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A Belgian mayor has lauded the country’s unity and reconciliation efforts since the 1994 genocide.

Rik Soens, the Waregem District Mayor made the remarks, Sunday, May 15, when he led a delegation from his district to pay tribute to the victims of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi at the Kigali Genocide Memorial site, Gisozi.

Soens expressed shock and disappointment by the events of the 1994 genocide. “I am shocked and disappointed by the massive killings that took place in Rwanda. This is beyond human nature,” Soens regretted.

Soens observed that the unity and reconciliation in Rwanda would bring about sustainable development.

A member of the delegation, Rita Kestier, said that the memorial site not only exhibits massive inhuman acts that occurred in Rwanda in 1994, but also demonstrates that Rwandans are rebuilding their nation and striving for a better future.

The delegation was in the country as part of a partnership between Waregem District in Belgium with Gatsibo District of the Eastern province.

The cooperation that began in 1987 and is intended to promote professionalism in different sectors between the two districts especially education.

UNICEF
has welcomed the announcement of a national campaign to eliminate the vertical
transmission of HIV from mother to child in Rwanda and confirmed its commitment
to support the government in ensuring that all women in need will be reached
with a new, more efficacious HIV regimen by 2015.


The campaign was launched on Thursday last week by Rwanda’s First Lady, Mrs.
Jeannette Kagame, in the presence of the Minister of Health and other
government officials, UNICEF’s Regional Director for Eastern and South Africa,
Elhadj As Sy, representatives of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS
Relief (PEPFAR) and other bilateral partners as well as the President of the
Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

UNICEF
is co-championing the call for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission
of HIV by 2015. UNICEF Regional Director As Sy said he was confident that
Rwanda can meet its goal of reducing the transmission rate among children born
to women living with HIV to less than 2 per cent. “In order to achieve this
goal, we have to make sure that all pregnant women with HIV can participate in
prevention programmes, including adolescent girls and those living in remote
areas. UNICEF stands ready to support the government in identifying the gaps in
access and in removing bottlenecks that prevent women from making use of the
existing life-saving services.” 

As
part of the elimination campaign, Rwanda plans to ensure that all HIV positive
women receive the most efficacious ARV regimens through expanded coverage of
quality services. Furthermore, the government wants to make sure that pregnant
women access health services earlier, that HIV incidence among women of
reproductive age is reduced, that comprehensive knowledge on HIV prevention is
increased and that all women have access to family planning. Rwanda has a birth
rate of 2.8 per cent with a fertility rate of 5.3 per cent. It is also
Africa’s most densely populated country.

The
campaign will strengthen the links between MCH and HIV programmes and further
enhance the already high involvement of male partners in prevention and testing
programmes. 

Although
Rwanda has one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates amongst pregnant women in
Eastern and Southern Africa – currently standing at a national average of 4.3
per cent – rates in the capital Kigali are much higher (between 16 and 34
per cent).

More
than 20,000 children below the age of 15 live with HIV in Rwanda. Over 90 per
cent have been infected through vertical transmission. HIV positive women
can transmit HIV to their children during pregnancy, delivery or breastfeeding.
Without intervention, the risk of transmission is more than 30 per cent.

The
Government of Rwanda, through the support of international partners, including
UNICEF, has been able to significantly increase the provision of PMTCT
services. 

RwandAir the national carrier of Rwanda today launched flights from Kigali to Libreville the capital city of the West Central African republic of Gabon. The three weekly flights have been designed to operate a triangular schedule between Kigali, Libreville and Brazzaville with full right to ferry passengers between Libreville and Brazzaville.

