KIGALI, Rwanda: Displaying both pride and pain, Rwandans on Monday marked the 20th anniversary of a devastating 100-day genocide that saw packed churches set on fire and machete-wielding attackers chop down whole families from a demonized minority.
Bloodcurdling screams and sorrowful wails resounded throughout a packed sports stadium as world leaders and thousands of Rwandans gathered to hear of healing and hope.
“As we pay tribute to the victims, both the living and those who have passed, we also salute the unbreakable Rwandan spirit in which we owe the survival and renewal of our country,” said President Paul Kagame.
Kagame and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon together lit a flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center, which estimates that more than 1 million Rwandans perished in three months of machete and gunfire attacks mostly aimed at the country’s minority Tutsi population by militant Hutus.
Missing from the stadium was the French government, which Rwanda banned. In an interview published in France on Monday, Kagame accused the former African colonial power of participating in some of the genocide violence.
The ceremony and Uganda’s president highlighted the influence that white colonial masters had in setting the stage for the violence that erupted on April 7, 1994. Stadium-goers watched as white people in colonial outfits jumped out of a safari car and stormed the main stage.
The wide-brim hats then changed to blue berets, the headgear worn by UN troops who did nothing to stop the carnage. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in his speech blamed colonization for many of Africa’s violent troubles.
“The people who planned and carried out genocide were Rwandans, but the history and root causes go beyond this beautiful country. This is why Rwandans continue to seek the most complete explanation possible. We do so with humility as a nation that nearly destroyed itself,” Kagame said.
At a later news conference, Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said many books, movies and documentaries provide evidence of France’s genocide role.
During an intense scene on the sports field, a young girl of perhaps 10 recounted the torture of a young boy. Spectators screamed and the severely traumatized were carried off.
The blue beret actors evacuated and Rwandan troops — symbolizing the Tutsi military force Kagame led back then — stormed the field.
Rwandans in white and grey lay scattered throughout the field, representing the dead.
Ever since the killing spree, the world community has been forced to acknowledge it did nothing. The UN chief said he hopes to reaffirm the international community’s commitment to the idea of “never again,” though he said genocide is still possible. He mentioned violence in the Central African Republic and Syria.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said the genocide was a “devastating reminder that nightmares seemingly beyond imagination can in fact take place.”
As genocide survivor Fidele Rwamuhizia recounted his tale — he hid in a mosque where many people were slaughtered — it triggered emotional reactions that required some mourners to be assisted by counselors.
The genocide required hundreds of mass graves to bury the victims of what the government says was a long-planned killing spree that ignited after the plane of then-President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down.
Kagame has won praise for pulling his country out of the violence. His government has advanced women’s rights, economic development and health care. But critics say that progress has been marred by an authoritarian approach that has seen government critics and opposition members killed.
“We are now 20 years after the genocide, so we cannot continue to do the same things we did in 1995 or in 2000. So we ask the government to open up more space, allow more opinion, allow more political parties, but also enforce the rule of law,” Frank Habineza, the leader of Rwanda’s only opposition political party, said in an interview.
“The laws of Rwanda guarantee freedom of expression and association but in reality things happen otherwise.”
Human Rights Watch, which Kigali practically views as an enemy organization, says civil and political rights in the country remain severely curtailed. It said the persistence of attacks on Rwandan government critics in exile “is striking.”
The Rwanda-France diplomatic feud escalated as Jeune Afrique published an interview Monday in which Kagame accused France and Belgium of having done too little to save lives. He accused France of participating in the execution of parts of the genocide violence.
In response, the Paris government said France’s justice minister would not travel to Kigali as planned. France’s ambassador to Rwanda says he was then barred from Monday’s ceremony.
Rwanda marks 20 years since genocide
Rwanda marks 20 years since genocide
Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor, who devoted his life for peace, dies
- Fukahori was only 14 when the US dropped the bomb on Nagasaki on Aug.9, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people, including his family
TOKYO: Shigemi Fukahori, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, who devoted his life to advocating for peace and campaigning against nuclear weapons, has died. He was 93.
Fukahori died at a hospital in Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, on Jan.3, the Urakami Catholic Church, where he prayed almost daily until last year, said on Sunday. Local media reported he died of old age.
The church, located about 500 meters from ground zero and near the Nagasaki Peace Park, is widely seen as a symbol of hope and peace, as its bell tower and some statues and survived the nuclear bombing.
Fukahori was only 14 when the US dropped the bomb on Nagasaki on Aug.9, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people, including his family. That came three days after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, which killed 140,000 people. Japan surrendered days later, ending World War II and the country’s nearly half-century of aggression across Asia.
