Timeline Rwanda

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  Kinyarwanda is the language of Rwanda. 85% of the people are Hutu but the government and military is dominated by Tutsis.
 (WSJ, 6/6/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 8/17/98, p.A10)
  The population in 1998 was ~7.5 (7.8) million.
 (SFC, 1/27/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/17/98, p.A10)

1300s        Tutsis moved into territory traditionally under Hutu and Twa control.
    (SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1600s        A Tutsi king consolidated power in central Rwanda. Minority Tutsis began to reign as feudal overlords.
    (SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1890        Rwanda became part of German East Africa.
    (SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1901        Feb 23, Britain and Germany agreed on a boundary between German East Africa [later Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi] and Nyasaland [later Malawi].
    (HN, 2/23/98)(WUD, 1994, p.593,990)

1916        Belgians took over Rwanda.
    (SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1921        Mar 1, Rwanda was ceded to England.
    (SC, 3/1/02)

1959        The Tutsi rulers were overthrown by the Hutu majority. Some 20,000 Tutsis were killed and the Tutsi king was forced into exile. The Tutsis had been the feudal rulers of Rwanda for centuries up to this time.
    (WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(SFC, 6/21/99, p.A10)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1962        Rwanda established independence from Belgium with Gregoire Kayibanda, a Hutu, as president. The Hutu majority leadership clung to giant money-losing state enterprises, while the Tutsi minority established itself in the private sector and made better livings. The United Nations trust territory of Ruanda-Urundi in east-central Africa was divided into the independent nations of Rwanda and Burundi. Prior to WWI the kingdoms of Ruanda and Urundi were made part of German East Africa, which was conquered by British and Belgian troops during WWI and became a Belgian mandate in 1923.
    (SFC, 1/27/98, p.A8)(HNQ, 11/4/99)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1972        The Tutsi-led government in Burundi killed some 100,000 Hutus.
    (SFC, 8/31/99, p.A14)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1973        Juvenal Habyarimana, a Tutsi, led a military coup that ousted Kayibanda as president.
    (SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1985        Dec 26, Dian Fossey (53), American zoologist who had studied gorillas in the wild (Gorillas in the Mist), was murdered in Rwanda. Her body was found the next day. Wayne Richard McGuire, a doctoral candidate working with Fossey, was later found guilty in absentia in Rwanda. A native tracker was also charged and died in jail. McGuire claimed total innocence.
    (AP, 12/27/01)(SFC, 3/15/05, p.A7)

1985        Dec 27, American naturalist Dian Fossey, who had studied gorillas in the wild, was found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda.
    (AP, 12/27/05)

1988        The film “Gorillas in the Mist” was about gorilla researcher Dian Fossey who worked with the mountain gorillas of Volcano Nat'l. Park in Rwanda.
    (SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T3)

1989        In Rwanda a 130-foot telecom tower was built on top of Mount Karisimbi, a 14,787-foot volcano, in order to provide FM radio service.
    (WSJ, 8/17/06, p.A7)

1990        Sep, Alphonse Marie Nkubito, a moderate Hutu (d.1997), helped found the human rights defense association.
    (SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)

1990        Oct, Tutsi exiles from Uganda invaded Rwanda. There was an uprising led by mainly Tutsi exiles in Uganda, known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), against the 18-year-old regime of Juvenal Habyarimana.
    (WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)
1990        Oct, In Rwanda Fred Rwigema was killed by a sniper. Paul Kagame returned from studying at the US Army Command and General Staff College to lead the RPF.
    (WSJ, 8/17/98, p.A10)

1990        Mahele Lieko Bokoungo led Zairian soldiers to back up the Hutu regime of Pres. Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda.
    (SFC, 12/20/96, p.B5)

1990-1993    Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, an ethnic Hutu, requested French troops to help block an ethnic Tutsi exile force that was penetrating the country from Uganda. French troops were present over the next 3 1/2 years.
    (WSJ, 1/24/97, p.A14)

1991        Kabangu Kalunga, an intelligence office under Congo’s Mobutu, was sent to fight Tutsi-led rebels in Rwanda.
    (SFC, 10/14/98, p.C2)

1992        Jul, Callixte Mbarushimana got job with U.N. Development Program as senior information assistant in Rwanda.
    (AP, 6/25/05)

1993        Aug 4, Rwandan Hutu's and Tutsi's negotiated power-sharing agreement in Arusha, Tanzania. It was viewed as a sellout by extremist leaders of the Hutu majority.
    (WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(MC, 8/4/02)

1993        Alphonse Marie Nkubito, a moderate Hutu (d.1997), was seriously injured in a grenade attack on his car. Supporters claimed the attack was by a government assassination squad.
    (SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)

1993        Radio Milles Collines was launched as a private radio station. The family of Hutu Pres. Juvenal Habyarimana were the shareholders.
    (SFC, 6/21/99, p.A10)

1994        Jan, Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire was later reported to have faxed a warning to UN headquarters that preparations for a mass killing were underway.
    (SFC, 5/8/99, p.C14)

1994        cFeb, Felicien Kabuga, a member of the elite Akazu Hutu group, imported thousands of hoes, machetes and other garden implements to use as weapons to kill ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
    (SFC, 6/13/02, p.A14)

1994        cApr, Kofi Annan was the head of UN Peacekeeping operations when the commander of UN forces in Rwanda warned that the Kigali government was planning to slaughter Tutsis. Annan’s office ordered Gen’l. Romeo Dallaire of Canada not to protect the informant or to confiscate arms stockpiles. Annan later claimed that he lacked the military might and political backing to stop the slaughter of more than 500,000 people.
    (USAT, 5/4/98, p.9A)(USAT, 5/5/98, p.11A)

1994        Apr 6, The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed on a return trip from Tanzania in a mysterious plane crash near Kigali, Rwanda; widespread violence erupted in Rwanda over claims the plane had been shot down: Agatha Uwilingiyimana, Rwanda’s and Africa’s 1st female PM, Cyprian Niayamira (Ntaryamira), president of Burundi (1993-94) and Juvenal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda (1973) were killed. In Rwanda the Interhamwe, an extremist organization, and the Rwandan armed forces, FAR, launched a massacre of Tutsis and sympathizers that killed some 800,000. [see Aug 1, 1997] A French report in 2004 concluded that Paul Kagame, Tutsi rebel leader, was behind the crash. In 2010 a Rwandan government-commissioned inquiry said Rwandan Hutu soldiers shot down the Hutu president's plane and sparked the slaughter of more than 500,000 people.
    (WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)(AP, 4/6/99)(SFC, 2/11/04, p.A8)(AP, 1/12/10)
1994        Apr 6, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana welcomed unarmed Tutsis into his church in Mugonero.
    (SFC, 1/25/00, p.A10)

1994        Apr 7, Civil war erupted in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. Former Defense Minister Colonel Theoneste Bagosora reportedly instigated the killing spree by Hutu militia. Within twenty-four hours fighting resulted in the deaths of Agathe Uwilingiyimana, the prime minister of Rwanda, Joseph Kavaruganda, the president of the Supreme Court and hundreds of others. In the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsi and Hutu intellectuals were slaughtered. In Kibeho thousands of Tutsis gathered in a church where they were bombed, shot or hacked to death by Hutu soldiers and militiamen.
    (AP, 4/7/99)(SFC, 4/8/99, p.C3)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)(MC, 4/7/02)
1994        Apr 7, UN officer Colonel Luc Marchal ordered troops to escort Rwandan prime minister Agathe Uwilingyimana to a radio station in Kigali. The party was ambushed, the troops hacked to death, and the prime minister was raped and murdered. Augustin Ndindiliyimana, head of the Gendarmerie Nationale, was later charged in the killing of 10 Belgian peacekeepers charged with guarding Uwilingyimana and for his role in the Tutsi extermination. Ndindiliyimana was arrested in Belgium in 2000.
    (SFC, 7/5/96, p.A16)

1994        Apr 8, Jean Kambanda was appointed prime minister of the interim government. He went on radio and urged fellow Hutus to abuse, hurt and kill Tutsis and Hutu moderates. He pleaded guilty in 1998 to charges that he incited the slaughter of over 800,000 Rwandans.
    (SFC, 5/2/98, p.A8)
1994        Apr 8, About this time the commander of UN forces in Rwanda warned Kofi Annan, head of the UN Peacekeeping operations, that the Kigali government was planning to slaughter Tutsis. Annan’s office ordered Gen’l. Romeo Dallaire of Canada not to protect the informant or to confiscate arms stockpiles. Annan later claimed that he lacked the military might and political backing to stop the slaughter of more than 500,000 people.
    (USAT, 5/4/98, p.9A)(USAT, 5/5/98, p.11A)

1994        Apr 8-1994 Jun 20, In 2007 a prosecution indictment at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania said that during this period: “… at the Holy Family parish, Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka drew up a plan to rape Tutsi women," and "designated several Tutsi civilians who were kidnapped and murdered."
    (AFP, 6/21/07)

1994        Apr 9, In Kigali a crowd of neighbors tossed grenades and poured gasoline on the home of the home of Thetime Nkaka and his pregnant wife Jeanette Mukantwali (23). Matata Godefroid, a Hutu soldier, was later identified as the ringleader. He was sentenced to life in prison in Jan 23, 2001.
    (SFC, 4/8/02, p.A6)

1994        Apr 12, The US Operations Distant Runner and Support Hope began in Rwanda and ended Sep 30, 1994. They cost $147.8 billion.
    (WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A8)

1994        Apr 14-1994 Apr 15, In Rwanda Tutsi refugees, gathered in the Nyange church, were burned to death or killed as they tried to flee. In 2006 Roman Catholic priest Athanase Seromba was convicted of ordering militiamen to set fire to the church and then bulldoze it. He was sentenced to life in prison. In 2009 Gaspard Kanyarukiga, who was arrested in South Africa in July 2004, pleaded innocent to the charges of killing around 2,000 Tutsis at the Nyange Church. Prosecutor Holo Makwaia said Kanyarukiga had coaxed a reluctant bulldozer driver to crush those sheltering in the church.
    (www.ictr.org/ENGLISH/cases/Kanyarukiga/indictment/index.pdf)(AP, 8/31/09)

1994        Apr 16, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana allowed a well-armed convoy of Hutu officials and militia to carry out a day-long massacre in Mugonero. Ntakirutimana later fled to the US. He was arrested in Texas and faced extradition back to Rwanda in 2000.
    (SFC, 1/25/00, p.A10)
1994        Apr 16-1994 Apr 17, In Rwanda at least 4,500 Tutsi, including women and children, were slaughtered in the Kibuye Stadium. About 12,000 Tutsi were murdered at Kibuye’s church, in the stadium, and in the surrounding countryside.
    (http://tinyurl.com/73bs8)

1994        Apr 22, In Butare gasoline was used to set ablaze a building where 500 Tutsis were hiding. In 2001 Benedictine Sister Maria Kisito stood trial in Belgium for providing the gasoline. 7,000 Tutsi's were slaughtered in stadium of Kibuye, Rwanda.
    (SFC, 4/18/01, p.A12)(MC, 4/22/02)

