Ireland asked to help Rwanda develop its bogs

IRELAND has been asked to make its expertise in peat technology available to help Rwanda develop alternative sources of fuel from its bogs.

The request was made by Rwandan ministers to the Minister of State for Overseas Co operation, Ms Joan Burton, on her visit to the Central African state this week.

Large tracts of Rwanda are covered by peat bogs, which are increasingly seen as a viable alternative to the destruction of forestry for firewood. The Rwandan government has also asked Ireland to help investigate supplies of methane gas believed to be under Lake Kivu, on the border with Zaire.

At the end of her four day stay in Rwanda, Ms Burton said she hoped her visit would form the basis for long term co operation between Ireland and Rwanda. Senior members of the Rwandan government, including the Vice President, Mr Paul Kagame, briefed her on the political and economic state of Rwanda following the return of one million refugees in November and December.

Praising the "great determination and wisdom of the Rwandan government Ms Burton described the return of the refugees as nothing short of a miracle".

"They (the Rwandan government) have managed an appallingly difficult job with the minimum of discord. As a result, for the first time since independence, Rwanda is no longer a refugee exporting country."

However, the Minister said she had told Rwandan ministers of the Irish Government's concern over the handling of the first trials of genocide suspects. In particular, she criticised the failure to grant the first two accused to receive the death penalty the right to a defence.

It was also essential, she said, that translations of the trials were made available to help the world understand what had happened during the genocide in 1994.

Ms Burton said she hoped it "would not be necessary to impose the death penalty in the trials. More than 1,500 out of 90,000 suspects are facing the most severe category of charge which carries the death penalty.

The Minister also expressed concern at the killing of witnesses to the genocide. It was important that the trials proceed quickly in order to "roll back the culture of impunity" which had surrounded earlier bouts of mass killing.

She inspected a number of projects run by Irish aid agencies, including a centre for accompanied children run by Concern in Ruhengeri. This has handled more than 6,000 such children since the refugees started returning. Of these, all but 176 have been reunited with their parents.

Following a tour of a prison in Kigali, Ms Burton said she felt jail conditions had improved since her last visit, but overcrowding was still 10 times worse than in an Irish prison.

Mr Kagame had indicated that Rwanda would be prepared to bake part in an international peace conference for the Great Lakes region. However, the agenda would have to be set by the countries in the region and would have to address the root causes of the problem.

Ireland and Rwanda shared "a common history of catastrophe", she added. "We both had a population of eight million, but lost one million, we in the Famine and Rwanda in the genocide.

Millions more left both countries in successive emigrations."

Senior officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs are scheduled to travel to Rwanda next month to draw up plans for future Irish aid in the country.