We had a spare day after the trekking and because Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, was only 120km's away we all decided to go and visit.  We all had different reasons to do so but mine was to visit the Genocide Museum and learn more about the atrocities that occurred all thoughout Rwanda in 1994.
HISTORY LESSON
The early days of Rwanda's existence were peaceful.  They had 10 clans that all worked together and there were never any major fighting between them.  All thoughout Africa in the 1800's, there was a rush by the European's to colonize the continent and in the end Belgium was awarded Rwanda.  The Belge set about implementing their ideas and rules and religious belief onto the people.  Nothing against the Belgiums on this point, every other nation was doing the same in their areas; The Germans in Namibia, the English in Kenya and South Africa and the Portuguese in Mozabique.  In 1923, one of the ideas that the Belge had was to separate everyone into Hutu or Tutsi, 2 of the largest groups at the time, and then organize the Hutu's into the elite.  The idea was that the Hutu's would control everyone else while the Belge would only have to control the Hutu's.  The first real tradegy was the way the people got divided.  If you owned 10 or more cows, then you were Tutsi.  If you owned 9 or less, you were Hutu.  If your physical apppearance was a certain way, you were Hutu.  If not, you became Tutsi.  Almost immediately people that you thought were part of your clan were now not, hell even cousins were now split, sometimes brothers.  From 1923 until 1959 I don't know how the people fared with this split, whether it was working or not but something was obviously simmering because by '59 the idea of Genocide was forming in the ruling Hutu minority.  With the backing of the Belgium overseers, the future President Dominique Mbonyumutwa initiated the first killing.  Slowly over the next 14 years, the Army and Hutu's in general, were taught that they were superior to the Tutsi in everywhere, including introducing the '10 commandments' for Hutu's towards Tutsi's, and that the only way to move Rwanda forward was to wipe out the bad seeds.  By '73 a young military general by the name of Juvénal Habyarimana  stage a 'coup d'etat' and took over as President.  Knowing that there would be revenge attacks he decided to build the new Presidential Palace near the barracks that he controlled and also because it was close to the Airport.  In fact it was in a direct line with the runway (which becomes impotant later).  The first Genocide happened in 1979.  This was relatively minor compared to the second one but it raised a lot of bells in the wider community, so much so that the UN started to send troops to oversee what was happening in Rwanda.  Throughout the '80's, high level meetings were taking place in the Presidential Palace, plans were being put into place, rival Political Leaders were being executed, every now and then a group of Tutsi's were slaughtered and the Hutu's hatred of Tutsi's was becoming almost uncontrollable.  Also during this time, a fanatical group of Hutu's was being groomed for what lay ahead.  They called themselves the 'Interahamwe', meaning 'those who kill in groups' and they play big part in the future Genocide.
1990 is when things started to ramp up.  President Juvénal Habyarimana was ordering killings on a regular basis.  The second Genocide had started but slowly.  A question was put to the President one day: who would he like to take over if he was not around anymore.  He pointed to Pasteur Bizimungu (a very important person later on) brother.  3 days later he was dead.  Since Bizimungu was next in line, he decide to flee.  The early '90 were not a good time to be in Rwanda.  Everyday people feared that a full blown war could start.  Everyday they feared that they could be killed.  Could you imagine living like that?  I couldn't.  Although the Genocide was techincal happening, most of the inner sanctum wanted to speed it up, to get rid of the Tutsi's once and for all however President Habyarimana  was quite content with the progress.  The UN hadn't really interfered so he was basically gettting away with the systematic annilation of a group of people.  The Prime Minister at the time, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, was apparently totally against the Genocide and because of this she had a group of Belgium UN soldier protecting her.  By now Pasteur Bizimungu had joined up with Paul Kasane and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a group of Rwandan rebel trying to fight against the oppressive Government any way they could.  Pasteur Bizimungu was the negoiator for the group and by early 1994 was in discussion with the President about ways to resolve the conflict.  In any situation like this, it is only the President that can make these deals and it is an obvious statement that in doing so they would ask for amenisty for cooperation and information.  The inner sacntum, the leaders of the Military and the Interahamwe could all see what was happening so they created a plan. On April 6th 1994, as the Presidential plane was coming into land and from the very same barracks that President Habyarimana used to command, a rocket was launched that caused his plane to crash, ironically, into his own backyard.  All 13 people on board died.  The 10 Belgium UN troops that were guarding the Prime Minister (who was to take over control now that the President was dead), were told that they needed to go to the UN Camp immediately.  Once they left, the Prime Minister was murdered and Theodore Sindikubwabo, a high ranking official, was asked to lead.  His first command was to send out the Interahamwe and start the Genocide proper.  From when the palne went down to when the Genocide started was all of an hour, it was very well planned. Neighbours became enemies, cousins attacked each other and sometimes husbands killed their own families. The 10 Belgium troops never made it to the UN Camp, instaed they were driven to an Army Barracks where 100 soldiers were told to kill them.  They held up in a building for several hours hoping that some help would arrive.  It never did.  In an earlier attack in 1990, sevaral people fled to a church and were spared.  Thinking that the same would happen, churches became a safe haven for people fleeing.  There were however 2 churches in particular that suffered.  Maraulding Hutu's found the churches full and decided to throw in hand-grenades and then to strafe the building with their AK47's.  Once that was done they then walked inside with their machete's and finished off anyone who was, miraculously, still alive.  And it didn't matter who you were, a 3 year old boy, a 24 year old mother of 3 or a 62 year old farmer, if you were not Hutu, you were slaughtered.  Rape and torture were also common and actually encourged.  And did anyone help?  Only 2 international aid agencys remained; the Red Cross and Medicne the something something, but they really couldn't do a lot to help the innocent.  Th UN was there but their troops were concentating on evacuating select people as they didn't have enough support to do that and try and control and suppress the madness.  The leader of the UN Troops, a Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, did request another 500 soldiers, enough he thought that could stop it all, but none arrived.  I'm not even sure if he got a reply.  This continued for 2 months without anyone trying to stop it, it was as if the whole world just didn't care.  The amount of refugees was incredible, well over 1 Million people were pouring into Uganda, Tanzania, Burundia and Zaire.  Aid workers there just couldn't keep up especially the Doctors.  People where arriving with horrific injuries and they just couldn't anyone to assist them.
