The African Union Commission Chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, on April 7, announced the appointment of Adama Dieng as a special envoy for its multifaceted action against genocide, in line with avoiding a repeat of inaction observed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
Faki made the announcement in a speech he delivered during the 30th commemoration of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
The Senegalese jurist Adama Dieng is a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, a position he held from July 2012 to July 2020, according to information from the United Nations.
He also served as Registrar of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 2001 to 2008, as per the International Criminal Court.
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Faki said that the African Union, all of whose nations were deeply shaken by the indescribable tragedy of the genocide against the Tutsi, had unfortunately not found, at the time of the tragedy – like other international actors whose responsibility today is established – the appropriate responses.
"The historical reminder from earlier challenges us. No one, including the African Union, can exonerate itself from its inaction in the face of the chronicle of a predicted genocide. Let us have the courage to recognise it and above all to take responsibility for it. This is not too expensive for the victims and their descendants.
Africa, however, rejects with total aversion the criminal and horrible ideology of genocide in its components falsely justified or fueled by hatred, ethnicity, supremacism, exclusion and all forms of negation of the other, he stated.
"Also, can I announce, in this spirit, my decision to appoint, on the occasion of this thirtieth commemoration, a special envoy for our multifaceted action against the genocide in the person of Mr. Adama Dieng who worked for a long time at the criminal court of 'Arusha on the genocide against the Tutsi and elsewhere at the United Nations on the same issues,” he said.
Meanwhile, AU Commission Deputy Chairperson, Monique Nsanzabaganwa, said that "Adam Dieng will be the African Union ambassador to propagate the gospel of peace and tolerance across the continent, to prevent genocide, hate speech, and other related crimes in all the African Union Member States.”
She made the observation on April 7, during a commemoration event of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, at AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The commemoration event was organised by the African Union Commission in collaboration with the Embassy of Rwanda in Ethiopia and the country’s Permanent Mission to the African Union, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
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Why we commemorate the Genocide Against Tutsi
Underscoring the severity of the genocide, Faki said "Thirty years ago, horror befell Rwanda. Murderous forces, fueled by disastrous ethnicist ideologies, spread hate speech, manipulative speech, demeaning speech among the population of this beautiful country known for the mildness of its climate and the greenery of its hills. As a result, in the space of three months, more than a million Tutsi were decimated in abominable conditions of suffering and inhumanity.”
Three decades after the outbreak of this indescribable horror, he observed, "we are still taken aback, painfully questioned about the absurdity, the unreason, the madness, the shameless of the limits of our humanity,” wondering what thirst is quenched by the extermination of others.
"We must, in fact, remember so as not to forget. We must then remember to understand the depth of the wounds inflicted,” he said.
"We must remember, moreover, above all to appreciate, against a backdrop of unalterable pride, the path traveled by Rwanda since those dark times. How, from this great misfortune which seemed to have irreversibly destroyed the Rwandan nation, was built a new egalitarian national reality, strong, structured, in constant progress in its design of unity of collective prosperity,” he observed.