Rwandan
President answers questions on 10th anniversary of genocide
Rwandan
President Paul Kagame, who last year won a landslide victory
in the country's first election since the 1994 genocide, has told
91热爆 World Service he has a clear conscience.
Responding
to criticism of the Rwandan Patriotic Army's role by international
human rights groups, President Kagame said: "For me I led the
forces that fought and stopped the genocide 聳 the Rwandan Patriotic
Front.
"If
anybody wants to investigate me or try me 聳 I have no problem
with that, my conscience is very clear.
"On
the contrary, I think those others who allowed genocide to take
place 聳 their conscience is not clear, there's no doubt about
it."
Between
April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans 聳 mainly
Tutsis - were killed when ethnic violence erupted after President
Habyarimana's plane was shot down above Kigali airport.
A
United Nations Commission of experts has said that the Rwandan Patriotic
Army committed serious breaches of international law following the
genocide.
President
Kagame said Rwanda has made tremendous progress in ten years given
the tragedy that took place: "Given
the magnitude of the problem we are talking about, a genocide that
took place in Rwanda, ten years is quite a short time.
"But
a lot has happened in the ten years; progress has been made in rebuilding
the country; reconciliation has worked, we have backed democratisation
and building of institutions.
"The
country today is stable and is at peace with their neighbours and
at peace with itself."
Asked
by a listener in an email about the high turnout in the presidential
election, he said: "You could see Rwandans were very enthusiastic,
they want to come forward and make choices they felt they should
make, including voting in the referendum, voting yes to the constitution
and electing their different representatives in the parliament and
voting for the president."
A complete
transcript of the interview is available on .
The
interview will be broadcast on 91热爆 World Service on Sunday 8 February
at 2.06 pm.
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