Catherine Riungu
6 July 2009
Nairobi — A campaign organised by Rwandans in the diaspora to raise money for genocide orphans has failed in meeting its target as the 15th anniversary of the 1994 mass killings in Kigali this week.
The One Dollar Campaign launched in April, at the beginning of the activities earmarked to commemorate the 1994 Rwanda genocide, had by last week collected $1 million against a target of $3 million. The fundraising was to run for 100 days.
According to Gustave Karara, an official in charge of the Rwandan Diaspora Global Network, the organisers were still hopeful that they would meet their target by close of the anniversary commemoration.
Another anniversary activity that was not accomplished either was the reburial of the bodies of nearly 11,000 genocide victims buried in makeshift graves in Uganda.
The bodies were to be exhumed from the shores of Lake Victoria and reburied in three permanent mass graves in Rwanda.
The government of Rwanda was to foot the reburial bill and has bought the land where the bodies will laid to rest permanently.
Many of those killed in the genocide were thrown into Rwanda's Nyabarongo River, a tributary of River Kagera, which dumps it waters into Lake Victoria.
In 1994, Ugandan villagers buried the bodies on shores of Lake Victoria in six large makeshift mass graves and numerous smaller graves.
As Kigali closed the sombre commemoration, reports emerged that the traditional Gacaca courts trying some suspects will not wind up as initially indicated, until the end of this year. The courts were to wind up at the end of June.
The National Service of the Gacaca Courts said that it was working round the clock to conclude all cases before it.
A new date for closing the courts is yet to be given but the National Service is reported to be working overtime to compile a countrywide progress report.
"We will not conclude by leaving the problems behind us. We will not leave any trial for the simple concern of closing," said an official who did not want to be named.
Meanwhile, in Kenya, the assets of Rwandan genocide fugitive Felicien Kabuga will be frozen by the government until a case it has filed for a permanent freeze has been heard and determined.
Justice Muga Apondi said that Kenya, being a UN member, was complying with a request from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to help in tracing Mr Kabuga, one of the 13 "most wanted" genocide suspects still at large. Kabuga, 72, is believed to have been the chief financier of the massacre.
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