1994        Apr 25, Two Catholic Hutu Sisters in Rwanda ordered frightened Tutsis out of their Benedictine compound into the hands of Hutu soldiers. In 1997 Sisters Gertrude (Consolata Mukangango) and Sister Maria Kisito (Juliene Makubutera), having escaped to Belgium, were accused by witnesses of aiding Hutu soldiers who slaughtered some 600 Tutsis. In 2001 Sister Gertrude and Maria Kisito were convicted. Gertrude was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Kisito was sentenced to 12 years. Two others were also convicted and sentenced. Alphonse Higaniro was sentenced to 20 years and Vincent Ntezimana was jailed for 12 years.
    (SFC, 4/18/97, p.A15)(SFC, 4/18/01, p.A12)(SFC, 6/8/01, p.A17)(SFC, 6/9/01, p.A5)

1994        Apr 29, Hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the terror of ethnic massacres in Rwanda were pouring into Tanzania.
    (AP, 4/29/99)

1994        Apr, In Rwanda a convoy attacked Tutsis who were seeking refuge on a hill a few days after the genocide began. About 1,000 people were killed and the convoy later returned to attack survivors. In 2008 Protais Zigiranyirazo (70), the brother-in-law of former President Juvenal Habyarimana, was convicted of leading the convoy and the massacre. In 2009 a UN appeals court in Tanzania overturned the conviction.
    (AP, 11/16/09)

1994        Apr-1994 Jun, According to later witness statements later Callixte Mbarushimana, a UN employee in Rwanda, allegedly killed two people himself and ordered slayings of 31 others.
    (AP, 6/25/05)

1994         Apr-1994 Jul, Some 500,000-1 million people in Rwanda, were killed by Hutu extremists. Most of them were minority Tutsis and opponents of the ruling Hutu majority.
    (SFEC, 1/15/1995, A-10)
1994        Apr-1994 Aug, The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) under Paul Kagame killed some 25-45,000 people during this period. They then pursued the genocidaires into Zaire where they killed some 200,000 more and in the process overthrew the government of Zaire.
    (Econ, 3/27/04, p.26)
1994        Apr-1994 Aug, Hutus slaughtered more some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, in Rwanda and fled to refugee camps in Zaire. In 2005 Jean Hatzfeld, French journalist, authored “Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak.”
    (SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)(SSFC, 6/26/05, p.C3)

1994        May 17, The U.N. Security Council approved a peacekeeping force and an arms embargo for violence-racked Rwanda. By June, 1994, 800,000 died there despite the presence of a small UN mission.
    (AP, 5/17/99)

1994        Jun 5, In central Rwanda 13 Catholic clerics, including three bishops, were murdered at a church. 3 Catholic bishops, including Kigali Archbishop Vincent Nsengiyumva, were among the clerics murdered. In 2008 two army officers pleaded guilty to their role in the murders. In 2008 a military court in Kigali jailed two Rwandan army captains for 8 years for the killings during the 1994 genocide, but acquitted their superiors of involvement in the slaughter.
    (AFP, 6/18/08)(AFP, 10/24/08)

1994        Jun 23, French marines and Foreign Legionnaires headed into Rwanda to try to stem the country's ethnic slaughter.
    (AP, 6/23/99)

1994        Jul 4, Rwandan Tutsi rebels seized control of most of their country's capital, Kigali, and continued advancing on areas held by the Hutu-led government.
    (AP, 7/4/99)

1994        Jul 14, A tidal wave of Hutu refugees from Rwanda's civil war flooded across the border into Zaire, swamping relief organizations.
    (AP, 7/14/99)

1994        Jul 17, Hutus left Rwanda for refugee camps in Zaire.
    (SFEC, 11/19/96, p.A16)

1994        Jul 18, In Rwanda the Tutsi rebel movement (RPF) under Tutsi rebel leader Paul Kagame took power. It promised to rebuild the courts and execute the guilty for the slaughter of an estimated 500-800 thousand Tutsis. Two million refugees, mostly Hutus, fled to refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania. Kagame studied at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in 1990. In 2005 Jean Hatzfeld, French journalist, authored “Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak.”
    (SFC, 417/96, p.A-9)(SFC, 8/9/96, p.A10)(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(AP, 7/18/99)(SSFC, 6/26/05, p.C3)

1994        Jul 24, Rwandan refugees began trickling home after Zaire reopened the border between the two countries; meanwhile, the first wave of a U.S. airlift arrived.
    (AP, 7/24/99)

1994        Jul 30, The first U.S. troops landed in the Rwandan capital of Kigali to secure the airport for an expanded international aid effort.
    (AP, 7/30/99)

1994        Jul 4, Troops under Tutsi rebel leader Paul Kagame took power. Kagame studied at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in 1990.
    (SFC, 8/9/96, p.A10)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)

1994        Jul, Eleven UN peacekeepers were killed and the UN pulled out most of its 2,500 peacekeepers. In 1996 Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, a former army officer in Rwanda, was arrested for the murders in Cameroon on a warrant issued by Belgium.
    (SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-9)

1994        Jul-1995 Aug, Alphonse Marie Nkubito, a moderate Hutu (d.1997), served as justice minister under the insurgent Tutsi government.
    (SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)

1994        Nov 8, The UN Security Council established the Int’l. Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to prosecute those responsible for the Rwanda genocide. By 2004 18 people were convicted. In 2004 Sylvestre Gacumbitsi, a former Rwandan mayor, was convicted for his role in the slaughter and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_Rwanda)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)(SFC, 6/18/04, p.A3)

1994        Belgian peacekeepers in Rwanda retreated during the massacre.
    (SFC, 6/15/99, p.C4)

1994        Valerie Bemeriki, a radio announcer for Radio Milles Collines, urged Hutus to slaughter ethnic Tutsis. Bemeriki was arrested in 1999.
    (SFC, 6/21/99, p.A10)

1994        Juvenal Kajelijeli helped orchestrate massacres in Ruhengeri, Rwanda. In 2003 the former mayor was convicted by a UN tribunal in Tanzania and sentenced to life in prison.
    (SFC, 12/2/03, p.A3)

1994        Georges Henry Joseph Ruggiu, a Belgian-born radio journalist, encouraged the slaughter of Tutsis. In 2000 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the Un tribunal.
    (SFC, 6/2/00, p.A18)

1994        Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu, was named president by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front.
    (SFC, 3/24/00, p.D3)

1994        Alfred Musema, a tea factory boss, led murderous attacks on Tutsis. In 2000 the genocide tribunal ordered him to spend life in prison.
    (WSJ, 1/28/00, p.A1)

1994        Simeon Nchamihigo was later accused of helping to orchestrate the Tutsi genocide. He was arrested in 2001 in Tanzania.
    (SFC, 5/21/01, p.A10)

1994        4,000 people, mostly Tutsis, were massacred in Kibuye. The mass grave was opened by UN war crimes investigators.
    (WSJ, 1/22/96, p.A-1)   

1994        In 2002 the government put the death toll for the ethnic slaughter at 1,074,017 with Tutsis as 94% of the dead.
    (WSJ, 2/15/02, p.A1)

1994-1996    Philip Gourevitch in 1998 published “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.” The book covered the Rwanda Civil War along with background information.
    (WSJ, 9/22/98, p.A20)

1995        Apr 22, In Africa, Rwandan government troops killed thousands of Hutu refugees in Kibeho. The Tutsi-led government troops cleared a huge refugee camp that they said was full of Hutu extremists. Human rights officials said that at least 4,000 Hutus were killed, many shot, and many trampled. Tutsi officers involved received only token punishments.
    (SFC, 4/8/99, p.C3)(HN, 4/22/99)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.A6)

1995        The ethnic war of 1994 killed more than 500,000 people. Four African leaders meet with Jimmy Carter in Cairo to discuss the return of 2 mil refugees to Rwanda.
    (WSJ, 11/28/95, p.A-1)

1995        Dec. A UN Tribunal issued its first indictments against eight people in Rwanda for the slaughter Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the 1994 slaughter at Kibuye.
    (WSJ, 12/13/95, p.A-1)

1996        Apr, Pres. Pasteur Bizimingu laid the first brick of a memorial to genocide victims in Kigali. About 55,000 war-scarred children were still searching for parents that most would never find. A couple hundred children mostly between 14 and 17 have been imprisoned for genocide.
    (SFC, 6/3/96, p.A12)

1996        May 29, Hundreds of Tutsis crossed into Rwanda fleeing the fighting in Zaire. Thousands of displaced Tutsis are behind them in the Masisi and Rutshuru regions of northeastern Zaire.
    (SFC, 5/30/96, p.A9)

1996        Jun 29, A Hutu rebel group in Rwanda, People in Arms for the Liberation of Rwanda (PALIR), has offered a $1,000 bounty for the head of every American killed in Rwanda. A $1,500 bounty was offered for US Ambassador Robert Gribbin. The group was unheard of until earlier this month.
    (SFC, 6/30/96, B7)

1996        Jul 9-10, The Tutsi dominated army carried out an operation against Hutu  insurgents in Karago and Giciye villages and 62 people were killed. The area was the home of the late Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana.
    (SFC, 7/15/96, p.A12)

1996        Jul 17-1996 Aug 30, US Special Forces trained Rwandan army soldiers in small-unit leader training, rifle marksmanship, first aid, land navigation and tactical skills.
    (SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)

1996        Aug 12, In Rwanda the Tutsi-led parliament passed a law allowing for trials of some 80,000 people on charges of genocide in the deaths of 500,000 people in 1994.
    (WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)

1996        Sep 27, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana (73) was charged with ordering the slaughter of hundreds of Tutsis in Kibuye in 1994. It was charged that he had arranged that they seek refuge in his Seventh Day Adventist Church, whereupon he called in Hutus to kill them.
    (SFC, 9/28/96, p.A11)

1996        Sep, In South Africa the government disclosed that it was sending arms worth $18 million of to Rwanda.
    (SFC, 11/8/96, p.A16)

1996        Oct 30, Rwandan commandos crossed into eastern Zaire to aid the Tutsi rebels there. Zaire had about 50,000 troops, but they were poorly trained, poorly armed, poorly led and notoriously poorly disciplined. Rwanda had about 54,000 soldiers in a well-disciplined army.
    (SFC, 10/31/96, p.A10)

1996        Nov 1, In Zaire Tutsi rebels and Rwandan forces besieged Goma in a battle for control of the regional capital and its airport. In Kinshasa some 10,000 university students demanded war with Rwanda and Burundi.
    (SFC, 11/2/96, p.A8)

1996        Nov 16, Thousands of refugees went home in a column that stretched 28 miles.
    (SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A1)

1996        Nov 21, The Banyarwanda means “people of Rwanda” and includes the Banyamylenge and anyone else in eastern Zaire whose origins were in Rwanda. The Bangilima and the Mai-Mai are Zairian militias with a strong background in witchcraft. The Interhamwe are former Rwandan Hutu militiamen who played a role in the 1994 genocide.
    (SFC, 11/21/96, p.C6)

1996        Dec 11, The government published a list of 1,946 suspects ineligible for any punishment less than the firing squad for the 1994 genocide.
    (SFC, 12/11/96, p.C2)

1996        Dec 14, Rwandan refugees, who previously refused to return home, began re-entering Rwanda after 2 1/2 years in Tanzania.
    (AP, 12/14/02)

1996        Dec 15, Tens of thousands Hutu refugees were forced out from Tanzania and made their way back to Rwanda.
    (SFC, 12/16/96, p.A16)

1996        Dec 24, In Rwanda 2,000 returning Hutu refugees were arrested for participating in the 1994 genocide. They joined 85,000 already held in prisons intended for no more than 20,000.
    (SFC, 12/25/96, p.A11)

