Kagame satisfied with OAU genocide report

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has expressed satisfaction with the OAU report on the 1994 genocide which was issued on Friday. According to Rwandan radio, he told reporters before leaving for the OAU summit in Togo that the report would be discussed at the meeting. "It is a good report," he said. "We will discuss it with other African leaders and foreign dignitaries and see how usefully we can exploit it." The report, issued by the OAU's International Panel of Eminent Personalities, said several outside actors "carry a heavy responsibility" for the genocide. "Within Rwanda itself, those with the heaviest responsibility were the Catholic and Anglican hierarchies and the French government, all supporters of the [president Juvenal] Habyarimana government," the report stated. "At the UN, the Security Council, led unremittingly by the United States, simply did not care enough about Rwanda to intervene appropriately. What makes the Security Council's betrayal of its responsibility even more intolerable is that the genocide was in no way inevitable." The report went on to say that until the genocide ended with the Rwandan Patriotic Front's (RPF) military victory "the UN, the governments of the US, France and Belgium, African governments and the OAU, all failed to define the massacres as a full-blown genocide". The report noted that since the genocide, leaders of the UN, US, Belgium and the Anglican church had apologised for their failure. "No apology has yet come from the French government or the Catholic church," it said. "Nor has any responsible government or institution suggested that Rwanda is owed restitution for these failures. The report underlined the regional implications of the genocide. Referring to the DRC war and Rwanda's presence there because of activities by the ex-Forces armees rwandaises (FAR) and Interahamwe militia - responsible for the genocide - it said Rwanda "can hardly be expected to let its guard down against its mortal enemies". It noted heightened tensions between the Hutu and the Tutsi in the region, saying that in the government's determination to be vigilant "innocent Hutu are killed and abuses of human rights occur". Among the recommendations contained in the report were bringing more genocide leaders to trial, dealing fairly, justly and quickly with over 120,000 people in Rwandan jails, holding national elections. "The international community must be made to understand the need for reparations for its complicity in the calamities of the past decade," the report said.