Rwanda's leader is concerned over perceived US ambiguity about victims of the 1994 genocide

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Monday he was concerned by what he saw as a U.S. failure to characterize the 1994 massacres as a genocide against the country's minority Tutsis.

Kagame told reporters that the issue was an “element of discussion” in talks with former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who led the American delegation to a ceremony Sunday commemorating the 30th anniversary of the genocide in which Hutu extremists slaughtered about 800,000 people, most of them Tutsis, in a government-orchestrated campaign.

Many Rwandans criticized U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for failing to specify that the genocide targeted the Tutsis when he wrote late Sunday: “We mourn the many thousands of Tutsis, Hutus, Twas, and others whose lives were lost during 100 days of unspeakable violence."

Responding to a journalist's question about Blinken's post on the social platform X, Kagame said he believed he had reached an agreement with U.S. authorities a decade ago for them not to voice any criticism on the genocide anniversary.

“Give us that day,” he said, adding that criticism over “everything we are thought not to have at all" is unwanted on the genocide anniversary.

Rwandan authorities insist any ambiguity on who the genocide victims were is an attempt to distort history and disrespects the memory of the victims.

U.S. officials did not comment on Monday. President Joe Biden issued a statement Sunday, saying, “We will never forget the horrors of those 100 days, the pain and loss suffered by the people of Rwanda, or the shared humanity that connects us all, which hate can never overcome.”

The question of how to memorialize the genocide stems from allegations that the Rwandan Patriotic Front — the rebel group that stopped