Fukahori, who worked at a shipyard about 3 kilometers from where the bomb dropped, couldn’t talk about what happened for years, not only because of the painful memories but also how powerless he felt then.
About 15 years ago, he became more outspoken after encountering, during a visit to Spain, a man who experienced the bombing of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War when he was also 14 years old. The shared experience helped Fukahori open up.
“On the day the bomb dropped, I heard a voice asking for help. When I walked over and held out my hand, the person’s skin melted. I still remember how that felt,” Fukahori told Japan’s national broadcaster NHK in 2019.
Blinken wades into South Korea political crisis
- Blinken will meet his counterpart Cho Tae-yul later on Monday, the same day a warrant to arrest Yoon expires
- Trip is meant to highlight US President Biden’s efforts to build alliances and Blinken will head afterwards to Tokyo
SEOUL: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday opened a visit to crisis-riven South Korea, where he will seek delicately to encourage continuity with the policies, but not tactics, of the impeached president.
The visit comes after a weekend that saw thousands of South Koreans brave a snowstorm to stage dueling rallies in support of and opposition to President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was suspended over a failed martial law bid and resisting arrest.
Blinken will meet his counterpart Cho Tae-yul later on Monday, the same day a warrant to arrest Yoon expires.
Yoon had once been a darling of the Biden administration with his bold moves to turn the page on friction with Japan and his eye on a greater role for South Korea on global issues.
The South Korean leader joined Biden for a landmark three-way summit with Japan’s prime minister and — months before declaring martial law — was picked to lead a global democracy summit, a signature initiative for the outgoing US administration.
Blinken’s trip is meant to highlight US President Joe Biden’s efforts to build alliances. He will head afterwards to Tokyo.
It was crucial, in the eyes of his advisers, not to snub South Korea, which has a fraught and often competitive relationship with Japan, also home to thousands of US troops.
It will likely be his final trip as secretary of state before US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
An attempt to arrest Yoon by investigators on Friday failed when a tense six-hour standoff with his presidential security service ended over fears of violence, with his supporters also camped outside.
Thousands descended on his residence again Sunday despite bitterly cold and snowy conditions blanketing the capital — with one camp demanding Yoon’s arrest while the other called for his impeachment to be declared invalid.
“Snow is nothing for me. They can bring all the snow and we’ll still be here,” said anti-Yoon protester Lee Jin-ah, 28.
“I quit my job to come to protect our country and democracy,” she said.
Yoon has pledged to “fight” those questioning his short-lived martial law move, and supporter Park Young-chul, in his 70s, likened the current situation to “war.”
“I went through war and minus 20 degrees in the snow to fight the commies. This snow is nothing. Our war is happening again,” he told AFP.
Yoon faces criminal charges of insurrection, one of a few crimes not subject to presidential immunity, meaning he could be sentenced to prison or, at worst, the death penalty.
If the warrant is executed, Yoon would become the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested.
Blinken may face some criticism from the South Korean political left for the visit but should be able to navigate the political crisis, said Sydney Seiler, a former US intelligence officer focused on Korea who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Blinken would mainly seek to keep the focus on challenges such as China and North Korea, he said.
In a statement, the State Department did not directly mention the political crisis but said Blinken would seek to preserve trilateral cooperation with Japan, which has included enhanced intelligence sharing on North Korea.
Blinken’s visit comes at a time of change for both countries, with Trump returning to the White House on January 20.
Paradoxically, while Biden worked closely with the conservative Yoon, Trump in his first term enjoyed a warm relationship with progressive then-president Moon Jae-in, who encouraged the US president’s groundbreaking personal diplomacy with North Korea.
The Biden administration has stressed since the crisis that it is reaching out to South Korean politicians across the divide, amid the uncertainties on who will lead Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Progressive opposition leader Lee Jae-myung — who himself faces election disqualification in a court case — supports diplomacy with North Korea.
But the former labor activist has also taken stances that differ from those of both Biden and Trump.
Lee has criticized deployment of US-made THAAD missile defenses, which Washington says are meant to protect against North Korea but which China sees as a provocation.
South Korea’s left has long championed a harder stance on Japan over its brutal 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula.
US officials said they had no warning of Yoon’s imposition of martial law, which brought masses of protesters to the streets.
Eight civilians killed in central Mali attack
- The Mali military seized power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021 and has since broken off its anti-militant alliance with former colonial power France and European partners
DAKAR: At least eight civilians have been killed in central Mali, several sources said on Sunday, accusing the Malian army for the latest attack in the troubled West African country.
The country is embroiled in a political, security and economic crisis, and has since 2012 been ravaged by different groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda and Daesh.
It also faces a separatist insurgency in the volatile desert north.