1996        Dec 27, The first trial was held in connection with the 1994 genocide. Deo Bizimana was accused of killing 20 people and ordering the massacre of thousands of others.
    (SFC, 12/28/96, p.A12)

1996        Rwanda’s Paul Kagame dressed up an invasion of Zaire as an indigenous revolt and installed Laurent Kabila at its helm. Zimbabwe paid $5 million to help finance the Kabila regime in Congo.
    (WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A1)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.38)

1997        Jan 3, Two Hutu men were sentenced to death for their role in the 1994 genocide.
    (SFC, 1/4/97, p.A10)

1997        Jan 5, A mother and father and 7 children were murdered. The mother had testified against the former mayor of Taba, Jean-Paul Akayesu, for the murder of some 2,000 villagers.
    (SFC, 1/17/96, p.A13)

1997        Jan 22, Gunmen killed at least 20 civilians. In Kigali a special court sentenced 2 Hutu men to be executed for their roles in the 1994 mass killings.
    (WSJ, 1/23/97, p.A12)

1997        Jan 23, The army struck at Hutu insurgents and killed at least 310 in the northwest area. Hutu rebels were suspected of killing more than 50 people including 3 Spanish aid workers.
    (SFC, 1/24/97, p.A14)

1997        Feb 4, Gunmen killed 2 human-rights monitors 180 miles southeast of Kigali. Five UN employees were killed.
    (WSJ, 2/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 2/5/97, p.A9)

1997        Feb 13, Alphonse Marie Nkubito, a moderate Hutu (42), died of unspecified natural causes.
    (SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)

1997        Mar 3, Dozens of bodies were found in Ruhengeri, the day after unidentified men killed three people including a tax collector. The UN accused Rwandan troops of killing at least 137 villagers in reprisal for the slaying of the official.
    (SFC, 5/2/97, p.A17)

1997        Apr 4, A Rwandan court sentenced 2 people to death for their part in the 1994 genocide. Edouard Nyipegika and Jean Habimana were sentenced in Butare. A dozen people have been sentenced to death so far.
    (SFC, 4/5/97, p.A11)

1997        May-Jun, Some 2,300 Rwanda civilians, mostly refugees from the former Zaire, were killed in operations by the Tutsi-led army against Hutu rebels.
    (WSJ, 8/8/97, p.A1)

1997        Jun, Tourism to the he Volcanoes National Park, home of the mountain gorillas, was closed due to the civil war.
    (SFC, 6/25/99, p.D2)

1997        Jul 14, In Rwanda weekend clashes between the army and Hutu rebels left more than 170 people dead.
    (SFC, 7/18/97, p.A11)

1997        Aug 1, A UN report from this day was made public in 2000 and cited Tutsi informants claiming that they helped to shoot down the airplane carrying Rwandan Pres. Juvanal Habyarimana on Apr 6, 1994.
    (SFC, 3/2/00, p.A14)

1997        Aug 22, At least 120 people were killed at the Mudende camp near Mutura. The slain were thought to have been Tutsis and were killed by “infiltrators,” rival rebel Hutus.
    (SFC, 8/23/97, p.A14)

1997        Oct 3, UN officials reported that Congo has ordered int’l. refugee agencies to leave part of eastern Congo and was expelling Rwandans who have fled there to escape fighting in Rwanda.
    (SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)

1997        Oct 14, Assailants killed 37 people and wounded 14 in the Mutura commune northwest of Kigali.
    (SFC,10/16/97, p.E3)

1997        Nov 17, At least 27 civilians were killed by suspected rebels in Mukamara. Nearly 300 people were killed when Hutu rebels attacked a prison in the northwest at Giciye. 200 rebels, 88 prisoners and 2 soldiers died in the clash.
    (SFC,11/21/97, p.D3)

1997        Dec 2, Hutu rebels attacked a prison and released 103 jailed comrades at the Rwerere prison near the Congo border.
    (SFC, 12/4/97, p.C4)

1997        Dec 3, Hutu rebels attacked a prison and released 507 jailed comrades in Bulinga.
    (SFC, 12/4/97, p.C4)

1997        Dec 10, In Rwanda Hutu guerrillas, known as Interhamwe, attacked the Mudende Tutsi refugee camp and killed at least 231 [327] people and wounded over 200 others just hours before the arrival of US Sec. of State Madeleine Albright, who came to promote peace.
    (SFC,12/12/97, p.B3)(SFC,12/190/97, p.B6)

1998        Jan 13, The government reported that 9 Roman Catholic nuns were killed last week by Hutu rebels near the Congo border.
    (WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)

1998        Jan 19, In Rwanda Hutu rebels killed 35 brewery workers and wounded 25 near Gisenyi.
    (WSJ, 1/20/98, p.A1)

1998        Feb 4, Hutu rebels slaughtered 33 people in the Ruhemgeri region.
    (SFC, 2/9/98, p.A12)

1998        Feb 6, Hutu rebels hacked to death 48 civilians in the village of Biyahe in the Gisenyi region.
    (SFC, 2/9/98, p.A12)

1998        Mar 25, Pres. Clinton visited Rwanda. Shaken by horror stories from the worst genocide since World War II, President Clinton grimly acknowledged during his Africa tour that "we did not act quickly enough" to stop the slaughter of up to 1 million Rwandans four years earlier.
    (SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/25/99)

1998        Apr 9, Attackers thought to be Hutu rebels killed 28 people and wounded 36 in a refugee camp. Soldiers intervened and killed 20 rebels. The UN Security Council voted this same day to investigate illegal arms sales to Rwanda.
    (SFC, 4/10/98, p.A17)

1998        Apr 22, Rwandan officials announced a public execution of dozens of defendants connected with the 1994 genocide to be conducted by firing squad.
    (SFC, 4/23/98, p.A13)

1998        Apr 24, Rwanda executed 22 people by firing squad.
    (SFC, 4/25/98, p.A1)

1998        May 1, Former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 1994 genocide of more than 500,000 Tutsis. Kambanda was later sentenced to life in prison, but has since disavowed his guilty plea.
    (AP, 5/1/03)

1998        May 12, In Rwanda Hutu rebels killed 17 people, 14 in the town of Taba and 3 others in Kayenzi. Another 10 were wounded in the attacks.
    (SFC, 5/15/98, p.D3)

1998        May 26, In Rwanda Hutu rebels killed at least 94 civilians and wounded 67 outside Gisenyi.
    (SFC, 5/29/98, p.A16)

1998        Jun 17, Hutu rebels killed at least 25 and wounded 62 Tutsis at a camp for displaced people north of Kigali.
    (SFC, 6/18/98, p.A20)

1998        Jul 12, In Rwanda Hutu rebels hacked, shot or burned to death 34 people who had gathered in a hotel to watch the soccer finals.
    (SFC, 7/14/98, p.A8)

1998        Jul 23, The army said that it had killed a top rebel commander. Colonel Leonard Nkundiye was killed along with at least 50 rebels on the Congo border.
    (SFC, 7/24/98, p.D2)

1998        Aug 3, In Rwanda Hutu rebels massacred at least 104 civilians over the weekend.
    (SFC, 8/4/98, p.A12)

1998        Aug 12, Rwanda protested a Congo crackdown on ethnic Tutsis and charged that Kabila was arming Rwandan Hutus to put down a Tutsi-led revolt along the border. The revolt in Congo was believed to be masterminded by Rwandan Major Gen’l. Paul Kagame.
    (WSJ, 8/13/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/17/98, p.A10)

1998        Aug 21, Zimbabwe sent 600 troops to support Pres. Kabila in the Congo. Rwanda called for a cease fire and warned that it would intervene if the troops from Zimbabwe were not withdrawn.
    (SFC, 8/22/98, p.A8)

1998        Sep 2, In Rwanda prosecutors held Jean-Paul Akayesu, a former Hutu village mayor, guilty of 9 counts genocide. He was later sentenced to life in prison and 80 years for other violations.
    (SFC, 9/3/98, p.A14)(SFC, 10/3/98, p.A10)

1998        Sep 4, Former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1994 killings of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
    (SFC, 9/5/98, p.A1)

1998        Nov 6, Vice Pres. Paul Kagame admitted to helping rebel forces in Congo.
    (SFC, 11/7/98, p.A12)

1998        Rwanda’s population at this time was about 7.5-7.8 million.
    (SFC, 1/27/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/17/98, p.A10)

1999        Mar 22, In Congo Mai Mai warriors hired by Rwanda were reported to have killed 100 people. Rwanda denied the report.
    (WSJ, 3/24/99, p.A1)

1999        Mar 24, In Congo a massacre of 250 people in the Kivu region was reported. The slayings by Rwandan troops appeared to be in retaliation for earlier attacks by Congolese Mai Mai tribesmen.
    (SFC, 3/25/99, p.A10)

1999        Mar 29, Rwanda began voting in local elections. Candidates were not allowed to run as representatives of any ethnic or political group due to continued Hutu-Tutsi hostility.
    (WSJ, 3/30/99, p.A1)

1999        Mar 30, Tanzania arrested a former Rwanda army officer suspected in the killing of 10 Belgian peacekeepers in 1994. The officer was freed Mar 29 by a UN war crimes tribunal.
    (WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)

1999        Apr 14, In Rwanda Bishop Augustin Misago was put under "preventive detention" pending charges that he refused to shelter Tutsis in 1994 and ordered 19 schoolgirls expelled from the high school in Kibeho. The girls were killed.
    (SFC, 4/15/99, p.C16)

1999        Apr 28, In eastern Congo Gov. Kanyamuhanga Gafunzi ordered 100,000 Rwandan refugees in Kivu province to go home within 15 days for supporting Hutu rebels.
    (SFC, 4/29/99, p.D8)

1999        May 28, Rwanda declared a unilateral cease-fire in Congo where it was backing rebels to oust Pres. Kabila.
    (SFC, 5/29/99, p.A11)

1999        Jun 8, In Rwanda Charles Muligande, head of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, said that Tutsi dominated government had extended its mandate to rule for another 4 years.
    (SFC, 6/10/99, p.C3)

1999        Jul 2, In Rwanda a court sentenced 9 people to death and 16 others to life in prison on charges related to genocide in 1994.
    (SFC, 7/3/99, p.A10)

1999        Jul 15, The Volcanoes National Park, home of some 300 mountain gorillas, was scheduled to reopen following a 2 year closure due to the civil war.
    (SFC, 6/25/99, p.D2)

1999        Aug 17, Rwanda and Uganda agreed to an immediate truce to 4 days of fighting in Kisangani, Congo.
    (SFC, 8/18/99, p.A12)

1999        Oct 7, Rwanda reported that army troops and Congolese allies had killed over 200 Rwandan Hutu rebels over a weeklong operation along the border where 4,000 Hutu rebels had been based.
    (SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)

1999        Nov 6, Rwanda suspended cooperation with a UN tribunal following a decision (Nov 3) by the Int'l. Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to release Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, a former Foreign Ministry official, who was held in Tanzania.
    (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A30)

1999        Nov 9, In Tanzania Mikaeli Muhimana, an ex-Rwandan official in Kibuye, was arrested in Dar es Salaam for his role in the 1994 slaughter of Tutsis.
    (SFC, 11/10/99, p.A13)

