Rwanda honours those killed in genocide

Rwanda has begun a week of solemn ceremonies to commemorate the lives of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus murdered during the Rwandan genocide, a three-month-killing spree 25 years ago.

President Paul Kagame laid a wreath at the Gisozi genocide memorial site, where over a quarter a million of people are buried, before an afternoon of speeches and song on Sunday.

Later, a candlelight vigil was held in the packed national soccer stadium.

"There is no way to fully comprehend the loneliness and anger of survivors and yet over and over again we have asked them to make the sacrifices necessary to give our nation new life. Emotions had to be put in a box," Kagame said, his tall, thin form projected on to television screens around the nation.

"We are far better Rwandans than we were. But we can be even better still. We are the last people in the world who should succumb to complacency."

The 100 days of slaughter began on April 6, 1994, after President Juvenal Habyarimana and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi -- both Hutus -- were killed when their plane was shot down over the Rwandan capital. The attackers have never been identified.

Among the legacies of the genocide is the International Criminal Court, which grew out of tribunals to investigate and prosecute those responsible for atrocities committed in Rwanda and during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

The downing of Habyarimana's plane was immediately followed by killings as Hutu government soldiers and allied extremist militia began trying to exterminate the Tutsi minority.

In villages across the densely populated country, neighbour turned on a neighbour. Men, women, and children were hacked to death, burned alive, clubbed and shot.

As many as 10,000 people were killed daily. Seventy per cent of the minority Tutsi population was wiped out, and over 10 per cent of the total Rwandan population.

The fighting ended in July 1994 when the RPF, led by Kagame, swept in from Uganda and seized control of the country.

Under Kagame, any talk of ethnicity is strongly discouraged. The opposition says the tight control of the media and political sphere is also used to stifle dissent.

Except for the BJP and Congress, the TDP, the YSRCP and the JSP have fielded newcomers

Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency, the biggest in the State, has been favourable to non-local candidates in the past.