“A Hilux four-by-four vehicle ... was heading toward a refugee camp in Mauritania when ... the Malian army fired. At least eight civilians were killed” on Thursday, a local official said.
HIGHLIGHT
The country is embroiled in a political, security and economic crisis, and has since 2012 been ravaged by militant groups.
“All of the vehicle’s passengers died. They were buried in a mass grave,” a parent of one of the victims said.
A local humanitarian source confirmed the incident, saying the eight civilians were “killed by bullets ... between the localities of Niono and Nampala.”
In a statement, the Azawad Liberation Front, which groups several separatist outfits in Mali’s north made up of the Tuareg ethnic minority, blamed the Malian army for the “deliberate criminal act,” which it said left nine people dead.
The Mali military seized power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021 and has since broken off its anti-militant alliance with former colonial power France and European partners.
On Saturday, Mali’s army said its forces had arrested two men, one of them a leading figure in the Sahel branch of Daesh.
The army announced they had also killed several of the group’s fighters during an operation in the north of the country.
A statement from the army said they had arrested “Ould Erkehile alias Abu Rakia,” as well as “Abu Hash,” who they said was a leading figure in the group.
They blamed them for coordinating atrocities against people in the Menaka and Gao regions in the northeast of the country, as well as attacks against the army.
Elsewhere, in neighboring Burkina Faso, security officials said five civilian volunteers with the country’s army were killed in an attack this week in the west of the country.
“A forward security forces position, composed mainly of auxiliaries from the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland, was targeted by armed terrorist groups,” said one official.
“Unfortunately five people, all volunteers, were killed,” he said of Thursday’s incident in the Gnangdin area, near the border with Togo and Ghana.
The volunteers, who work with the army, are recruited locally, given weapons and three months’ training. They may operate with professional soldiers or on their own.
The incident triggered a protest among locals who blocked the main highway linking the region to the Togolese border, a local inhabitant said.
The blockade continued for several hours before the authorities broke it up, he said.
“There is a (military) unit in the area but it took them a while to react, which shouldn’t have happened. If groups can still carry out attacks despite the presence of this unit, then there’s still work to do,” he said.
Since the unrest spread to Burkina Faso in 2015, it has killed around 26,000 people and forced some 2 million people to flee their homes, according to monitoring group ACLED.
India press watchdog demands journalist murder probe
- Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, had reported widely on corruption and a decades-old Maoist insurgency in Chhattisgarh
- Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing
NEW DELHI: India’s media watchdog has demanded a thorough investigation after a journalist’s battered body was found stuffed in a septic tank covered with concrete.
Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, had reported widely on corruption and a decades-old Maoist insurgency in India’s central Chhattisgarh state, and ran a popular YouTube channel “Bastar Junction.”
The Press Council of India expressed “concern” over the suspected murder of Chandrakar, calling for a report on the “facts of the case” in a statement late Saturday.
Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing.
Three people have been arrested.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by Naxalite rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Vishnu Deo Sai, chief minister of Chhattisgarh from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called Chandrakar’s death “heartbreaking” and promised the “harshest punishment” for those found responsible.
India was ranked 159 last year on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders.
Indian forces clash with Maoist rebels, five dead
- Over 10,000 people have died in the insurgency by Naxalite rebels who say they are fighting for rights of marginalized people
- Government forces stepped up efforts last year to crush the long-running armed conflict, with some 287 rebels killed in 2024
NEW DELHI: Indian security forces on Sunday battled with Maoist rebels in their forested heartland, police said, with at least four guerillas and one policeman killed.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by Naxalite rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Government forces stepped up efforts last year to crush the long-running armed conflict, with some 287 rebels killed in 2024, according to government figures.
Clashes broke out late Saturday in Abujhmarh district of Chhattisgarh state, a key battleground in the insurgency.
“Four bodies of Maoists, who were in their battle uniform, have been recovered after an encounter with police forces,” police inspector general P. Sunderraj told AFP, adding one police constable had also been killed.
“Action is still on,” he said.
Around 1,000 suspected Naxalites were arrested and 837 surrendered during 2024.
Amit Shah, India’s interior minister, warned the Maoist rebels in September to surrender or face an “all-out” assault, saying the government expected to quash the insurgency by early 2026.
The insurgency has been drastically restricted in area in recent years.
The Naxalites, named after the district where their armed campaign began in 1967, were inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
They demanded land, jobs and a share of the region’s immense natural resources for local residents, and made inroads in a number of remote communities across India’s east and south.
The movement gained in strength and numbers until the early 2000s when New Delhi deployed tens of thousands of security personnel against the rebels in a stretch of territory known as the “Red Corridor.”
Authorities have since invested millions of dollars in local infrastructure and social projects to combat the Naxalite appeal.