1999        Dec 6, In Tanzania a UN court convicted Georges Rutaganda on 3 of 8 charges of genocide against Tutsis committed when he was vice president of the Interhamwe death squads in Rwanda in 1994.
    (SFC, 12/7/99, p.B2)

1999        Rosamond Halsey Carr authored "Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda." The memoir was written with Ann Howard Halsey.
    (SFEC, 12/12/99, p.T8)
1999        Historian Alison Des Forges (1942-2009), prominent human rights advocate, documented the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in her book “Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda.”
    (Econ, 2/21/09, p.88)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Des_Forges)

1999        Rwanda got its first dial-up connection to the Internet. It relied on expensive satellite links.
    (WSJ, 8/17/06, p.A7)

1999-2003    Carla Del Ponte, a Swiss prosecutor, served as chief prosecutor of the Rwandan tribunal based in Tanzania.
    (Econ, 1/24/09, p.89)   

2000        Mar 23, In Rwanda Pres. Pasteur Bizimungu resigned following a month long debate on ethnic tensions and corruption. In 2004 Bizimungu was sentenced to 15 years for inciting violence after a falling out with Kagame.
    (SFC, 3/24/00, p.D3)(WSJ, 6/8/04, p.A1)

2000        Apr 2, In Rwanda Tutsi leader Paul Kagame was nominated as president.
    (WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A1)

2000        Apr 17, In Rwanda Paul Kagami was elected the country’s first Tutsi president.
    (SFC, 4/18/00, p.A9)

2000        Apr 19, In southern Congo 6 Rwandan army officers and 4 Russian crew members were killed when their Antonov-8 aircraft crashed on takeoff at Pepa.
    (SFC, 4/21/00, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/21/00, p.A1)

2000        Apr 22, Paul Kagami became president and appealed for an end to ethnic strife.
    (WSJ, 4/24/00, p.A1)

2000        May 2, Health Minister Ezechias Rwabuhihi reported that some 500,000 Rwandans were infected with the AIDS virus, 6% of the population.
    (SFC, 5/4/00, p.A18)

2000        May 5, In Congo Ugandan and Rwandan troops clashed at Kisangani and at least 10 civilians were killed and 100 wounded.
    (SFC, 5/6/00, p.C1)

2000        May 7, Pres. Kagami announced that Rwanda was prepared to quickly implement a phased withdrawal from Congo.
    (SFC, 5/8/00, p.A12)

2000        Jun 11, In Congo Rwandan troops drove Ugandan forces from Kisangani to end a week of indiscriminate shelling.
    (SFC, 6/12/00, p.A13)

2000        Sep 8, In Dongo 51 civilians were killed by retreating government troops. Ugandan-backed Congolese rebels later discovered the bodies.
    (SFC, 9/16/00, p.A12)

2000        It was estimated that Rwanda made $20 million per month mining coltan in Congo DRC. The mineral is used in the manufacture of capacitors for electronic equipment.
    (www.american.edu/ted/ice/congo-coltan.htm)

2000        The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) was formed after the Kinshasa-based Hutu command and the Kivu-based Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALiR) agreed to merge.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Forces_for_the_Liberation_of_Rwanda)

2001        Feb 27, Rwanda began pulling back troops from a front-line Congo town.
    (WSJ, 2/28/01, p.A1)

2001        Mar 6, Local elections were held for the 1st time since the 1994 mass slaughter of Tutsis.
    (WSJ, 3/7/01, p.A1)

2001        Apr 11, The UN detained Callixte Mbarushimana after Rwanda filed arrest warrant on basis of story in The Sunday Times of London detailing some accusations against him.
    (AP, 6/25/05)

2001        Jun 5, Soldiers fanned out across Virunga National Park to protect endangered mountain gorillas. 2 were recently killed and eaten by Hutu militiamen. Only 355 members of the group live in the wild.
    (SFC, 6/6/01, p.C14)

2001        Jun 6, Government troops attacked Hutu militiamen crossing into the country from Congo at Matura and 150 were killed.
    (SFC, 6/8/01, p.A18)

2002        Jan 1, Rwanda adopted a new flag and national anthem in a bid for reconciliation.
    (WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A1)

2002        Jan 17, The volcano Mount Nyiragongo erupted near Goma, Congo, and rivers of lava destroyed 14 villages. Goma was devastated and some 400,000 people fled their homes. At least 50 people were killed and many sought refuge in Rwanda.
    (SFC, 1/18/02, p.A8)(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A16)

2002        Jan 21, Thousands of Congolese left Rwanda to return to Goma after receiving scant help.
    (SFC, 1/21/02, p.A3)

2002        Jul 22, Congolese and Rwandan leaders said that they've reached an agreement to end a four-year war in Congo, a fight that has defied resolution as it drew in eight African countries and claimed more than two million lives.
    (AP, 7/22/02)

2002        Jul 30, The leaders of Congo and Rwanda signed a peace agreement, proclaiming it a key step in efforts to end a war that has embroiled six African nations and left 2.5 million people dead.
    (AP, 7/30/02)

2002        Aug 13, Angola reported the capture of  Augustin Bizimungu, a key figure in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
    (SFC, 8/14/02, p.A13)

2002        Sep 17, Rwanda began withdrawing troops from eastern Congo as part of an agreement signed with the Congolese government to end the four-year civil war in Africa's third-largest nation.
    (AP, 9/17/02)

2002        Oct 1, Rwanda began pulling out 6,000 troops from a Congo border province, the latest stage in a withdrawal of all its forces that it hopes to complete by week's end.
    (AP, 10/1/02)

2002        Oct 5, Rwanda withdrew its last troops from neighbouring Congo, with some 1,100 soldiers marching in single file out of the war-ravaged country.
    (AP, 10/5/02)

2002        Oct 21, A UN panel accused criminal groups linked to the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Congo of plundering Congo's riches, and called on the United Nations to impose financial restrictions on 29 companies and 54 individuals.
    (AP, 10/21/02)

2003        Jan 28, Rwanda began releasing 19,000 genocide suspects and former rebels in an effort to ease intense overcrowding in the country's prisons and foster national reconciliation.
    (AP, 1/28/03)

2003        May 26, Rwandans voted in the country's first constitutional referendum. It was overwhelmingly endorsed.
    (AP, 5/28/03)

2003        Aug 1, In Rwanda the largest trial so far seeking justice for the 1994 genocide ended. A tribunal convicted 100 people of rape, torture, murder and crimes against humanity.
    (AP, 8/4/03)

2003        Aug 25, In Rwanda voters lined up before dawn to vote in the country's first real presidential election. Incumbent President Paul Kagame scored an overwhelming election win.
    (AP, 8/26/03)

2003        Sep 12, In Rwanda Paul Kagame took the oath of office as the nation's first popularly elected president since the 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 9/12/03)

2003        Sep 29, Rwandans began casting ballots at the start of three days of voting in the nation's first genuine multiparty legislative elections since independence from Belgium in 1962.
    (AP, 9/29/03)

2003        Oct 1, In Rwanda the ruling party of President Paul Kagame won nearly three-fourths of the vote the multiparty legislative elections since independence from Belgium in 1962.
    (AP, 10/1/03)

2003        Nov 14, Maj. Gen. Paul Rwarakabije, the leader of a rebel group that includes fighters who participated in Rwanda's 1994 genocide surrendered to Rwandan government forces.
    (AP, 11/15/03)

2003        Dec 3, A UN tribunal convicted and sentenced a radio news director and a newspaper editor to life imprisonment for their role in promoting the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
    (AP, 12/4/03)

2003        Greg Wyler (33), a American tech entrepreneur, started his own Rwandan Internet service provider and named it Terracom.
    (WSJ, 8/17/06, p.A7)

2004        Jan 22, In Tanzania Judge William Sekule said the tribunal found Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda (51), former minister for culture and higher education, guilty of genocide and extermination for his role the 1994 Rwanda genocide. He was acquitted of eight other charges of crimes against humanity.
    (AP, 1/22/04)

2004        Mar 27, Rwanda reported plans to release at least 30,000 suspects who have confessed to participating in the 1994 genocide, letting them be tried in community courts rather than by the country's overburdened judicial system.
    (AP, 3/27/04)

2004        Apr 25, Clashes between Congolese troops and Rwandan insurgents in eastern Congo killed at least 61 people over the weekend.
    (AP, 4/26/04)

2004        May 6, Hundreds of Rwandan rebels attacked Kingi village in volatile eastern Congo, sparking a two-hour battle in which at least five Congolese soldiers and insurgents were killed.
    (AP, 5/7/04)

2004        Jun 11, Two crowded boats collided on a lake straddling the Congo-Rwanda border on and one of them capsized, with some 80 people believed trapped aboard.
    (AP, 6/11/04)

2004        Jun, Rwanda’s parliament banned the last independent human rights organization.
    (Econ, 8/27/05, p.40)

2004        Jul 3, Rwanda reopened its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, further reducing tension between the two countries.
    (AFP, 7/3/04)

2004        Jul 15, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced former finance minister Emmanuel Ndindabahizi to life imprisonment for his role in the east African country's 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 7/15/04)

2004        Jul 21, Rwanda officials said 500 judges were fired and 223 new ones appointed in a reform move to improve the judiciary.
    (SFC, 7/22/04, p.A3)
2004        Jun 21, Ephrem Nkezabera (52), a former Rwandan banker, was arrested in Brussels and held on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in the 1994 Rwandan massacre.
    (AP, 7/30/04)

2004        Aug 13, The first elements of a 300-strong African Union protection force left Kigali, Rwanda, for Sudan's troubled region of Darfur, Sudan.
    (AP, 8/14/04)

2004        Oct 30, Rwandan troops arrived in Sudan's remote Darfur region to join Nigerian soldiers monitoring a shaky cease-fire in the country's troubled west.
    (AP, 10/31/04)

2004        Nov 18, The UN Security Council opened an extraordinary two-day session in Nairobi, the first outside its New York headquarters in 14 years. Sudan topped the agenda. Great Lakes regional foreign ministers approved a pact for greater cross-border cooperation and confidence-building. It was due to be adopted at a summit in Dar es Salaam.
    (AP, 11/18/04)(AP, 11/19/04)

2004        Nov 19, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged leaders of Africa's blood-soaked Great Lakes region to implement a peace plan that could herald a "new era" for millions of Africans.
    (AP, 11/19/04)

2004        Nov 24, The UN mission said Rwanda has warned it will launch an attack "very soon" on Rwandan Hutu rebels sheltering in eastern Congo.
    (AP, 11/24/04)

2004        Nov 26, Rwanda said it was ready to hold talks with Democratic Republic of Congo Pres. Joseph Kabila to defuse growing tensions over Rwandan rebels based in eastern Congo.
    (Reuters, 11/27/04)

2004        Nov 29, Congo said it will send up to 10,000 soldiers to its eastern province of North Kivu to prevent rebels and Rwandan forces from launching cross border attacks.
    (AP, 11/30/04)
2004        Nov 29, Rwandan troops attacked a town in eastern Congo. The next day a Congolese commander said at least 19 civilians were killed.
    (Reuters, 11/30/04)

2004        Nov 30, Congo-based Rwandan rebels, under threat of imminent attack by Rwanda, repeated an allegation that Rwandan troops had crossed the border in recent days to seize the vast country's mineral-rich east.
    (AP, 11/30/04)

