/ 12 April 1999

HUTUS ASK FORGIVENESS

RWANDA’S largest Hutu political party, the Democratic Republican Movement (MDR), publicly asked for forgiveness on Saturday for its role in the 1994 genocide.MDR leader Prime Minister Pierre Celestin Rwigema told a news conference that his party “asks forgiveness from all Rwandans for the divisionist teachings that were propagated by some of its leaders.”A branch of the MDR, the MDR-POWER, helped carry out the 1994 genocide of between 500000 and 800000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates.The MDR is part of a coalition government with the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front.Under Rwigema’s leadership, the party has sought to move away from a negative cycle of ethnic politics.