Throughout those 2 months there are also incredible stories of people fighting back, using sticksand stones, or of sympathetic Hutu's helping the Tutsi's.  The most famous of these is the story about the Hotel des Mille Collines and it's manager Paul Rusesabagina which thankfully was turned into a movie, Hotel Rwanda, so that we can all get to see and feel what it was like then (sort of).
The first sign that it was coming to an end was when Paul Kasane and Pasteur Bizimungu with the baking of the RPF started to fight back.  They worked there way back towards Kigali, driving the perpotrators back towards Zaire or whereever they could go.  By now the UN had started to set up 'safe' zones that people could go to and some of the actually murderers used these facilities to hide out in.  It was actually over pretty quick.  The amount of people that were doing the killing was not really that much it's just that they had the firepower and the 'motivation' to perform those acts.  I put 'motivation' in brackets as it seems to me that a lot of people involved were kind of brainedwash.  You need to remember that it's been a few generations since people were split into Hutu's and Tutsi's and at least 2 generations of the Hutu 10 commandments.  The majority of Hutu's have been manipulated into thinking a certain way by only a very small group of sadistic men.  Pasteur Bizimungu became the new President on 19th July 1994 and it bcame his job to try a mend a fractured Nation.  He is a revered person in Rwanda today but turned his back on Politics in 2000 to become a successful business man.  The current President is Paul Kasane, the man who lead the the uprising and with his guidance Rwanda is moving in the right direction.  One problem from fightback of the RPF is that the moderate Hutu population that were not involved in the killings were now being persecuted by the Tutsi's which lead to another wave of refugees heading towards the borders.  This is often a footnote to many stories about the Rwanda Genocide but is nonetheless another tradegy that occured to Rwanda and it's peaceful portion of the population.
The Interahamwe are still active but are now based out of the DRC (the Democratic Republic of Congo).  They have made some insurgences notably in 1997 when they stormed into a school and demanded that the class split up into Hutu's on one side and Tutsi's on the other.  The students refused saying that they were neither, that they were all Rwandan.  The Interahamwe killed 6 of them anyway.  And Other was my own personal experience with them when they raided out camp at the edge of the Bwindi Impenetreble Forest National Park and killed 8 Tourists.  Even today there are rewards of up to $5M US for the inforamtion and capture of the leaders of the Genocide; not all have been caught.
The visit to Kigali meant that I had a chance to learn more about one of the most appalling things that has happened while I have been alive.  The first stop was the Genocide Museum.  It was built with money donated from many sources and is free for everyone to visit.  It is also very confronting, they don't hide away from what happened and show photo's and video's of the victims, some show fingers missing and burnt hands, others machete wounds and some of then the actually killings taking place.  It has a wall where families have placed photo's of the victims, another room for belonging that were found in mass graves and another with the skulls of the unknown.  Upstairs was an exibition of previous Genocides including Nazi German and the Yugoslavia conflict.  Outside the building is where they have some mass graves of the victims when ther find them, and yes, they are still finding bodies even today, 21 years after the event.  After we went to the Hotel Rwanda and then onto the Presidential Palace.  This place gave me the chills knowing what had happened and knowing that it was all planned here, especially the 'sunroom' which was used exclusively to talk strategy, or the 'interogation room' where President Juvénal Habyarimana  gave individual people explicit instruction that they had to carry out ... or else.  We also saw the wreckage of the plane that crashed killing him, for some reason they just left it there.  Our last stop was where the Belgium UN Troops were murdered.  If the Palace gave me chills, this place gave me goosebumps.  All the bulletholes are still there.  You can see clearly where the last man was gundown by the amount of bullet holes in the wall, obviously from an AK47.  You read the stories on the walls and can not help but wonder at the reasons why shit like this occurs.
I was 18 when this occurred.  I knew about it as it was on the TV every night but truely didn't appreciate the historical significent that was occuring before my eyes or the way in which it all happened and really could have been prevented with some swifter response by the UN, the organization that was formed to help in situations like this.  Kigali itself is a clean city, the cleanest in Africa by far, and it was well worth the trip.  It's given me something think about for sure.