2004        Dec 22-26, Government troops in eastern Congo battled Rwandan militiamen in growing violence between the former allies from the country's bloody 1998-2002 war.
    (AP, 12/27/04)

2004        The film Hotel Rwanda was directed by Terry George. It was based on the story of Paul Rusesabagina, who managed the Hotel des Mille Collines during the 1994 Rwanda genocide. The hotel in Kigali was one of the few places where nobody was killed. Rusesabagina later criticized the government of Pres. Kagame for limiting opposition. Rusesabagina then faced attacks in Rwanda for profiting from the genocide.
    (WSJ, 12/5/06, p.A14)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/)

2005        Jan 14, A Rwanda official estimated 1 million Rwandans, an eighth of the population, are expected to be tried in traditional "gacaca" village courts for alleged participation in the 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 1/16/05)

2005        Feb 17, In Rwanda cabinet ministers from 11 African nations gathered to flesh out details of a deal intended to end a cycle of wars, rebellions, dictatorships and poverty in central Africa's Great Lakes region.
    (AP, 2/17/05)

2005        Mar 10, In Kigali, Rwanda, a nine-judge community court handed down its first conviction of a Rwandan accused of killings in the 1994 genocide, as authorities set in motion a system of trials designed to speed the task of deciding the guilt or innocence of the 63,000 people accused of taking part in the government-orchestrated slaughter.
    (AP, 3/11/05)

2005        Mar 14, The U.N. tribunal for Rwanda sentenced Vincent Rutaganira, a former local leader, to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a charge of extermination by omission under a plea bargain with prosecutors.
    (Reuters, 3/14/05)

2005        Mar 29, It was reported that China’s influence in Africa was expanding rapidly. Chinese projects included the rebuilding of Nigeria’s railroad network; the paving of roads in Rwanda; ownership of copper mines in Zambia; timber operations in Equatorial Guinea; and supermarket operations in Lesotho.
    (WSJ, 3/29/05, p.A1)

2005        Mar 31, A Rwandan Hutu militia group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, denounced the Hutu-orchestrated 1994 genocide in the African country and announced it was stopping its fighting in the region.
    (AP, 3/31/05)

2005        Apr 27, A UN tribunal in Tanzania sentenced Mika Muhimana, a former local government official in western Rwanda, to imprisonment for the rest of his life for shooting to death and raping mostly Tutsi victims during the 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 4/28/05)

2005        May 18, A UN report said Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in eastern Congo have killed, raped, or kidnapped more than 900 civilians over the past year.
    (AP, 5/18/05)

2005        Jun 13, Burundi began forced repatriation of thousands of Rwandan refugees, who feared reprisals at home. The UN condemned the action.
    (WSJ, 6/14/05, p.A1)

2005        Jun 28, Canada’s Supreme Court said there is well-founded evidence that Rwandan exile Leon Mugesera helped to incite the massacre of ethnic rivals in his homeland and should be kicked out of Canada.
    (AP, 6/28/05)

2005        Jun 29, Two Rwandan businessmen were found guilty of war crimes by a 12-person jury in Brussels for their role in the killings of thousands during their country's 1994 genocide. Beer trader Etienne Nzabonimana, 53, was found guilty on 56 counts, and his half brother, Samuel Ndashyikirwa, 43, was found guilty on 23 counts of aiding and abetting the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in their home region of Kibungo.
    (AP, 6/29/05)

2005        Jul 20, Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a former priest of the Holy Family parish in the Rwandan capital Kigali, was charged in a sealed indictment with genocide, rape, assassination and extermination, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania. The charges were made public in 2007.
    (AFP, 6/21/07)

2005        Jul 29, Thousands of Rwandan prisoners began streaming out of jail, following a government decision to free 36,000 inmates, the majority of whom have confessed to taking part in the country's 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 7/29/05)

2005        Sep 6, Rwanda said Maj. Gen. Laurent Munyakazi has been arrested on suspicion of playing a key role in the 1994 genocide in which more than half a million Tutsis and moderates from the Hutu majority were killed.
    (AP, 9/6/05)
2005        Sep 6, Father Guy Theunis, a Belgian priest, was arrested in Rwanda on suspicion of involvement in the 1994 genocide. Judicial sources said Theunis was accused of republishing extracts of items from an extremist magazine known as "Kangura" which they said incited hatred and violence.
    (AP, 9/8/05)

2005        Sep 11, A Rwandan community court charged Guy Theunis (60), a Belgian missionary, with inciting and planning the 1994 genocide that left more than half a million people dead.
    (AP, 9/12/05)

2005        Sep 25, Some 774 Rwandans convicted by community courts for their role in the 1994 genocide began excavating stones for road construction as punishment for their role in the killings of more than a half-million people in this small central African nation. The convicts were tried by the newly established community courts, known as Gacaca. At least 760,000 Rwandans were accused of committing crimes during the genocide.
    (AP, 9/25/05)

2005        Oct 9, A Rwandan militia killed 15 civilians with machetes and knives in a nighttime raid on two villages in Congo's mountainous east.
    (AP, 10/10/05)

2005        Oct 19, Canadian police arrested a Rwandan man who is living in Toronto, charging him with crimes against humanity during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
    (Reuters, 10/19/05)

2005        Oct 31, Hundreds of government troops backed by U.N. peacekeepers began flushing heavily armed Rwandan rebels from eastern Congo, destroying insurgent camps and sending smoke rising above the restive region.
    (AP, 10/31/05)

2005        Oct, Greg Wyler, a American tech entrepreneur, purchased Rwanda’s telecom monopoly, Rwandatel, with a bid of $20 million. Wyler’s tenure as owner of Rwanda’s national telephone company ended in 2007. He then founded O3b Networks, based on the island of Jersey, to address the high cost of internet access in developing countries.    
    (WSJ, 8/17/06, p.A7)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.77)

2005        Nov 8, Callixte Kalimanzira (52), a suspected leader of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, surrendered in Tanzania to the international court trying the architects of the slaughter.
    (AP, 11/8/05)

2005        Nov 14, In Tanzania Calixte Kalimanzira, a man who served as Rwanda's interior minister during the slaughter of more than half a million people in 1994, pleaded not guilty to three counts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
    (AP, 11/14/05)

2005        Nov 17, Paul Bisengimana, former Rwandan mayor, pleaded guilty to charges of murder and extermination related to the 1994 genocide of more than half a million Rwandans. He was accused of participating in the killing of several thousand people who had sought refuge in a church. He changed his previous plea of not guilty after striking a deal with prosecutors under which they dropped 10 other charges.
    (AP, 11/17/05)

2005        Dec 7, A UN court in Tanzania trying masterminds of Rwanda's genocide convicted Paul Bisengimana, former mayor of Gikoro, for abetting the 1994 slaughter, but dropped three counts including genocide.
    (AP, 12/07/05)

2005        Dec 13, A UN tribunal convicted former Lt. Col. Aloys Simba, a retired Rwandan army officer, of genocide and sentenced him to 25 years in prison for participating in the slaughter of ethnic minority Tutsi.
    (AP, 12/13/05)

2005        Dec 22, A decomposed body discovered in a Brussels canal a week ago was reported to be that of Juvenal Uwilingiyimana, a Rwandan former minister indicted by a UN tribunal on charges of genocide.
    (AFP, 12/23/05)

2005        Dec 23, A French military tribunal opened an investigation into allegations that French peacekeepers facilitated attacks on ethnic minority Tutsis during the 1994 genocide of more than half a million Rwandans.
    (AP, 12/23/05)

2006        Jan 5, The UN said around 2,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees have arrived in Burundi in the past month, many saying they feel insecure in Rwanda or are being refused permission to cultivate their land.
    (AP, 1/6/06)

2006        Feb 28, US coffee giant Starbucks Corp said it planned to begin selling Rwandan specialty coffee in 5,000 outlets across the US from next month.
    (Reuters, 2/28/06)

2006        Mar 27, “Shooting Dogs,” a new film on Rwanda's genocide, reduced many survivors to tears at its premiere in Kigali. The film's title refers to the way UN troops shot dogs eating the corpses that littered the streets of the Rwandan capital. The next day President Paul Kagame said the movie would help to ensure memories of the mass murder were kept alive.
    (Reuters, 3/28/06)

2006        Apr 1, Three explorers from Britain and New Zealand claimed to be the first to have traveled the Nile from its mouth to its "true source" deep in Rwanda's lush Nyungwe rainforest.
    (Reuters, 4/1/06)

2006        May 1, Rwandan Hutu rebels attacked a village and an army camp in a raid that left 7 residents dead. Congolese troops killed six rebels during an attack at an army camp that also claimed the lives of a soldier and his wife.
    (AP, 5/2/06)

2006        May 8, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said he was considering a plea for clemency from Pasteur Bizimungu, the nation's first post-genocide president (1994-2000). Bizimungu was in jail for crimes including inciting ethnic violence and embezzling state funds.
    (AP, 5/8/06)

2006        Aug 7, Dutch police arrested a Rwandan immigrant, identified as Joseph M. (38), and charged him with war crimes and torture for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide that tore apart his home country.
    (AP, 8/10/06)

2006        Sep 20, The UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) acquitted former Rwandan education minister Andre Rwamakuba of murder and incitement charges related to the country's 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 9/20/06)

2006        Sep 29, Rosamund Carr, a New Jersey fashion designer who lived a colorful and tragic life for more than a half century in tumultuous central Africa, died in Rwanda. In 1999 she authored her memoir "Land of a Thousand Hills - My Life in Rwanda."
    (AFP, 10/3/06)

2006        Oct 31, France's Defense Minister ordered that 105 secret intelligence reports be handed over to a judge investigating allegations that Paris helped Rwanda's former Hutu government massacre ethnic Tutsis in a 1994 genocide.
    (Reuters, 11/2/06)

2006        Nov 9, In Rwanda Theophister Mukakibibi, a Catholic nun, was sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping militias kill hundreds of people hiding in a hospital during the 1994 genocide. 
    (AP, 11/10/06)

2006        Nov 16, A Rwandan military court sentenced Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a Roman Catholic Rwandan priest living in exile in France, to life in prison for rape and helping extremist militias during the country's 1994 genocide. Also convicted and sentenced to life in prison was former Rwandan army general Laurent Munyakazi, who commanded the military in the capital's Nyarugenge district.
    (AFP, 11/16/06)

2006        Nov 19, It was reported that Terracom was building a fiber optic network throughout Rwanda’s  11,000 square miles. An Internet connection in Kigali was now available for $70 per month, down from $1500 5 years ago.
    (SSFC, 11/19/06, p.G6)

2006        Nov 20, French prosecutors approved international arrest warrants for 9 Rwandan officials in connection with the 1994 attack that killed Rwanda's president, triggering the central African country's genocide. Magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere also said there was evidence that "Paul Kagame and members of his military staff devised the operation" to destroy Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane.
    (Reuters, 11/21/06)

2006        Nov 22, Rwanda’s Pres. Kagame dismissed French accusations as "rubbish," and instead said a trial should be opened against France, which he accuses of abetting the 100-day 1994 genocide in which minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were targeted by Hutu extremists.
    (AP, 11/23/06)

2006        Nov 23, Thousands of Rwandans took to the streets of Kigali to denounce France's alleged complicity in the 1994 genocide and a French judge's call for the prosecution of President Paul Kagame.
    (AP, 11/23/06)

