U.S. first lady, Cherie Blair visit Rwanda, lament failure to stop genocide

KIGALI, July 14 (AFP) - US first lady Laura Bush on Thursday decried the international community's failure to act to halt the 1994 Rwandan genocide, saying "too few" people spoke out or recognized the scale of the tragedy.

The US first lady visited the African country along with her daughter Jenna and Cherie Blair, the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"Today, I've learned a great deal about Rwanda and about the genocide that occurred here just over ten years ago," Mrs Bush said at a school after laying a wreath at a somber memorial to the some 800,000 victims of the mass slaughter.

"Some would call the tragedy in Rwanda 'unspeakable' but that was precisely the problem," she told teachers and students at Kigali's Forum for African Women Educationalist School (FAWE).

"Too few people around the world spoke out about what was happening here, too few people recognized the scale of the suffering," the first lady said, praising Rwanda's success in rebounding from the killings.

"Rwandans have done extraordinary work recovering from that devastation. Today, this is a country of growing opportunity with confidence in the future, " she said on the final stop of a three-nation tour of Africa focused on promoting health, education and women's empowerment.

Before arriving here, Mrs Bush said she planned to ask Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his wife, Jeanette, how best to avoid or stop future similar genocides, mentioning in particular the current situation in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region.

"I look forward to talking to (them) about what the rest of the world can do in situations similar to this, like in Darfur, and see what they think is the best way for the world to help in situations like their genocide," she said.

"I'm interested to see what they say, also what their advice is to the United States government, to other governments," she told reporters en route from her first stop in South Africa to her second in Tanzania.

Shortly after arriving in Kigali from Zanzibar, Mrs Bush went to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial here accompanied by her daughter, Cherie Blair, and the Rwandan president's wife, Jeanette Kagame.

"This memorial is a tribute to precious lives lost and a testimony to the courage of those who survived," she told reporters after signing a book of condolences at the site.

"The people of the United States stand by the people of Rwanda as they build a hopeful future," she said.

Mrs Blair, who was in Rwanda as Britain marked the one-week anniversary of the deadly bombings on London's transport system, appeared upset as she spoke of being deeply moved by the memorial.

"I very much wanted to come here to see the reality of the genocide I am very moved by what I've seen," she said. "I'm also very distressed that the world looked on while it happened."

"It's very poignant for me to be here also remembering the people we lost so tragically," Mrs Blair said, referring to the July 7 attacks on three underground rail cars and a bus in London that killed at least 53 people.

The United States and other members of the UN Security Council have been heavily criticized for failing to action to halt the mass slaughter of mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists during 100 days of massacres in Rwanda between April and July 1994.

Former US officials have in the past lamented the lack of response to the killings which erupted over the night of April 6-7, 1994, shortly after a plane carrying Rwanda's Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down.

Many of the chief suspects in the genocide are currently on trial before a UN-mandated court that sits in Tanzania and others are facing local Rwandan justice before state courts and a grass-roots system of village tribunals.

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