s genocide.

Jean, who is the first top-level Canadian official to visit Rwanda since the 1994 atrocity, delivered the solemn message Wednesday before Rwandan authorities.

“The world’s failure to respond adequately to the genocide is a failure in which Canada — as part of the international community — readily acknowledges its fair share of responsibility,” she read in a prepared text, as she sat in Rwanda’s cabinet chamber next to President Paul Kagame.

• News source:
• 12 April 2010
• PR-USA

In his welcoming note Dr. Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, recalled the importance of the 7th of April, a special day to remember the past atrocities. “Those who will forget their past are condemned to live it again” he said, quoting Winston Churchill. Dr. Ping pointed out he was talking with the voice of all African citizens when renewing their solidarity with the Rwandan people. He also encouraged the Rwandan people to embrace reconciliation

• News source:
• 26 March 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Geoffrey York

Kitchanga, Congo — In a decade of war, Biringiro Kamanutse has tried to go home four times – only to flee for his life each time. A few weeks ago, rebels attacked his village, killing and looting, even taking his clothes and cooking pans. Mr. Kamanutse and his family took shelter in a nearby village, but it too was attacked, so they trudged two days through the bush to reach a camp at Kitchanga, where up to 20,000 refugees are crowded in tiny huts of sticks and straw.

While still in the bush, he heard politicians on the radio talking about peace and progress. “They say we can go home – it’s safe, it’s quiet,” he says. “But it has no connection to reality.”

• News source:
• 20 March 2010
• Billings Gazette

In 1994, the Rwandan woman hid with seven others inside a closet-sized bathroom for 91 days while 1 million of her countrymen died in a modern-day holocaust. The dead included most of her family.

Her life was in constant danger from roaming bands of killers. Remarkably, Ilibagiza and the others were never discovered.

Even more miraculous, her faith survived, and it enabled her to forgive those who slaughtered her family and so many others.

• News source:
• originally published 28 February 2010
• Newsmeat
• By AFP

After five years of trials, the grass roots courts that have judged more than one million people suspected of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide are drawing to a close amidst mixed reviews.

“The whole process is expected to be over by the end of March,” Denis Bikesha, an official at the gacaca department, told AFP.

• News source:
• By Peacemakers Trust

Peacemakers Trust has received an invitation from The Sharing Way, a Canadian faith-based development agency, and its Rwandan partner, the Association des Églises Baptistes au Rwanda (AEBR), to work with them to develop a three year plan of action that responds to emerging needs and challenges in post-genocide Rwanda. The participatory planning process will involve consultation and planning meetings with a number of Rwandan church leaders from around Rwanda, including women and youth leaders.

You can become a partner in raising the costs of this initiative with a tax-deductable donation to Peacemakers Trust, a Canadian charity focused on conflict transformation and peacebuilding. (read more…)

• News source:
• 5 March 2010
• Media Global
• By Allyn Gaestel

Women in post-conflict Rwanda are working with Women for Women International, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting development for women survivors of conflict, to improve all aspects of their lives through the Commercial Integrated Farming Initiative (CIFI). The CIFI program creates links between the public, private, and nonprofit sector to empower women as autonomous economic actors. CIFI will work with 3000 Rwandan women over a three-year implementation period.

• News source:
• 2 March 2010
• Guardian
• By Stephen Kinzer

Sixteen years after genocide, Rwanda is facing a new test. President Paul Kagame, who is seeking re-election, is widely admired abroad. Among his fans are some of the world’s most famous do-gooders, from Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to Rev Rick Warren and Dr Paul Farmer. His enemies hope to use this election campaign to tarnish his image and show these admirers that he is no democrat.

Rwanda is more stable and prosperous than many would have predicted following the 1994 genocide. The reconciliation process has been at least partly successful. Yet beneath the surface, Rwandan society remains volatile. Hatreds are unexpressed, but no one believes they are gone.

Kagame’s government has passed laws against disseminating “genocide ideology”, meaning views that could inflame communal hatreds. People are supposed to describe themselves only as Rwandan, never as Hutu or Tutsi. Kagame claims these laws are necessary to keep Rwanda back from the abyss of violence.

• News source:
• 3 March 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Geoffrey York

Kigali — The symbolism was incendiary. In front of the mass graves where 250,000 genocide victims are buried, a Rwandan politician dared to speak of the Hutus who were killed in those same terrible months in 1994.

• News source:
• 26 February 2010
• Peacebuilding | Change.org
• By Antony Adolf

A new chapter in Euro-African relations was opened today [26 February 2010] as French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Rwanda in an effort to mend severely strained ties; and by all accounts the diplomatic envoy was successful.

During Rwanda’s 1994 genocide of Tutsis, France backed the Hutu Habyarimana regime which carried the genocide out. Then, in 2006, a French anti-terror judged issued warrants for nine associates of current President Paul Kagame, alleging that they helped spark the genocide. This visit by Sarkozy aimed to mend wounds and offer more than hope, perhaps building on Kagame’s acceptance of the World Technology Award for Policy last year.

“For us there is no doubt that this is reconciliation,” said Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, according to AFP. “That said, there are still some very tough issues to discuss. I think President Sarkozy is sincere. For us that is the main thing.” Not quite.

• News source:
• 23 January 2010
• The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9711, Pages 341 - 345
• article available free of charge (but Lancet login required)
• By Dr Paul B Spiegel MD, Francesco Checchi MHS, Sandro Colombo MD, Eugene Paik BA

In past decades, much progress has been made in responding to health-care needs of conflict-affected populations. The evidence base for interventions addressing excess morbidity and mortality has expanded. Motivated by a disastrous response to the Rwanda genocide in 1994, the Sphere standards for service provision were developed, fostering quality and accountability on the basis of principles of do no harm.