2006        Nov 24, Rwanda cut diplomatic ties with France and gave France's ambassador to Rwanda 24 hours to leave the central African country. This was in response to a French judge’s call for President Paul Kagame to stand trial over the 1994 killing of a former leader, sparking the genocide of 800,000 people.
    (Reuters, 11/24/06)

2006        Nov 30, The East African Community (EAC) said Rwanda and Burundi have been accepted as members, expanding the regional economic bloc to five nations. The EAC previously grouped Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, which hoped to transform the region into a political federation.
    (AP, 11/30/06)

2006        Dec 5, British PM Tony Blair and Rwandan President Paul Kagame discussed economic reform and how to reconcile the people of the landlocked African state still scarred by the 1994 genocide. They also talked about the conflict in the western Darfur region of Sudan, where Rwanda has troops on the ground as part of the African Union force.
    (AFP, 12/5/06)

2006        Dec 11, Two Rwandan ex-soldiers told a panel probing alleged French complicity in the 1994 massacres that France armed and trained members of the Interahamwe militia, a radical militia blamed for most of the killings in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 12/11/06)

2006        Dec 12, In Rwanda an ex-Interahamwe member said that he had participated in transporting weapons from a French military plane in the former Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo, to the north Rwanda province of Gisenyi during the 1994 genocide. Witness #4 told a Rwandan commission that French troops raped women fleeing militia gangs during the African country's 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 12/12/06)(Reuters, 12/13/06)

2006        Dec 13, A UN court trying leaders of Rwanda's 1994 genocide jailed a former Catholic priest for 15 years for ordering bulldozers to level a church, sparking the death of 2,000 people hiding inside.
    (AP, 12/13/06)

2006        Dec 14, In Tanzania Joseph Nzabirinda (49), a former youth organizer accused in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, pleaded guilty to one count of murder before a UN war crimes court, becoming only the seventh defendant to admit his guilt. Amnesty International expressed serious concern that the court has been one-sided in its prosecutions and decried its proposed transfer of cases to the Rwandan judicial system.
    (AFP, 12/14/06)

2006        Dec 15, In Kenya 11 African heads of state attending the 2nd International Conference on the Great Lakes Region signed a landmark $2 billion (1.5-billion-euro) security and development pact to forestall fresh violence in the area.
    (AFP, 12/15/06)

2006        Dec 28, Four men accused of organizing and participating in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 were arrested in Britain on warrants issued by the Rwandan government.
    (AP, 12/29/06)

2006        The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) convicted Tharcisse Muvunyi for genocide. In 2008 the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) overturned the convictions and quashed a 25 year prison sentence. The court said Muvunyi would be re-tried for inciting the public to commit genocide, based on a speech he made in Gikore Trade Centre in Butare.
    (AP, 8/29/08)

2007        Jan 19, Rwanda's government said it has approved plans to scrap the death penalty, in a step which could remove a major obstacle to the transfer back home of defendants facing trial over the 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 1/19/07)

2007        Jan 26, Martin Ngoga, Rwanda’s chief prosecutor, said Rwanda will release another 8,000 prisoners convicted or awaiting trial over the central African nation's 1994 genocide, raising fears among survivors of a fresh round of bloodletting.
    (Reuters, 1/26/07)

2007        Feb 15, President Paul Kagame said in an interview published in The Times that Rwanda wants to join the Commonwealth, the 53-nation grouping of former British colonies, in what will be seen as a rebuke to France.
    (AFP, 2/15/07)

2007        Feb 19, Rwanda released 8,000 prisoners accused of involvement in the country's 1994 genocide, prompting anger from survivors of the slaughter who fear new ethnic killings.
    (AP, 2/19/07)

2007        Feb 20, Congo’s army and UN officials said days of clashes between the army and Rwandan and Congolese militias in eastern Congo have killed at least 23 combatants and forced thousands to flee.
    (AP, 2/21/07)

2007        Feb 26, The World Vision humanitarian group said that more than 50% of children in refugee camps around Africa's volatile Great Lakes area have experienced some form of sexual abuse. The data, collected in camps in the Burundi, Congo (DRC), Tanzania, northern Uganda and Rwanda, said widespread poverty made children vulnerable to abuses.
    (AFP, 2/27/07)

2007        Apr 6, Pasteur Bizimungu, Rwanda's first post-genocide leader, walked free from prison after a surprise presidential pardon of his convictions that included inciting ethnic tension.
    (AP, 4/6/07)

2007        Apr 13, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ordered that Michel Bagaragaza, the former head of Rwanda's national tea industry, be tried by a court in the Netherlands. He was accused of involvement in Rwanda’s 1994 mass slaughter. In Sep, 2009, Bagaragaza (64) pleaded guilty to complicity in the slaughter. In Nov he was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
    (AFP, 4/13/07)(AP, 9/17/09)(AP, 11/5/09)

2007        Apr 18, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda adopted a joint military strategy to fight rebel groups operating in the war-scarred Great Lakes region.
    (AP, 4/19/07)

2007        Apr 19, Rwanda filed a case against France at the UN's highest court in The Hague over a French request that President Paul Kagame be tried by the Rwanda war crimes tribunal.
    (AP, 4/19/07)
2007        Apr 19, Former Rwandan army major Bernard Ntuyahaga went on trial in Brussels, charged with the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and the Rwandan prime minister in 1994.
    (AP, 4/19/07)

2007        Apr 24, Rwandan media said that a former Belgian army officer in the UN mission to Rwanda (Minuar) has accused French soldiers of training extremist Hutus responsible for the 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 4/24/07)

2007        May 21, In Tanzania the appeals court of the UN-backed Rwandan genocide tribunal upheld a life sentence for Mika Muhimana (57), convicted on multiple counts of rape and murder. Muhimana, a Hutu, was accused of involvement in the rape of nearly 30 women from the minority Tutsi tribe during Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 5/21/07)

2007        May 27, A Rwandan genocide court handed a 19-year prison sentence to Francois-Xavier Byuma, a member of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, for participating in the country's 1994 mass murder.
    (AFP, 5/28/07)
2007        May 27, In eastern Congo Rwandan rebels attacked villagers with machetes, spears and hammers, killing 17, wounding 28 and taking up to a dozen hostages.
    (AP, 5/27/07)

2007        May 31, Rwanda said a law abolishing the death penalty would come into force at the end of July, six months after the government first announced plans to scrap capital punishment.
    (AP, 5/31/07)

2007        Jun 5, Rwanda said it will withdraw from the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC) because it hampers Kigali's membership in other regional blocs.
    (AFP, 6/6/07)

2007        Jun 20, Isaac Kamali, who appears on Rwanda's most wanted list submitted to Interpol, was detained at Philadelphia airport.
    (Reuters, 6/22/07)

2007        Jul 5, A Belgian court sentenced Bernard Ntuyahaga (55), a former Rwandan army major, to 20 years in prison on for the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and an undetermined number of Rwandan civilians at the start of the 1994 genocide.
    (Reuters, 7/5/07)

2007        Jul 11, Rwanda’s state-run radio said the Senate has approved the abolition of the death penalty, a key step demanded by the international community to transfer genocide suspects to Rwandan courts.
    (AFP, 7/11/07)

2007        Jul 13, UN officials said they are investigating allegations that Indian peacekeepers in Congo traded food and even military intelligence with Rwandan Hutu rebels in return for gold.
    (Reuters, 7/13/07)

2007        Jul 20, The WTO said Rwanda plans to import a generic HIV/AIDS medicine made in Canada, making it the first country to test a World Trade Organization waiver on drug patents.
    (Reuters, 7/20/07)
2007        Jul 20, Two suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a priest and a prefect, were arrested in France on a warrant from an international court investigating the massacres. Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a Roman Catholic priest in Normandy, and Laurent Bucyibaruta, a former prefect, were jailed before possible extradition to Tanzania where the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is based.
    (AP, 7/20/07)

2007        Jul 24, Human Rights Watch said Rwandan police have killed at least 20 detainees in custody since November.
    (AFP, 7/24/07)

2007        Jul, Rwanda and Burundi became members of the East African Community (EAC), which included Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
    (AP, 11/17/07)(Econ, 9/5/09, p.52)

2007        Aug 1, A French court ruled that indictments for Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and another man, Laurent Bucyibaruta, violated the presumption of innocence. Rwanda had sought the extradition of the 2 men for their roles in the country's 1994 genocide.
    (Reuters, 8/2/07)

2007        Aug 23, Rwanda's exiled opposition groups dismissed as insulting the appointment of General Kerenzi Karake, a Rwandan general, as deputy chief of a planned peace force for Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.
    (AFP, 8/23/07)

2007        Aug 28, Africa's Great Lakes nations (Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda) vowed to eliminate rebel groups roaming their territory and spurring insecurity in the continent's most volatile region.
    (AFP, 8/28/07)

2007        Sep 5, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame said that his country was no longer interested in joining the southern African grouping SADC in order to avoid "overlapping" roles with other blocs.
    (AP, 9/5/07)

2007        Sep 14, Rwanda’s government said floods killed 15 people and left about 1,000 people homeless after 2 days of torrential downpours in the hills of northern Rwanda.
    (Reuters, 9/14/07)

2007        Sep 17, German police arrested Augustin Ngirabatware, a former Rwandan minister, wanted by the International Tribunal on genocide charges related to Rwanda’s 1994 conflict. He was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity in October 2008 and pleaded not guilty. In 2009 prosecutor Wallace Kapaya said he has proof Ngirabatware stole money donated by the World Bank and IMF as well as cash from lenders including Austria, Switzerland, Germany, the US, Belgium and Canada to buy weapons and transport for the extremist Hutu militia known as the Interahamwe. Ngirabatware is the son-in-law of Felician Kabuga, Rwanda's most wanted genocide suspect.
    (AP, 9/20/07)(AP, 9/23/09)

2007        Oct 10, The criminal court in Rwanda’s southern Rusizi district handed down a life sentence to Emmanuel Bagambiki, now living in Belgium, who was governor of Cyangugu during the 1994 genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) had acquitted him on war crimes and genocide charges in February 2004, confirming the ruling on appeal in February 2006.
    (AFP, 10/11/07)

2007        Oct 29, African leaders and technology experts met in Rwanda to discuss plans to boost the continent's development by securing universal Internet access by 2012.
    (AP, 10/29/07)

2007        Nov 14, A French court approved the handover to a UN court of Dominique Ntawukuriryayo (65), a Rwandan 1994 genocide suspect accused of coordinating the massacre of up to 25,000 people in one incident.
    (Reuters, 11/14/07)
2007        Nov 14, The EU reached an accord with the East African Community (EAC) states of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. They will enjoy duty free, quota free access to the EU for all products, except sugar and rice, from January 1. Originally established in 1967, the EAC collapsed a decade later amid diverging economic philosophies. It was resurrected in 2000 as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda agreed to create an EU-style common market for their 90 million citizens. Rwanda and Burundi became members in July this year.
    (AP, 11/17/07)(Econ, 9/5/09, p.52)

2007        Nov 16, Rwandan investigators probing alleged French involvement in the country's 1994 genocide handed their report to President Paul Kagame, but officials refused to divulge details.
    (Reuters, 11/16/07)

2007        Nov 14, The EU reached an accord with the East African Community (EAC) states of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. They  will enjoy duty free, quota free access to the EU for all products, except sugar and rice, from January 1. Originally established in 1967, the EAC collapsed a decade later amid diverging economic philosophies. It was resurrected in 2000 as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda agreed to create an EU-style common market for their 90 million citizens. Rwanda and Burundi became members in July this year.
    (AP, 11/17/07)

