Genocide

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan felt the full force of this nation's anger when he was blasted over the world body's handling of the 1994 genocide and then boycotted by top officials. In the capital, Kigali, Annan sat through a blistering indictment of the United Nations' failures before, during and after the genocide, delivered in parliament by Foreign Minister Anastase Gasana. Then he was stood up by the country's president, vice president and prime minister at a dinner in his honor.

Jean Kambanda, Rwanda's former prime minister, pleaded guilty Friday before a United Nations tribunal to charges that he was a mastermind of the 1994 slaughter of more than 800,000 Rwandans, most of them ethnic Tutsis. The onetime economist and insurance executive, dressed in a dark blue suit, white shirt and patterned tie, spoke in a calm voice to judges here of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Kambanda, 42, now faces an Aug.

In one of many difficult moments during his visit to Rwanda, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was taken Friday to a massacre site where a genocide survivor told how he and fellow Tutsis held off Hutu killers for eight days with rocks, machetes and sticks--while hoping for rescue from U.N. peacekeepers who never came.

A global lack of willpower was to blame for the failure to prevent Rwanda's 1994 genocide, Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, acknowledged Monday. But he said he had no personal regrets for decisions he made as then-head of U.N. peacekeeping.

A Rwandan militia leader pleaded guilty before a United Nations court Monday to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1994 massacres of more than 800,000 people. He was formally convicted by the court's panel of three judges, who said the sentencing process will start Jan. 29.

Sylvert Sebazungu knows precisely why he is being held in a foul, densely packed room with no beds or lights deep inside the dungeon-like prison here. "They say I was in a gang that was killing children," he said, averting his gaze. "With sticks and machetes and guns." Then he looked up, his eyes hard and dark. "It is not true," he declared. "I stayed at home." Wherever he was, Sebazungu was 15 years old at the time.

Mismanagement in the administration of an international court set up by the U.N. to prosecute war criminals in Rwanda has hampered the investigation of the 1994 genocide there, a report released Wednesday said. The U.N. inspector general uncovered faulty accounting practices, hiring of unqualified applicants, widespread disregard of U.N. regulations and feuding among top officials at the tribunal's administrative headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. It also cited neglect of the problems by U.N.

A Kigali court Friday sentenced a prominent former Rwandan politician to death for being a ringleader of the 1994 genocide of minority Tutsis despite being a Tutsi himself. "He has war crimes on his head. He was leading the Interahamwe, guiding them here and killing even his own neighbors," presiding Judge Jariel Rutaremaram said at Froduald Karamira's sentencing. Karamira, wearing a convict's uniform, was grim-faced during sentencing.

One week before being sworn into office, a Burbank city councilwoman-elect has found herself in the hot seat for comments she made about a mayoral proclamation declaring today "Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day."

The mysterious flight of more than 85,000 Rwandan refugees into the Zairian rain forest began when machete-wielding villagers stormed their camps Monday, followed the next morning by uniformed troops opening fire without warning, according to accounts given to journalists Saturday. For a second straight day, international aid workers failed to find the main body of ethnic Hutu refugees despite a series of aerial searches.