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We were so far out in the desert that boundaries didn't matter anymore. Were we in Tunisia? Libya? Algeria? It didn't matter, our guide Massoud told us, pouring mint tea into my battered metal cup under a Saharan sky filled with stars. Didn't matter?! Libya supported the bombing of airplanes, and Algerians were killing tourists. "No countries matter out here," Massoud explained in French that was almost as mangled as his teeth. "We are all Sahara." It had been pure stupidity to come to the Sahara in the middle of August. During the day the temperatures rose above 120 degrees,...

A former chaplain in Rwanda's armed forces was sentenced today to 25 years for the abduction, murder and sexual assault of Tutsi civilians by the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the mass killings that engulfed the tiny African country in 1994. Emmanuel Rukundo was found guilty of genocide, murder as a crime against humanity and extermination as a crime, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said in a press statement issued from its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. In mid-April 1994, according to the Tribunal, Mr. Rukundo, with soldiers of the Rwandan army, abducted and killed a...

Apparition in Africa: Our Lady of Sorrows by Mary Jo Anderson    1/29/09   Twelve years before the genocide in Rwanda that would claim the lives of a million people, the "Mother of the Word" appeared to a pious 16-year-old girl, Alphonsine Mumreke, in the remote village of Kibeho. The Virgin's first appearance was in late 1981 at a school administered by religious sisters whose students were predominantly Catholic, though some were Protestant and Muslim.   Jeers met Alphonisne's report of the heavenly visitation. School officials and students refused to believe the girl's claim unless another person saw and...

KINSHASA, Congo – More than 1,500 Rwandan troops crossed the border into eastern Congo on Tuesday to join Congolese forces in an effort to oust Hutu rebels who participated in Rwanda's genocide and have long been at the heart of the region's conflict, officials said.

France has long claimed Rwanda as part of its francophone fold even though there is only one language common to all citizens of the tiny central African nation — the indigenous Kinyarwanda — and only a minority of the population speak passable French. But now Paris will not even be able to make that claim after the Rwandan government announced an ambitious plan to switch the entire education system to English and effectively purge the country of French as it is forced out of the workings of government.

Donat Kubwimana escaped Rwanda in a van filled with fellow Catholic monks, all fleeing the genocide that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of their countrymen.  Fifteen years later, the 44-year-old is working on his master's degree in French at Queens College in Flushing. On Thursday, he became a U.S. citizen. "I'm so lucky," Kubwimana said after being sworn in. Kubwimana's harrowing tale of survival and achievement has become an inspiration to his Flushing community. "Just his story could have an impact," Brother David Turmel, 60, said of Kubwimana's journey from a Catholic compound in Rwanda to Queens.Kubwimana left...

ARUSHA, Tanzania – A former Rwandan army colonel was convicted Thursday of genocide and crimes against humanity for masterminding the killings of more than half a million people in a 100-day slaughter in 1994. Survivors in Rwanda welcomed the watershed moment in a long search for justice. The U.N. courtroom in Tanzania was packed for the culmination of the trial of Theoneste Bagosora, the highest-ranking Rwandan official to be convicted in the genocide. Onlookers were silent as the 67-year-old was sentenced to life in prison.

This past summer, from evangelical churches nationwide, more than one million of the faithful departed for the mission field, taking up Jesus' "Great Commission" to "go and make disciples of all nations." The churchgoers hoped to convert souls, establish churches and meet other human needs. But they did not intend to serve for years or whole lifetimes, like such pioneers as Jim Elliott, who was killed in Ecuador in 1956 evangelizing to native people; or Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission; or even the awful fictional caricatures of African missionaries in Barbara Kingsolver's novel "The Poisonwood Bible."...

Women won at least 44 out of 80 seats in Rwanda's legislative elections, making the central African country the first in the world where men are outnumbered in the national assembly, the electoral commission said Thursday. According to provisional results, women won 20 of the 53 seats attributed in direct elections. In Rwanda's unique voting system, another 24 seats are reserved for women in an indirect vote. According to an official close to the youth council, a woman may also have won one of the two seats reserved for Rwandan youth. With 44 guaranteed seats, women would account for at...

Is the defendant's dock at the International Criminal Court reserved for leaders of small and poor countries that defy the West? Not if Rwanda has its way. It wants to charge some of France's most celebrated leaders of the 1990s as collaborators in genocide. Last week the government of Rwanda issued a damning 500-page report documenting France's participation in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This marks a remarkable turnaround in the deeply politicized world of human rights reporting. Usually, such reporting takes the form of governments or human rights groups based in the West condemning poor countries for having political or...

