Rwanda's lingering ethnic tensions

By Mark Doyle
BBC, World Affairs Correspondent

Some of Twagiramungu's relatives were killed in the genocide

The leader of the Rwandan opposition, Faustin Twagiramungu, says he rejects the result of August's election won by sitting President Paul Kagame, calling it "Stalinist".

Mr Twagirimungu is a member of the majority ethnic Hutu group.

Radical Hutus led the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis in 1994 before a mainly Tutsi rebel army, then led by Mr Kagame, took power.

But, although he is Hutu, Mr Twagiramungu opposed the genocide and members of his own family were killed because of his stance.

'Divisionism'

The vast majority of Rwandans are Hutu, and a large proportion of them seem to have voted for the Tutsi Paul Kagame.

Many Hutus voted for Kagame

Mr Kagame's supporters say this is a tribute to his message of reconciliation; the opposition leader Faustin Twagiramungu says it is a result of intimidation.

In the campaigning for this election ethnicity was not allowed to be a public factor.

Anyone who hinted at it was accused by the Kagame government of "divisionism".

From the opposition's point of view this was political code for saying that Hutus who sought to oppose President Kagame were complicit in the genocide or planning another.

Iron reconciliation

In Mr Twagiramungu's case this is unfair because members of his family were victims in the killings.

Memories of the genocide remain fresh

But it is a measure of the political effect the genocide continues to have that almost any Hutu mobilising opposition support can be accused in this way.

In a sense this is inevitable. If some of the radical Hutus who committed the genocide had been allowed to return home unpunished and re-organise themselves, there is no doubt that violence would re-occur.

Hence the implicit message from Mr Kagame that as well as preaching reconciliation he will rule with an iron fist when necessary.

This may be inevitable but it means the prospect of normal political life in Rwanda is still a long way off.