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ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) - A UN war crimes court increased a Roman Catholic priest's sentence to life imprisonment Wednesday after upholding his conviction for his part in the genocide of 800,000 fellow Rwandans. In April 1994, when pro-government Hutu militiamen were rounding up ethnic Tutsis for slaughter across Rwanda, some 1,500 of Father Athanase Seromba's parishioners took shelter in his church in the western town of Nyange. Rather than seeking to protect his flock, the ethnic Huti priest had the church levelled by bulldozers and ordered extremist gunmen to shoot any Tutsis who tried to flee the carnage, the court...

BWEYEYE, Rwanda (AFP) - In this remote corner of southern Rwanda, Twa pygmies are fighting a losing battle against the modern realities of environmentalism that are robbing them of their traditions. Sandwiched between the Burundian border and the edge of the dense Nyungwe rainforest, the village of Bweyeye is on the frontline of an increasingly divisive struggle between the diminutive Twa and the long arm of Rwandan law. Forced to abandon their centuries-old hunter-gatherer lifestyle by a ban on such activity in the maze of giant tropical trees, towering ferns and tiny orchids, many Twa have descended into crushing poverty...

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) - A UN-backed tribunal convicted a former senior Rwandan army officer of playing a major role in the country's 1994 genocide and sentenced him to 25 years in prison, the court said. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found ex-colonel Aloys Simba guilty of genocide and extermination during the 100-day massacres in which some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were slaughtered by Hutu extremists, it said. The former officer and member of parliament had initially faced four counts but was acquitted on charges and conspiracy to commit genocide and murder, the ICTR said in a statement....

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2005 – Airlift operations continue at a steady clip as the members of the 86th Aerospace Expeditionary Group work to rotate the first of two brigades of Rwandan troops into the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, the group commander told the American Forces Press Service today. Air Force Col. Scott Schafer, commander of the 86th AEG at Kigali International Airport, Rwanda, said the operation is proceeding "just as planned and on schedule." Schafer made his assessment as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Sudan today, said she found it "heartening" to see the U.S. airlift operation but...

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AP) - A U.N. tribunal sentenced a former local government official in western Rwanda to prison for the rest of his life for shooting to death and raping mostly Tutsi victims during the 1994 genocide. Judge Khalida Rashid Khan said the tribunal found beyond any reasonable doubt that Mika Muhimana, who was a councilor in the province of Kibuye, shot mostly Tutsi victims, raped several Tutsi women and encouraged other men to rape in the town of Gishyita. The sentence of imprisonment for the rest of one's life is the highest penalty under the rules of the International...

GOMA, Congo - U.N. observers encountered what they believed to be about 100 Rwandan troops in eastern Congo, a U.N. official said Wednesday, marking the first reported U.N. sightings since Rwanda threatened to send in its forces against Rwanda Hutu rebels sheltering here. The suspected Rwandan forces withdrew toward Rwanda after Tuesday's encounter, said M'hand Ladjouzi, head of the U.N. mission at Goma. He spoke at a news conference in Goma, the largest city of the east. A Rwandan diplomat denied Rwanda had invaded again, after a week of warnings that raised fears of a return to the six-nation war...