News - Wednesday, April 23, 2008 20:48 - 0 Comments

Canadian Visa Demand for Ethnicity Riles Rwandan Minister

OTTAWA — A Rwandan cabinet minister says he will refuse to declare his ethnicity before an upcoming visit to Canada as required by foreign affairs because the demand is “insulting.”

Joseph Habineza risks being blocked from entering the country if he doesn’t state whether he is a Hutu or Tutsi on his visitor’s visa. The ethnicity requirement was front page news Thursday in the New Times, the largest newspaper in Rwanda.

Canada’s relationship with Rwanda is shadowed by the horror of 800,000 dead killed in bloodshed over 100 days in 1994. A United Nations peacekeeping force was ill-equipped and under-staffed to prevent the rampant killings of Tutsis by Hutus.

Rwandans see Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who was in charge of the UN force in the country in 1994, as a hero for his frantic and fruitless efforts to provoke the international community into action before and during the violence.

Canada is among the few nations to ask Rwandans for ethnicity before granting visas, which rankles the government in Kigali. It is illegal to ask Rwandans about their ethnicity in their home country, Habineza said. Continue…