Week of national mourningSunday’s events mark the start of a week of national mourning, with Rwanda effectively coming to a standstill and national flags flown at half-mast.Music will not be allowed in public places or on the radio, while sports events and movies are banned from TV broadcasts, unless connected to what has been dubbed “Kwibuka (Remembrance) 30″.The United Nations and the African Union will also hold remembrance ceremonies.Karel Kovanda, a former Czech diplomat who was the first UN ambassador to publicly call the events of 1994 a genocide, nearly a month after the killings began, said the massacres should never be forgotten.”The page cannot be turned,” he told AFP in an interview in Kigali, urging efforts to ensure that “the genocide (doesn’t) slip into oblivion”.The assassination of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana on the night of April 6, when his plane was shot down over Kigali, triggered the rampage by Hutu extremists and the “Interahamwe” militia.Their victims were shot, beaten or hacked to death in killings fuelled by vicious anti-Tutsi propaganda broadcast on TV and radio. At least 250,000 women were raped, according to UN figures.Each year new mass graves are uncovered around the country.In 2002, Rwanda set up community tribunals where victims heard “confessions” from those who had persecuted them, although rights watchdogs said the system also resulted in miscarriages of justice.Today, Rwandan ID cards do not mention whether a person is Hutu or Tutsi.Secondary school students learn about the genocide as part of a tightly controlled curriculum.The country is home to over 200 memorials to the genocide, four of which were added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list last year.
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