Making this announcement at a colourful ceremony hosted by the Gabon Ministry of Transport in Libreville , RwandAir CEO John Mirenge affirmed the airlines’ commitment to linking Central and West African cities with East Africa. “Earlier this year we launched flights to Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, but that was not the end of it, we were just finalizing arrangements for Libreville which we are now proud to launch,” said Mr Mirenge. He further added that the memorandum of understanding for bilateral air services agreement signed between the representatives of governments of Rwanda and Gabon will allow the carriers of both countries fifth freedom rights. Kigali – Libreville flights will operate three times a week on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Libreville, located on the west coast of Africa along the banks of Komo River and overlooking the Atlantic Ocean becomes the fourth port city for RwandAir after Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Dubai. The Brazzaville route was launched March this year and is expected to get a major boost from the planned triangular operation.

RwandAir makes Libreville its second new destination this year with another  domestic destination, Gisenyi, set to launch May 31, 2011.

The airline will later this year take delivery of two Boeing 737- 800 from Boeing Commercial Airplanes. These aircraft become the first on the continent to be fitted with the Boeing “Sky Interior”.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei through its local subsidiary is soon to launch android powered smartphones in the Rwandan market through telco operators MTN Rwanda and TIGO.

The smartphones to be powered by the popular android operating system offer a full range of remarkable features and applications. According to the Chief Operating Officer of Huawei Rwanda Adriaane Heine, the model expected to retail via the TIGO and MTN Rwanda operators is HUAWEI U8150 IDEOS.

“Huawei will be dealing with provision and marketing of these products and ultimately, the operators will be selling to the markets,” says Heine,.

Hein reveals that the Huawei smartphones have been well received in many countries across the world, a factor attributed to “the phones’ new, simple and incredible technology coupled with numerous amazing features.”

 “The handsets received a good response particularly in countries like Kenya where about 100,000 units were sold in the first few months. Since its release in January until February (2011), they (Huawei Smartphones) had already taken 45.4 percent of the market share surpassing that of even other more popular established brands such as Nokia with a market share of 33.3 percent,” Heine says.

He says that the phones fitted with a range of powerful features from hardware to software.

“The powerful android operating system will provide the user with categorised applications they can use, which are directly accessible from the android market feature on the phone,” he observes.

During an exclusive interview with IGIHE.com, Heine demonstrated the brilliant applicability of the phone by opening Google Maps, an application that allows a user to trace topographic directions at their disposal via satellite communication.

The phone’s uniqueness goes beyond the software and integrated hardware, It offers elements such as a capacitative touchscreen , powerful 3G connectivity and other powerful features such as a router.

HUAWEI is a global telecommunication company specialising in the supply of a diverse range of telecommunication equipment. With its strong and broad network of around 110,000 employees worldwide, it has partnered with more than 470 operators in more than 130 countries. The company has been operating in Rwanda since 2005 and helped local telecommuinications firms like MTN to build the network infrastructure.

A woman whose husband and three young children were slaughtered during the 1994 Rwandan genocide cried Thursday, 12 May, 2011, as she identified from the witness stand Lazare Kobayaga she contends led a mob attack up a mountain where she and many others had sought refuge from the ethnic carnage that was sweeping Rwanda.

Her account was the most emotional yet as the trial of Kobagaya entered its fifth day of testimony in a federal courtroom in Wichita, U.S. The government is seeking to revoke his U.S. citizenship for allegedly lying to immigration authorities about his involvement in the genocide.

The 84-year-old genocide suspect is charged with unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in 2006 with fraud and misuse of an alien registration card in a case prosecutors have said is the first in the United States requiring proof of genocide. Kobagaya contends he is innocent.

An estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda between April and July 1994. Most of the dead belonged to an ethnic group known as the Tutsi, while most of the killings were carried out by members of an ethnic group known as the Hutu.

Valerie Niyitegeka, a Tutsi woman whose family farmed near Kobagaya’s village, recounted for jurors the events of April 15, 1994, when she, her husband, Appolloni, and their six children fled as mobs of Hutu men burned Tutsi houses.

“I was OK for my house to be burned _ as long as I am not dead,” she testified through a translator.

Niyitegeka detailed how she climbed _ and at times crawled _ up the steep, rocky mountainside of Mount Nyakizu with her youngest son strapped to her back. She described how the women and children gathered piles of stones for their men to throw as mobs of Hutus attacked.

