Tutsis Tribe

The sight of a mob murdering his father has given Naphtal Ahishakiye no peace these last 11 years. It was May 28, 1994, one crime among millions during Rwanda's genocide. Helpless and hidden in a tree, he watched the mob stuff his father headfirst down a latrine. But the long wait for justice has ended in disappointment. At a recent community hearing, witnesses identified the killers as militia members who had fled Rwanda after the genocide and were beyond the reach of the law.

Nearly 10 years after the Rwandan genocide, a Hollywood studio is planning a film, touted as a love story and political thriller about the massacres. The aim, says director Terry George, is to reproach the world for its failure to stop the 1994 Hutu genocide of 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, in 100 days. Moderate Hutus who refused to take part were also slaughtered. "I'm particularly determined to shame everybody in the audience if I possibly can," George said Friday.

In her heart, Eugenie Muhayimana didn't become a mother at the birth of her son. Yearning only for death, she could find no shred of love for the babe born of nearly three months of daily gang rape in 1994 by a band of genocidal killers. Her first revelation of motherhood came a little later: Janvier Turahirwa, the Hutu militiaman who had enslaved her, looked at the baby boy and said the child did not look Hutu. Kill it, he ordered her.

Survivors of a massacre at a U.N.-run refugee camp buried 163 Congolese Tutsis in a dusty cotton field Monday, some fainting in the hot sun as the simple wooden coffins were lowered into a mass grave. Some of them wept as others told of narrow escapes as Hutu marauders rampaged through the Gatumba camp, screaming that they would kill any Tutsi they found.

The nation's Tutsi president handed power to a leader from the Hutu tribe in a power-sharing arrangement designed to end bloodshed. President Pierre Buyoya stepped down for Vice President Domitien Ndayizeye. Although Tutsis make up 15% of the population and Hutus 85%, Tutsis traditionally have dominated the government and army, stoking resentment.

After a week of stunning setbacks, President Laurent Kabila's army says it is holding its ground against Rwandan-backed rebels in the former Zaire. Official media and spokesmen in Kinshasa, the capital, said Monday that Kabila's loyalist troops had evicted Tutsi-led rebels near the mouth of the Congo River and were advancing on rebel positions in the east of the nation renamed Congo. There was no independent confirmation of the official accounts of fighting on either front.

President Laurent Kabila's government has accused Uganda of joining fellow neighbor Rwanda in sending troops into Congo to fight in a week-old Tutsi-led revolt. Information Minister Didier Mumengi said at a news conference Sunday that two Ugandan army columns with tanks, armored cars and trucks had crossed the border near Lake Albert in the northeast of Congo, formerly called Zaire. "These Ugandan soldiers are heading for Bunia," he said referring to the northeastern town.

Facing possibly the most serious threat to Congolese President Laurent Kabila's 15-month regime, loyalist troops fought Tuesday to crush a rebellion of renegade soldiers in key cities in their country's east, while in the west the capital braced for gun battles and a nighttime curfew. Military officers primarily belonging to eastern Congo's Banyamulenge Tutsi ethnic group have vowed to oust Kabila in an uprising similar to the one that brought the onetime rebel leader to power in May 1997.

A 1,000-strong band of Hutu rebels attacked an army base outside the capital of Tutsi-ruled Burundi, launching an hours-long battle that left at least 150 civilians dead. Thirty rebels and two soldiers also died, Lt. Col. Mamert Sinrinzi told Burundian radio. Hutu rebels attacked a base outside Bujumbura. The army beat back the assault after hours of heavy artillery fire. The rebels then retreated through Gitaramu village, embroiling villagers in the fighting.

With a growing rebellion in Congo pulling its Central African neighbors toward war, analysts warn that Congolese President Laurent Kabila risks igniting new genocide against the region's Tutsis by turning to the flammable ingredients of ethnicity and nationalism. Facing an alliance of Congolese Tutsis, exiled politicians and disgruntled soldiers, Kabila seized on a weapon that is simple and effective--whether in Africa or elsewhere.