2007        Nov 21, The UN Security Council welcomed a deal signed by Congo and Rwanda to forcibly disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels in Congo in an effort to reduce tensions between the central African neighbors.
    (Reuters, 11/21/07)

2007        Dec 1, US coffee giant Starbucks announced plans to build a regional support centre in Rwanda for farmers in east Africa, where the industry has faced difficulty despite recent price spikes.
    (AFP, 12/2/07)

2007        Dec 7, A UN court in Tanzania trying masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide sentenced Francois Karera, a former provincial governor, to life imprisonment for his role in the killings, including helping soldiers kill refugees in a church.
    (Reuters, 12/7/07)

2007        Dec 13, Marie-Therese Kampire, who taught politics at Rwanda's National University, was found guilty by a traditional "gacaca" court. The former university teacher was given a 19-year prison sentence for her role in the murder of a colleague's wife during the Rwanda genocide.
    (AFP, 12/15/07)

2007        Dec 20, Radio Rwanda reported that the Belgian government has this month given Rwanda 39.5 million euros (56.6 million dollars), mainly to help its small former colony with power supplies, health and education.
    (AP, 12/20/07)

2008        Jan 9, French legal plaintiffs said police have arrested Marcel Bivugabagabo (53), a former officer in the Rwandan army accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide. Bivugabagabo was commander of the Ruhengeri sector in western Rwanda from April to July 1994.
    (AFP, 1/9/08)

2008        Feb 3, Two strong earthquake shook the African Great Lakes region, killing at least 37 people in Rwanda and six in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
    (AFP, 2/3/08)(AFP, 2/4/08)

2008        Feb 5, In Rwanda Theoneste Niyitegeka, a doctor and one-time possible presidential candidate, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for his role in the country's 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 2/6/08)

2008        Feb 8, In Rwanda members of the Chamber of Deputies (Lower House) of Parliament voted in favor of a controversial new law aimed at stopping "genocide ideology," a term for the outlook that perpetrators of genocide foster to fan divisive hate campaigns between different groups of Rwandans. Parliament adopted the law in June.
    (www.loc.gov/lawweb/servlet/lloc_news?disp1_375_Rwanda)(http://tinyurl.com/dnxogn)

2008        Feb 18, Callixte Nzabonimana (55), Rwanda’s former youth and sport minister, was arrested in the town of Kigoma, Tanzania. He faced trial for participating in the 1994 genocide. The trial of Nzabonimana, described by prosecutors as "the Butcher of Gitarama," began at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania on Nov 9, 2009.
    (Reuters, 2/19/08)(AFP, 11/9/09)

2008        Feb 19, President George W. Bush paid somber homage to the estimated 800,000 killed in Rwanda's 1994 genocide and urged global action to end the bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur region "once and for all."
    (AP, 2/19/08)

2008        Mar 4, The Rwandan government and the UN signed a deal allowing detainees sentenced by the UN-backed court on the Rwanda genocide to be jailed in Rwanda.
    (AFP, 3/5/08)

2008        Mar 8, Rwandan President Paul Kagame announced a major cabinet reshuffle which saw the appointment of seven new ministers.
    (AFP, 3/8/08)

2008        Mar 12, A UN tribunal extended the sentence of Rwandan Roman Catholic priest Athanase Serombawar to life in prison after upholding his war crimes conviction for ordering militiamen to burn and bulldoze a church with 1,500 people inside during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison.
    (AP, 3/13/08)

2008        Apr 11, In Rwanda a grenade thrown by an unknown attacker killed a policeman guarding the Gisozi genocide museum in Kigali, in a rare attack in the central African nation still mourning the 1994 ethnic slaughter.
    (Reuters, 4/11/08)

2008        May 6, Kenya froze the assets of businessman Felicien Kabuga, the most wanted suspect in Rwanda's genocide, saying it would stop him avoiding capture or helping other fugitives. The US government has offered a $5 million bounty for Kabuga's capture.
    (Reuters, 5/6/08)(AP, 9/23/09)

2008        May 15, A body representing genocide survivors said Generosa Mukanyonga (90), a Rwandan genocide survivor, was stabbed and burned to death by a gang that included four assailants who had confessed to taking part in the 1994 slaughter.
    (Reuters, 5/15/08)

2008        May 26, A small faction of Rwandan Hutu rebels in east Democratic Republic of Congo pledged to lay down their guns and return home, but the main rebel movement refused and rejected the ceremony as a sham.
    (AP, 5/26/08)

2008        Jun 6, A judge at City of Westminster Magistrates Court said 4 men: Vincent Bajinya, also known as Doctor Vincent Brown, Charles Munyaneza, Celestin Ugirashebuja and Emmanuel Nteziryayo, should be sent back to Rwanda for trial for their involvement in the 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 6/6/08)

2008        Jun 11, The Rwandan army arrested four officers, including a brigadier general, over the murder of 13 senior Catholic clergy during the 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 6/12/08)

2008        Jun 17, Two out of four Rwandan army officers being tried for their presumed role in the 1994 murder of 13 priests pleaded guilty at their first appearance in a Kigali court. The officers were accused of war crimes relating to the murder June 5, 1994, of 13 Catholic clerics, including three bishops.
    (AFP, 6/18/08)

2008        Jun 21, In Rwanda 20 baby gorillas were "baptized" in a ceremony seen as a way to raise awareness of the threats facing the endangered species. The babies were represented by 20 figurines in the ceremony, attended by Rwanda's first lady Jeannette Kagame, on the edge of Volcano national park. The ceremony was the 4th of its kind in Rwanda in as many years.
    (AFP, 6/22/08)

2008        Jul 7, In Germany war crimes suspect Callixte Mbarushimana, a former UN employee wanted for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, was arrested in Frankfurt.
    (AFP, 7/8/08)

2008        Jul 8, In Sudan about two hundred gunmen on horseback and in SUVs ambushed peacekeepers from a joint UN-African Union force in the Darfur region. Five Rwandan soldiers and two police officers, one from Ghana and the other from Uganda, were killed in fierce gunbattles that lasted more than two hours.
    (AP, 7/9/08)

2008        Jul 16, The United States signed a pair of agreements to boost trade and investment ties with countries in southern and eastern Africa. These included the Trade, Investment and Development Cooperation Agreement with the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU), which includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland; and the Trade Investment and Framework Agreement (TIFA) with the East African Community, which includes Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
    (Reuters, 7/17/08)

2008        Jul 29, A UN court trying the masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide said that its mandate had been extended by a year until 2009.
    (AP, 7/29/08)

2008        Aug 5, Rwanda formally accused senior French officials of involvement in its 1994 genocide.
    (Reuters, 8/5/08)

2008        Aug 6, France accused Rwanda of making "unacceptable accusations" by alleging Paris played an active role in the 1994 genocide, but said it was still determined to mend damaged ties with Kigali.
    (AP, 8/6/08)

2008        Aug 16, In Rwanda Jozefina Zaninka (75), a woman who lost nearly all her family in the 1994 genocide, was murdered, in the latest of several killings of survivors of the slaughter. Some 167 survivors of the genocide have been murdered between 1995 and mid-May 2008.
    (AP, 8/18/08)

2008        Sep 15, Rwandan voters went to the polls for parliamentary elections contested only by movements allied to the ruling party of Pres. Paul Kagame. His Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) won 42 of 53 contested seats in a proclaimed turnout of 98.5%.
    (AP, 9/15/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.61)

2008        Sep 18, Rwanda became the first country in the world where women outnumber men in parliament, according to provisional results announced at the close of a four-day legislative vote.
    (AP, 9/19/08)

2008        Sep 24, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sentenced Simeon Nchamihigo, Rwanda’s former deputy prosecutor, to life in prison for his role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
    (Reuters, 9/24/08)

2008        Sep, Rwanda’s population at this time was about 10 million.
    (Econ, 9/27/08, p.61)

2008        Oct 10, The UN urged Congo and Rwanda to hold talks to avoid a war after Kinshasa accused its eastern neighbor of sending troops over the border to back Congolese rebels.
    (Reuters, 10/10/08)

2008        Oct 29, Congolese rebel forces advanced on the eastern city of Goma, threatening to overwhelm government troops and a 17,000-strong UN force deployed to halt a return to all-out war. The Congolese army said troops from Rwanda have crossed the nearby border and attacked its soldiers in support of a minority Tutsi rebellion. Congolese rebels declared a ceasefire after a four-day push to the gates of Goma that threatened to drag Congo back to all-out war, but heavy gunfire resumed near the eastern city after dark.
    (Reuters, 10/29/08)(AP, 10/29/08)

2008        Nov 9, Rose Kabuye, Rwanda Pres. Kagame's chief of protocol, was arrested at Frankfurt airport on an international warrant issued in 2006 by French anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere.
    (AFP, 11/10/08)

2008        Nov 11, Rwanda expelled the German ambassador and Pres. Kagame declared that Germany violated his country's sovereignty when it arrested one of his aides in connection with an attack that set off Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 11/11/08)

2008        Nov 19, Germany extradited to France Rose Kabuye (47), chief of protocol to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, over an assassination triggering the 1994 genocide, amid mass anti-European protests in Kigali. Some European investigators feared that Kabuye deliberately delivered herself to German authorities so her lawyers could gain access to the case files prepared against her and other Kagame allies.
    (AFP, 11/19/08)

2008        Nov 20, Britain called on Rwandan President Paul Kagame to use his "influence" over Congolese rebels led by general Laurent Nkunda to end to violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
    (AFP, 11/20/08)

2008        Dec 2, In Tanzania Simon Bikindi, Rwandan singer-songwriter, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Tanzania-based UN war crimes court for inciting the killings of ethnic Tutsis during the 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 12/2/08)

2008        Dec 12, A UN Security Council panel said that Rwanda and Congo are fighting a proxy war by aiding each other's enemies, a conclusion that could lead to additional UN sanctions over the conflict in the central African region. A UN report cited an advisor to Rwandan President Paul Kagame and a member of the Congolese opposition, both wealthy businessmen, as key financial backers of rebels in eastern DR Congo.
    (AP, 12/12/08)(AFP, 12/13/08)

2008        Dec 18, Theoneste Bagosora (67), a former Rwandan army colonel, was convicted of genocide and sentenced to life in prison, the most significant verdict of a UN tribunal set up to bring the killers to justice. The 1994 genocide saw government troops, Hutu militia and ordinary villagers spurred on by hate messages broadcast on the radio going from village to village, butchering men, women and children.
    (AP, 12/18/08)

2008        Stephen Kinzer authored “A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It,” the story of Paul Kagame and Rwanda.
    (Econ, 8/23/08, p.73)

2009        Jan 15, The US Air Force began airlifting heavy machinery to Rwandan troops serving in an international mission in Darfur, the first time the new US Africa Command has undertaken a large-scale peacekeeper support operation.
    (AP, 1/15/09)

2009        Jan 19, Rwanda said it was restoring relations with Germany after a diplomatic spat between the two countries over Berlin's arrest of a top Rwandan official for complicity in the 1994 genocide. A Rwandan court passed a life sentence on Agnes Ntamabyariro, a former justice minister accused of ordering the killing of Jean Baptiste Habyarimana, a Tutsi official who opposed Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 1/19/09)(AFP, 1/20/09)

