KIGALI (Reuters) - Vowing never again, Rwandans began a week of commemoration on Sunday for the estimated 800,000 people killed a decade ago in 100 days of genocide that the outside world did little to prevent.
France, the United States and the United Nations have faced criticism for their roles during the events of 1994, but organisers of a three-day conference opening on Sunday say they want to focus on the future before a memorial on Wednesday.
"Everything we are planning is in that spirit of preventing genocide or any other crime against humanity," said Benoit Kaboyi, of the Rwandan genocide survivors group Ibuka, which is organising the meeting in the capital Kigali.
Rwandans are arriving from the United States, Europe and elsewhere in Africa for reunions with surviving relatives.
"It's the first time we are doing this as a family," said Francine Uwera, 20, a Rwandan studying in the U.S. city of Boston, who lost some 30 relatives in the 1994 mass killings.
"A lot of families are going to be doing this, getting together and remembering who they lost, and trying to be there for each other," she said, still bleary-eyed from her flight.
The conference will draw participants from around the world, including Canadian former lieutenant-general Romeo Dallaire who led a U.N. force in Rwanda during the killings and who has been haunted by guilt at his failure to save more lives.
Delegates will examine issues like justice for victims, helping survivors and how to commemorate events such as the genocide in Rwanda, which began on April 6, 1994 after a plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents was shot down.
The crash acted as the trigger for an attempt by extremists from the ethnic Hutu majority to exterminate the minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates, hoping to preserve the Hutus' decades-long political dominance in the country of about eight million.
Participants at the meeting in Kigali will also scrutinise the role countries can play in preventing genocide, a debate which may be fuelled by comments or revelations made concerning outside powers during the past few weeks.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was head of peacekeeping at the world body during 1994, accepted institutional and personal blame last month for not doing more to prevent the Rwandan slaughter.
Declassified documents revealed last week U.S. intelligence officials were using the word "genocide" in Rwanda in 1994 even as officials in Bill Clinton's administration avoided the word in public for fear it could spark an outcry for action.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who led the rebel army that took power in July, 1994 has accused France of "direct" involvement in the genocide, saying it provided weapons and training to those who carried out the killings.
Members of the Eastern Africa Standby Brigade from Uganda march to board a French tactical aircraft C160 Transall at the French Air Base 188 in Djibouti, December 5, 2009. The EASB ...
