Annan Snubbed Again During Rwanda Visit
May 9, 1998 - 0:0
MWULIRE, Rwanda A visit by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to Rwanda continued on a sour note on Friday when he was snubbed by genocide survivors he was supposed to meet at a technical college outside the capital. Annan expected to talk to a group of survivors of Rwanda's 1994 genocide at Don Bosco Technical College on the outskirts of Kigali, but when the UN chief's entourage arrived at the school there was no one to meet him.
No reason was given for the snub, but Annan adopted a grin and bear it approach and continued his journey to a genocide memorial site at Nyanza, around 50 km (30 miles) from Kigali. There local leader Protais Musoni told Annan that residents had felt abandoned by the UN when the slaughter began of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists.
Annan had felt the full force of Rwanda's anger on Thursday when he was attacked over the world body's handling of the 1994 genocide and then boycotted by top officials. He had to sit through a blistering indictment of the UN's 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 the dinner they were due to host in his honor.
Presidency Spokesman Joseph Bideri said the boycott was a protest against the arrogance of Annan's speech after Gasana's broadside. His speech to parliamentarians was extremely arrogant, insensitive and insulting to the Rwandan people, Bideri told Reuters. On Friday, another genocide survivor echoed Bideri's comments, telling Annan: Mr secretary general, your speech yesterday at parliament made us suffer. Annan had not expected a red carpet welcome to Rwanda, aides said, but his reception so far has clearly shocked the secretary-general's entourage.
As Annan sat beside him in parliament, Gasana attacked the UN and its predecessor, the League of Nations, for its treatment of Rwanda since 1922 when it became a Belgian-run territory. Annan was head of UN peacekeeping in 1994 and Gasana implicitly blamed that office for withholding information in the months before the genocide of an estimated 800,000 people. (Reuter)
No reason was given for the snub, but Annan adopted a grin and bear it approach and continued his journey to a genocide memorial site at Nyanza, around 50 km (30 miles) from Kigali. There local leader Protais Musoni told Annan that residents had felt abandoned by the UN when the slaughter began of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists.
Annan had felt the full force of Rwanda's anger on Thursday when he was attacked over the world body's handling of the 1994 genocide and then boycotted by top officials. He had to sit through a blistering indictment of the UN's 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 the dinner they were due to host in his honor.
Presidency Spokesman Joseph Bideri said the boycott was a protest against the arrogance of Annan's speech after Gasana's broadside. His speech to parliamentarians was extremely arrogant, insensitive and insulting to the Rwandan people, Bideri told Reuters. On Friday, another genocide survivor echoed Bideri's comments, telling Annan: Mr secretary general, your speech yesterday at parliament made us suffer. Annan had not expected a red carpet welcome to Rwanda, aides said, but his reception so far has clearly shocked the secretary-general's entourage.
As Annan sat beside him in parliament, Gasana attacked the UN and its predecessor, the League of Nations, for its treatment of Rwanda since 1922 when it became a Belgian-run territory. Annan was head of UN peacekeeping in 1994 and Gasana implicitly blamed that office for withholding information in the months before the genocide of an estimated 800,000 people. (Reuter)