2009        Jan 20, Hundreds of Rwandan troops rolled into the Democratic Republic of Congo to join Congolese forces hunting Rwandan rebels operating there since 1994.
    (AFP, 1/20/09)

2009        Jan 22, Congolese and Rwandan troops advanced on the headquarters of Tutsi rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda, as Kinshasa used its neighbor to smother a rebellion in eastern DR Congo. Rwanda arrested Congo rebel leader Laurent Nkunda after he fled a joint operation launched by the armies of the two nations.
    (AP, 1/22/09)(AP, 1/23/09)

2009        Jan 26, The armies of Congo and Rwanda, battling together against Rwandan Hutu militiamen in eastern Congo, clashed with fighters trying to retake a village and killed 4 of them.
    (AP, 1/27/09)

2009        Jan 31, In Maryland Goucher College President Sanford Ungar told faculty and students in an e-mail that Professor Leopold Munyakazi (59) was removed from teaching after officials learned he had been indicted in 2006 on genocide charges in Rwanda.
    (AP, 2/3/09)

2009        Feb 12, A commuter plane, Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J., coming in for a landing nose-dived into a house in suburban Buffalo, sparking a fiery explosion that killed all 49 people aboard and a person in the home. It was the nation's first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in 2 1/2 years. Historian Alison Des Forges (66), prominent human rights advocate who documented genocide in Rwanda, was among the victims of the crash.
    (AP, 2/13/09)(AP, 2/13/09)

2009        Feb 25, Rwandan troops began pulling out of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after a controversial joint operation with Congolese troops against Rwandan Hutu rebels.
    (AFP, 2/25/09)

2009        Feb 27, A UN tribunal in Tanzania convicted a former Rwandan military chaplain of attempted rape and genocide for crimes that included killing people who had sought refuge in a seminary. The three-judge panel sentenced Emmanuel Rukundo (50) to 25 years in prison. Rukundo will only serve 17 and half years because the judges gave him credit for the seven and a half years he has already spent in detention.
    (AP, 2/27/09)

2009        Mar 23, In the Netherlands Joseph Mpambara (40), a Hutu man, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the slaying of two Tutsi mothers and at least four of their children during Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The Hague District Court acquitted Mpambara of involvement in the massacre of hundreds of other Tutsis who had sought shelter in a church. He was also acquitted of raping four women and killing one of them in a separate incident.
    (AP, 3/23/09)

2009        Apr 5, Rwanda's ambassador said the bodies of nearly 11,000 Rwandan genocide victims that floated more than 100 miles downriver and were placed in makeshift graves in Uganda will receive proper reburial.
    (AP, 4/5/09)

2009        Apr, UN special investigator Philip Alston said on October 15 that Congolese soldiers had killed 50 Rwandan Hutu refugees and abducted and raped around 40 women during an April attack on a refugee camp in eastern DR Congo.
    (AFP, 10/16/09)

2009        May 22, A Canadian court found Desire Munyaneza (42), a Rwandan man, guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, making him the first person convicted under Canada's war crimes act. Munyaneza arrived in Canada in 1997 and unsuccessfully tried to claim refugee status. Police subsequently launched an investigation and arrested him in 2005. On Oct 29 Munyaneza was sentenced to 25 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.
    (Reuters, 5/22/09)(Reuters, 10/29/09)

2009        Jun 22, In Tanzania a UN court, trying alleged masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, sentenced former interior minister Callixte Kalimanzira (56) to 30 years in prison for tricking thousands of people to hide on a hill, only to watch them get slaughtered by militias.
    (AP, 6/22/09)

2009        Jun 26, In Rwanda Aloys Nsekarije, former Rwandan foreign minister and business tycoon, was acquitted by a court over involvement in the country's 1994 genocide.
    (AFP, 6/26/09)

2009        Jul 1, Switzerland said it had refused a request to extradite a Rwandan national wanted in his own country for alleged genocide and war crimes. Other European countries have also refused extradition requests arguing that suspects cannot at present receive a fair trial in the country.
    (AFP, 7/1/09)

2009        Jul 9, The UN passed a resolution extending the lifetime of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to next year. The latest extension is the second for the Tanzania-based court which had originally been scheduled wind up its lower court cases by December 2008, but had its life extended to December 2009.
    (AFP, 7/9/09)
2009        Jul 9, The Swedish government said it will expel Sylvere Ahorugeze (53) within three weeks, fulfilling a request from authorities in Rwanda and marking the first time an EU nation has sent back a suspect to face charges in the 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 7/10/09)

2009        Jul 14, In Tanzania Tharcisse Renzaho, the former prefect of Rwandan capital Kigali, was sentenced to life for genocide-related crimes by the UN-backed war crimes court trying masterminds of the country's 1994 massacre.
    (AFP, 7/14/09)

2009        Aug 6, DR Congo President Joseph Kabila met his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame in the lakeside city of Goma for the first official bilateral talks between the neighboring states in 13 years.
    (AP, 8/6/09)

2009        Aug 11, Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo arrested Gregoire Ndahimana, a former Rwandan mayor, for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide. Measures were taken for him to be transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.
    (AFP, 8/12/09)

2009        Aug 12, World Bank President Robert Zoellick pledged to boost development aid to Rwanda to help the rebuild the country ripped apart by genocide.
    (Reuters, 8/12/09)

2009        Sep 3, Rwanda's state radio reported that Alfred Mukezamfura, former speaker of parliament, was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for inciting hatred during the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 people died. Mukezamfura fled the country in March to Belgium where he has sought asylum.
    (AFP, 9/3/09)

2009        Sep 26, In Rwanda at least four people were killed and 52 injured when an unidentified man lobbed a grenade into a crowd at a village market. Police suspect it was an act of sabotage to sow terror in rural districts.
    (AFP, 9/27/09)

2009        Oct 5, Police in Uganda arrested Idelphonse Nizeyimana, one of the most wanted suspects from Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The former army captain and senior intelligence officer and others prepared lists of Tutsi intellectuals and those in authority before handing the lists to troops and militia who then killed them.
    (Reuters, 10/6/09)

2009        Oct 13, A report by a coalition of 84 organizations said more than 1,000 civilians have been killed and nearly 900,000 displaced in eastern Congo by Rwandan Hutu militiamen and Congolese forces since January.
    (AP, 10/13/09)

2009        Oct 24, In Rwanda 10 people were locked up in an underground passage which was blocked by a big amount of (fallen) residue in Nyakabingo. 7 were rescued by local people who dug another quick entrance. 3 remained inside. A week earlier, 3 other miners were crushed to death in a cassiterite and coltan mine in Rutongo, northern Rwanda.
    (Reuters, 10/26/09)

2009        Oct 28, In Rwanda Dismas Mukeshabatware, a member of Radio Rwanda's renowned Indamutsa theatre troupe, was sentenced on charges of murdering a woman and her three children in 1994 in the southern town of Butare. On Dec 16 he was acquitted on appeal.
    (AFP, 12/16/09)

2009        Nov 3, Rwanda said it has urged the UN to list the Rwandan Hutu rebel group operating in eastern Congo as a terrorist organization.
    (AFP, 11/3/09)

2009        Nov 12, In Rwanda a passenger plane with a recent history of technical problems crashed into an airport VIP lounge Kigali, killing one passenger. The CRJ-100 aircraft was leased from Kenya's Jetlink.
    (AP, 11/13/09)

2009        Nov 17, A judge in Tanzania said the prosecution failed to prove its case against Father Hormisdas Nsengimana (55). He was alleged to have been at the center of a group of Hutu extremists that planned and carried out targeted attacks in Nyanza in 1994. Nsengimana was head of College Christ-Roi, a prestigious Catholic school in the southern Rwandan town. Judge Eric Mose ordered his immediate release from the UN detention facility in Arusha. He had been imprisoned for seven years since his 2002 arrest in Cameroon.
    (AP, 11/17/09)
2009        Nov 17, Two leading Rwandan Hutu rebels were arrested in Germany on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes this year and in 2008 in DR Congo. The pair, Ignace Murwanashyaka (46) and Straton Musoni (48) are the leader and deputy leader respectively of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda. The FDLR is estimated to have 5,000 to 6,000 fighters, many of whom took part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda before crossing into the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
    (AFP, 11/17/09)

2009        Nov 20, In Tanzania members of the East Africa Community (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda) signed a common market agreement in Arusha, headquarters of the EAC.
    (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/21/content_12513712.htm)

2009        Nov 25, A United Nations report confirmed that one of Africa's most brutal rebel movements relies on a vast, international network of supporters in at least 25 countries including in the US and Europe who facilitate arms trafficking, money transfers and day-to-day operational support. The findings are a scathing indictment of how little has been done by the international community to cut off logistical support to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an ethnic Hutu militia which has wreaked havoc in Congo.
    (AP, 11/25/09)

2009        Nov 27, In Rwanda Janvier Murenzi, a former presidential financial director, was fined 1.8 million dollars and jailed for four years for illegal enrichment as Kigali cracks down on corruption.
    (AP, 11/28/09)

2009        Nov 29, France and Rwanda agreed to restore diplomatic ties three years after they were cut off amid tensions over a French judicial investigation.
    (AP, 11/29/09)
2009        Nov 29, Rwanda was admitted to the Commonwealth as its 54th member during a summit in Trinidad.
    (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8384930.stm)

2009        Nov 30, Interpol and the Kenya Wildlife Service said African authorities over the last 3 months had raided shops, intercepted vehicles at checkpoints and used sniffer dogs to detect and seize over 3,800 pounds (1,768kg) of illegal elephant ivory in a six-nation operation. This involved the wildlife authorities, police and customs departments of Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
    (AP, 11/30/09)

2009        Dec 1, Ephraim Nkezabera (57), a former Rwandan bank director, was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a Belgian court which found him guilty of war crimes including murder, attempted murder and rape during the 1994 genocide. Nkezabera was not present in court and did not attend the trial, which started just over three weeks ago, because of ill health. He was arrested in June 2004 by the Belgian authorities while visiting a family member in Belgium.
    (Reuters, 12/1/09)

2009        Dec 4, In Sudan gunmen killed three Rwandan soldiers in an ambush in the northern town of Saraf Umra in the western Darfur region.
    (AP, 12/5/09)

2009        Dec 5, In Sudan's Darfur region 2 Rwandan peacekeepers were shot dead and one wounded, in the second deadly attack on their contingent in 24 hours. The next day a former Darfur rebel group captured 3 gunmen who allegedly killed the 5 Rwandan peacekeepers.
    (Reuters, 12/5/09)(AFP, 12/8/09)

2009        Dec 12, Rwanda held elections. President Paul Kagame was reelected with a crushing majority to head the Rwandan Patriotic Front party that has been in power since 1994.
    (AFP, 12/13/09)

2009        Dec 14, In Rwanda Valerie Bemeriki, a former journalist, was sentenced to life in prison for her role in inciting genocide, in the latest of a series of trials for the 1994 slaughter.
    (AFP, 12/14/09)

2009        Gerard Prunier authored “Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe.”
    (Econ, 1/24/09, p.88)

2010        Jan 7, Rwanda and France pledged to improve ties after a lengthy freeze in diplomatic relations triggered by a French judge issuing arrest warrants for top aides to President Paul Kagame.
    (AFP, 1/7/10)

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