She told jurors she was able to identify the elderly Kobagaya as the leader of the attacking mob because she recognized the way he walked and the cane he carried that day. She pointed at him in the courtroom : “He is there. He is the one.”

The defense tried to cast doubt on that identification by noting trees and other obstructions on the mountain that day.

During the melee as the family fled the mountain in the ensuing days, Niyitegeka was separated from her husband and three of her children. She testified she would never see them alive again. Their slain children’s ages were 12, 10 and 8.

Joseph Yandagiye, a 76-year-old Hutu farmer, testified about what happened to the children and their father, who sought refuge at Yandagiye’s house. After taking them in, Yandagiye went to run some errands. When he returned, he said he found a crowd of Hutus had already surrounded his house.

Yandagiye testified that when the crowd threatened him in an attempt to get into the house, Appolloni came out and told the mob : “Take me instead.”

Yandagiye also told jurors he initially followed the mob that had taken Appolloni and his children, but turned back after they told him they would make him kill them himself if he continued to follow.

Later that day, a group of Hutu men came to get him too, Yandagiye testified. It was then that he learned that Appolloni and his children had been killed.

Yandagiye testified that Kobagaya told the mob that they should kill him too because he had sheltered Tutsis in his house during a 1959 conflict. Yandagiye said another community leader, Francois Bazaramba, urged the crowd not to kill him but to punish Yandagiye by making him buy beer, which he did.

Bazaramba is a former Rwandan pastor who was sentenced last year to life imprisonment by a Finnish court for committing genocide.

The Rev. Ubald Rugirangoga was counseling inmates in a Rwandan prison in the wake of the country’s 1994 genocide when he was forced to truly practice what he was preaching. 

His mother, brother, and around 70 members of his extended family had been killed in the slaughter that claimed more than 800,000 lives, mostly minority Tutsis, over 100 days, at the hands of Hutu extremists.

Speaking mostly through an interpreter Tuesday to the Worcester County Bar Association, the priest said the man who killed his mother happened to be in the prison, but he didn’t know who he was. He said the man sought him out and explained what he had done. He asked Rev. Rugirangoga for forgiveness. 

“It was difficult,” he said. “I had preached to forgive, and I had to practice what I was preaching, so I had to search deep down in my heart. And I went up to him and I told him, I forgive you.” 

Even though he forgave him, the man who killed his mother still had his doubts. To further prove his forgiveness, Rev. Rugirangoga reached out to the man’s children, who were left without parents after the man’s wife died. Rev. Rugirangoga said that after forgiving the man, all the pain and anger just left. 

“I was free,” he said. 

Speaking in the jury pool room at the Trial Court building on Main Street, Rev. Rugirangoga told another story of forgiveness, in which a Tutsi woman took in the daughter of a girl, even though the girl’s Hutu father murdered most of her family. The two families had been neighbors, Rev. Rugirangoga said. The woman’s surviving son at first didn’t understand why the woman would take in the daughter of the man who made her a widow, but later he came around. And in a surprising twist, he ended up marrying the girl years later. 

Rev. Rugirangoga has been running schools in Rwanda where he mixes children of victims of the genocide and children of perpetrators of the genocide. 

He said it’s important to start early with children. He said the government has used his schools as a model. 

“I try to bring them together,” he said. “Hopefully in the future, with the history in our country, this will not happen again because I have to stand with these children.” 

He said it is a burden to carry anger around, and said if you can’t forgive, you are slowly dying inside. 

“If you carry anger around, you can even get sick, not knowing why,” he said. “It can lead to depression.” 

Asked a question about developed countries’ inaction during the genocide, Rev. Rugirangoga, who fled Rwanda by foot during the genocide but later returned, said he was not angry. 

“At the time of the genocide we were in survival mode, we couldn’t hear what was going on, who was helping or not,” he said. 

“But you have also, the U.S. and other countries that have shown support with the help they’ve offered us. If we’re forgiving the killers, then we need to forgive the grudge that nobody helped us.”