Wikinews:Project Rwanda newshut

This News Hut is to help faciliatate Country of the Week: Rwanda!

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 * Introduction - all about us!
 * Writing an article - how to do it!

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Participants
Please add yourself to this list if you are participating in this project. You can add yourself by clicking "edit" and adding this text to the list:  (without quotes). The tildes ( ~ ) will be converted to your Wikinews username when you click "Save page". You should only add yourself if you have created a user and are logged in as that user.


 * Borofkin
 * NGerda
 * ClareWhite
 * Pingswept (supposedly on wikivacation, but this is so great!)

Published stories

 * 16th June: World Bank president addresses global youth forum on genocide
 * 14th June: UN reports Rwandan refugees repatriated by force
 * 14th June: Aid group 'denied access' to Rwandan refugee camp in Burundi
 * 14th June: UNHCR criticises Rwanda's and Burundi's decision to re-label refugees as illegal immigrants
 * 11th June: G8 finance ministers agree deal to relieve debts of 18 nations Countries include Rwanda
 * 9th June: Thousands of Rwandan refugees living in overcrowded Burundi transit centre
 * 8th June: 30 travellers from Rwanda die in Ugandan bus crash
 * 8th June: Rwandan genocide investigations to be completed by end of July
 * 8th June: Half of Ugandan Presidential convoy blocked at Uganda-Rwanda border

Developing stories
New stories go onto the page in the main site, but we can breed them here too, as it is an easier place to edit. All you need to do is click the Edit link at the right and slightly above this section and then you can write in the box or paste in headlines. We will sort out all the formatting and separate out stories as we go along. As soon as they are looking a bit like proper stories, we can move them to the main Developing Stories section on the workspace and they will also go into the Country of the Week section.

Relations between Uganda and Rwanda
I've started this article: Half_of_Ugandan_Presidential_convoy_blocked_at_Uganda-Rwanda_border, however the situation between the two countries is very complex. Feel free to add background information if you are knowledgeable in this area. - Borofkin 04:32, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * The actual border dispute here happened last Thursday, however it has continued to develop since then, in interesting parallels to the cooperative talk at the COMESA conference. I'm going to be sacked if I spend more time here ClareWhite 10:25, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Articles related to the 1994 genocide

 * Rwandan genocide investigations to be completed by end of July - needs work - Borofkin 05:00, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Comesa conference
Presidents Call for Comesa Integration http://allafrica.com/stories/200506070031.html - this has some really interesting quotes

Rwandan refugees
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/pages/National/news_04.htm The Rwandan government have denied the figures of Rwandan refugees presented by the UN High Commission of Refugees. The UNHCR have said that 8000 refugees fled to Burundi, fearing reprisals during the Gacaca trial process (link to related story) but the Ministry of Local Government now claims that the figure is 2204. The minister, Protais Musoni, criticised UNHCR, saying that exageration would deter people from returning, saying it 'caused fear and made more others to flee the country.'
 * This also needs a source from UNHCR, there should be a report ClareWhite 12:48, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Possible stories
Please add to this list and develop any that catch your eye!

First Ladies meet in Kigali to discuss AIDS http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47481&SelectRegion=Africa,%20East_Africa,%20Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=AFRICA

The EU has released 34 million euros to help alleviate poverty in Rwanda. http://allafrica.com/stories/200506070036.html

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/652&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en - background from ECHO (EU humanitarian body)

Intimidation of refugees in Burundi, unnacceptabe, says Refugee International http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/RMOI-6D63AC?OpenDocument According to the Refugee International press release, around 10,000 people have fled Rwanda, fearing reprisals as the Gacaca trials get underway.
 * Note that this is a reproduction by ReliefWeb of the RI press release, not new article. The original document is here: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/6014 - Borofkin 04:40, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

UN news service: http://www0.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=14524&Cr=africa&Cr1=development - the new World Bank president will visit Rwanda next week, along with Nigeria, Burkina Faso and South Africa. He has said that Africa is his 'first priority'.

