Tenth Anniversary of Ethnic Killings in Rwand

Following the crash, extremists in the Hutu government began a plan to kill all of the country's minority Tutsi population and politically moderate Hutus. An estimated eight-hundred-thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in three months of violence.

The leaders of South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia attended the ceremony. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was the only Western leader to attend. Rwanda criticized Western countries for not sending high-level officials.

The killings ended when Mister Kagame's Tutsi-led rebel army ousted the extremist Hutu government and seized control of the capital. More than two-million Hutus later fled to nearby Democratic Republic of Congo.In a speech during the ceremony in Kigali, President Kagame said Rwanda takes the most blame for the mass killings. But he criticized the international community for failing to intervene to stop the killings. He also repeated accusations that French officials helped train and arm the Hutu government soldiers and militants who carried out the killings.

Former President Bill Clinton and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan have apologized for failing to intervene in Rwanda. During a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland this week, Mister Annan proposed a five-point action plan designed to prevent future ethnic killings.