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Sout h African defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota yesterday chastised the United Nations and the French government for not taking responsibility for their role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide which left an estimated 800 000 people dead.

Shaking his head incredulously, Lekota stared at a bed of partially mummified remains lying in their final throes of death, when he visited the Murambi Genocide Memorial in Southern Rwanda.

"We Africans must never again let others lead missions to protect or secure our people," he stated angrily.

The Rwandan government has blamed the French for turning a blind eye to the genocide.

"The French sent a force to allegedly protect those who were being slaughtered but instead it offered help to perpetrators," said the provincial prefect, Nsanzurwanda Epimaque.

While accompanying Lekota and his Rwandan counterpart, general Marcel Gatsinzi, on a tour of the area where an estimated 45 000 Tutsis were slaughtered in Gikorpgoro Lekota said that nations who continued to deny their involvement and who continued to harbour those responsible for the Rwandan genocide, must be confronted by the world and asked to explain their actions.

"They need to be accountable not only to the world but to the people of Rwanda," he said.

He also blamed the Unite Nations (UN) for its failure to intervene in the crises and said that as an organisation it needed to be overhauled.

"It's only once the problem of racism is conquered that we will be able to address such atrocities as these," he said.

He said that an urgent review of the decision-making process within the UN was required to limit the time it took to make decisions in times of crises.

He was referring to Chapter Six of the UN constitution which allows for peace-keeping measures and Chapter Seven that caters for peace enforcement in which UN soldiers are permitted to enter into battle.

Lekota also called on African communities to surrender fugitives who were responsible for the massacre in Rwanda.

Persecutors fled to neighbouring Burundi, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda following the killing spree.

Many returned to face the war times tribunal set in place by the Arusha Peace Accord in Tanzania.

An estimated 120 000 perpetrators were arrested and are facing trial.

Lekota was visibly shocked and often stopped to stare silently at a pile of bleached bones.

Many of the mummies were frozen in their final act of self-defence --their jaws stretched in a silent scream and their arms held over their heads.

"We South Africans are so lucky that we never experienced anything of this nature," he said. – Sapa.

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