France labeled as unacceptable a Rwandan report accusing French leaders of being involved in the 1994 genocide in which as many as 800,000 Rwandans died. The 500-page report released by the Rwandan Justice Ministry accused 13 senior French politicians, including President Francois Mitterrand and former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, of supporting the preparation and execution of the genocide, The New York Times reported Thursday. The report, issued Tuesday, said French soldiers in Rwanda joined in with genocidal forces in the systematic killing and rape of minority Tutsi refugees by the Hutu majority. France supported the Hutu government in a...

Rwanda said top French politicians should "answer for their actions" as it named them in a report accusing France of arming and advising extremists in the 1994 genocide. The two-year investigation said France helped the extremists who carried out the genocide and even took part in some of the killings. It named François Mitterand, France's late former president, and former prime minister Dominique de Villepin among 33 military and political leaders.

KIGALI (AFP) — France played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled Tuesday by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted. The indicting report accused a raft of top French politicians of involvement in the massacres, threatening to further mar relations between the two countries, which severed diplomatic ties in November 2006.

In a session that lasted more than 45 minutes, Clinton described his role in the 2008 campaign as "a privilege, an honor," and said, "I loved it," but he declined to discuss any of his own possible mistakes, describing them as a distraction. "Next year, you and I and everybody else will be freer and have more space to say what we believe to be the truth" about the primaries, he said. Clinton volunteered very little praise of Obama, beyond describing him as "smart" and "a good politician" when asked about him toward the end of the interview. He did,...

KIGALI, Rwanda, Aug. 2 - There will be no Clinton restoration -- not this year, at least. But the rehabilitation of Bill Clinton has begun. The former president in many ways ended the Democratic primary campaign more isolated than his wife, with his own friends and allies unhappy with his flashes of anger and ill-chosen words and blaming him in part for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's defeat. With a negligible relationship with Sen. Barack Obama -- he has spoken to him just once since the primaries -- Clinton has been shut out of the Obama campaign almost entirely and does...

Forty Days of Purpose, a discipleship and evangelism program, has been featured in thousands of North American churches. It's tied to Warren's global best-seller, The Purpose Driven Life. There have been city-wide campaigns before, but this is the first time a nation, including its president and other top leaders, has taken part in the program. In 2005 Warren announced his global PEACE plan, which in its current formulation stands for: Promoting reconciliation, Equipping servant leaders, Assisting the poor, Caring for the sick, and Educating the next generation. The Forty Days of Purpose program is to correspond with church-based PEACE-plan projects...

Country to Take On EPA Challenges The Monitor (Kampala) NEWS 11 April 2008 Posted to the web 10 April 2008 By Joseph Olanyo Kampala Rwanda is ready to take on trade challenges arising from Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), Rwanda Ambassador to Germany has said. Mr Eugene-Richard Gasana said in an interview at the Rwanda embassy in Germany on April 4 his country will take a focussed and result oriented approach to ensure EPAs are a win-win situation. "We have overcome many challenges in life and we are not going to take anything for granted. We are ready to take on...

The New Times (Kigali) NEWS 30 March 2008 Posted to the web 31 March 2008 By Edwin Musoni Kigali Rwanda in the past existed with no purpose which resulted to a shameful history. now the country has chosen to live with a purpose for prosperity and faith, President Paul Kagame has said. The President was speaking at a gathering that brought together thousands of Rwandan Christians during the launch of '40 Days of Purpose' at Amahoro National Stadium last evening. The launch was blessed by among others, the influential evangelical preacher and author of the Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren...

Police Benefit From Pr Warren's Peace Project The New Times (Kigali)NEWS 12 March 2008 Posted to the web 12 March 2008 By Florence Mutesi Kigali Renowned US Pastor Rick Warren's missionary work in Rwanda has now been extended to law enforcement. Four police experts from Warren's Saddleback Church in California, US, have since March 6 been training 50 Rwandan police officers in Kigali on how to better deal with various crimes such as gender-based violence, and how to provide counseling. According to Deputy Director of Training in Rwanda National Police (RNP), Superintendent Pascal Nkurikiyimfura, the training covers such issues as...

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) - A UN war crimes court increased a Roman Catholic priest's sentence to life imprisonment Wednesday after upholding his conviction for his part in the genocide of 800,000 fellow Rwandans. In April 1994, when pro-government Hutu militiamen were rounding up ethnic Tutsis for slaughter across Rwanda, some 1,500 of Father Athanase Seromba's parishioners took shelter in his church in the western town of Nyange. Rather than seeking to protect his flock, the ethnic Huti priest had the church levelled by bulldozers and ordered extremist gunmen to shoot any Tutsis who tried to flee the carnage, the court...