Live reporting
I'm in Kigali now and the conference is shaping up to be very exciting with participants from Burundi, the Congo and excellent speakers. I'm hoping to be able to submit reports as it goes along and perhaps they could have an 'exclusive' tag as i don't think anyone else will have them? The conference will take place on Thursday and Friday. It looks as it the Wiki interface will work fine here though I might need help with such things as tags...ClareWhite 11.42, Kigali
 * Hi Clare, good to hear that you made it okay. You should try and get an article about the conference as soon as possible.
 * I can't find anything on the net about this conference. Even the website http://www.neveragaininternational.org/ doesn't seem to mention a conference in Kigali in June. Do you have some links to some online sources? - Borofkin 00:28, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * no online sources yet, NA website badly out of date. hope to put up a proper story online tonight but for now on damn french keyboard with no time. will upload full background material as well ClareWhite

Story preparation: Story preparation/Global youth conference on genocide begins in Kigali To go live 15 June


 * I moved this to the Story preparation area, and also listed it on Story preparation. - Borofkin 00:20, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rwandan Infobox
I've created an infobox for Rwanda. Infoboxes are thoses boxes on the right-hand side of articles that contain links to related articles, location maps, external links, etc. To include the Rwanda infobox in your article, just place the text  underneath the dateline. - Borofkin 01:48, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rwandan images
We don't have many images related to Rwanda that can be used in articles. Here's two that I've found:





Include this text in your article and the image will appear. - Borofkin 06:37, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is a very good image library at the UN IRIN news service which is copyright-free for publications: would we be able to use them? Sorry, I'm typing from a phone and not able to post links.ClareWhite 17:29, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * We can use those images as long as they are uploaded to Wikinews and not commons. The UN IRIN site allowes for use by the news media. --Cspurrier 17:34, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Link. That's an incredible resource! When you upload a file from them, just place on the image's page (just click 'edit', like any other page), to cover the copyright stuff. Dan100 (Talk) 09:11, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Background info for articles - prepared paragraphs
This section contains paragraphs that you may reuse in your articles as background information. They come from Wikinews articles and so are public domain. Feel free to add anything that you think will be useful.

Remember that if you reuse text from here, you are responsible for ensuring that it is still current, and that your entire article is NPOV with the included text.

Gacaca courts
The courts were set up three years ago, however so far their time has been taken up with trial runs. There are 10,000 courts across the country, and they are expected to take eight years to process all accused. Regular courts would have taken up to 100 years. The judges are untrained citizens elected by their peers, and questions have been raised about the fairness of the courts.

1994 Genocide
The 1994 Rwandan genocide was an eruption of ethnic conflict where Hutu militia, supported by the Hutu dominated government and encouraged by 'hate radio', attempted to ethnically cleanse the minority Tutsi. Despite numerous warnings the international community did not take serious action to prevent the atrocities, which included hacking people to death with machetes, and forcing people into buildings that were then destroyed with bulldozers. Estimates place the number killed at up to one million.

Background of Rwanda Newshut
Next week members of a network called Never Again will be meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, for a youth conference on genocide. I'll be there along with 15 journalism students from the University of Butare, other young people from around the world and experts on the genocide of 1994. We will be exploring history and the future.

One of the ideas for the conference was to have some sort of media project with students from the University of Butare as well as others involved in journalism, all of whom will hopefully be joining this page in due course. Thanks to the help and support of other Wikinewsies, the project has now crystalised into Rwanda being Country of the Week until 19 June. Which is very exciting indeed as it means we will have the whole world reporting on Rwanda as well as us at the conference (hopefully). More background is at my page.

I've set up this page so that there is a central place for all the newbies to play without making a fool of ourselves... All help is very much appreciated. I am also channelling contributions from the media group via email at the moment. When the week is over I should be able to draw some useful lessons for the Wikinews community on a project like this.

We have a Yahoo group, called Never Again Media, where we discuss issues relating to journalism and genocide. The group has arisen particularly out of concern about the involvement of the media in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, where local media was directly involved in inciting genocide and the international media had a role in ignoring it (with some exceptions). More positively, we also recognise the role the media has in building society and giving a voice to the voiceless and through international networks we now have an opportunity to build new ideas about journalism. If you are interested in being involved leave me a message. ClareWhite 17:38, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)