KIGALI, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - The house of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, whose 1994 assassination triggered the genocide, will be turned into a museum promoting national healing, the culture minister said Wednesday.

'Rwanda has decided to transform Habyarimana's former presidential residence into a museum,' Sports and Culture Minister Joseph Habineza told AFP.

'Setting up this museum was decided as part of a drive to promote reconciliation and Rwandan unity,' he said. 'It is a museum that will serve future generations in the struggle to ensure there is never another genocide.'

Habyarimana's former residence is located in Kanombe, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from central Kigali.

Part of the wreckage of Habyarimana's plane, which was shot down on April 6, 1994, will be displayed in the museum, which is expected to be inaugurated early next year.

According to the United Nations, around 800,000 people -- mainly minority Tutsis but also moderate Hutus -- were slaughtered within a few weeks in 1994.