From Thursday, April 7, flags will be flown at half-mast to mark the 28th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, Kwibuka 28, when Rwandans and friends of Rwanda in and outside the country remember the massacres 28 years ago.
Naphtal Ahishakiye, the Executive Secretary of Ibuka, the umbrella body of genocide survivors’ organisations, on Wednesday, April 6, told The New Times that the whole world needs to understand that commemorating the genocide against the Tutsi is "necessary.”
"We request the entire world to collaborate in this continued fight against genocide denial. It is also important for the world to understand that justice is key. Countries that continue to give genocide suspects safe haven need to think twice. Countries that have no laws punishing the crime of genocide need to enact them and act accordingly,” Ahishakiye added.
"During this Kwibuka we shall also continue advocating for the interests of genocide survivors; including their safety and welfare as well as push to see that [judicial] cases not decided are concluded so that justice is served.”
Pictures of victims archived inside the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Photo: Sam Ngendahimana.
Jean-Damascène Bizimana, the Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagements, told The New Times that on April 7, the main message for the world includes a reminder that nearly two decades have passed since the UN General Assembly resolved that every year, April 7 be designated as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda.
"The world needs to remember that the Genocide happened when the United Nations had deployed a force to represent it, the UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda) but these forces also were not well equipped in terms of arms, in addition to legally, because they did not have the mandate to use arms to protect civilians from being killed. This is why the government army of the time and the entire government machinery was able to carry out the genocide unimpeded by UNAMIR,” he said.
The government released guidelines for the 28th commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi. There will be no Walk to Remember on July 7. The night vigil often held on the evening of the first day of the commemoration week will be aired on national television starting at 6pm, local time.
The national mourning period runs up to April 13. But, as usual, commemoration activities carry on for 100 days until July 3.
Commemoration activities at national level will be held at the Kigali Genocide Memorial while people upcountry will converge at District memorial sites.
Bizimana said: "This is a moment to remember the Genocide against Tutsi, a time to reflect on that history and pay particular attention to mistakes made so that the UN can draw lessons so as to ably prevent and deter the reoccurrence of genocide anywhere else. Our other message now is that what the victims [of the genocide], and Rwandans in general, need is justice because most of the masterminds of the genocide run away to foreign countries and even acquired foreign nationalities. They are in Europe, in Africa, in the Americas, but every country that hosts them has a responsibility to see them brought to justice or send them to Rwanda for trial because when justice is not delivered it means countries continue failing.”
The Minister reiterated Kigali’s request that countries pursue hundreds of perpetrators of the genocide against the Tutsi who are on their territories. There are more than 1,400 arrest warrants issued by the government of Rwanda and all those people should be found and taken to courts of law, he said.
"We also take this opportunity to thank the countries that have brought some of these people to court, with justice being delivered. And we urge other countries too to follow suit. Third and also important is that those who want destroy the memory of the genocide are using the tool of denial. We have people who deny and trivialize the genocide against the Tutsi who reside abroad. They especially do this using social media platforms such as YouTube. We request that countries put a stop to their harmful activities.”
The most extreme offence to the survivors
British journalist and author of several books on the 1994 genocide, Linda Melvern, is in Kigali to participate in commemoration activities.
But she is still disturbed by the fact that her own country, and the USA, still fail to recognize the genocide against the Tutsi.
Despite UN resolution 74/273 adopted by the UN General Assembly on April 20, 2020, with changes clearly underlining that April 7 became a day to commemorate the genocide "against the Tutsi” in Rwanda, the UK and US expressed reservations in letters to the president of the General Assembly.
Melvern said: "I am still shocked that my own government, and the government of the US, refuses to recognize the genocide against the Tutsi as an official term of the UN. And I would like the indifference recognized. In 1994, one million people were murdered in a space of three months and the world looked away. And, as I think my book, A People Betrayed, showed, it wouldn’t have taken much to prevent this happening at the outset. That was the scandal. This was a preventable genocide.”
Survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi have called on the UK to either put on trial or extradite five suspects who have lived there for more than two decades, to no avail.
And Melvern does not think the world understands the racist ideology upon which the 1994 genocide was shore up.
It why more effort, by everyone, is required to combat genocide ideology and denial.
Speaking about the role of the youth in this lifelong crusade, Phiona Ishimwe, a young lawyer, looked up and thought for a while before saying: "We need to stand up and speak up against genocide deniers. The more we keep quite the more we validate what they are saying. We can control what is said about our country. The deniers speak, we counter with the truth.”
Melvern said denial is an integral part of genocide.
"Denial is the most extreme offense to the survivors. For them, it ensures the crime has no end and it destroys the truth and their memories,” she said.
Ishimwe as well noted that her generation ought to "look at things differently.”
"I think what our nation needs is to build on a foundation of forgiveness. This is the only way we can move forward and build a better future. It is up to us, the youth, to task ourselves to build the country the way we deem fit without being influenced by the bad ideology of some of our parents,” Ishimwe said.
Like in all other missions abroad where Rwanda is represented, in Geneva, Switzerland, Rwanda’s envoy, Amb Marie Chantal Rwakazina, will lead Rwandans and friends of Rwanda in commemorating the International Day of the Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in an event jointly organized by the United Nations.
"Our message will be around the theme for Kwibuka28 which is: Remember, Unite, Renew,” Amb Rwakazina said.
Together with the United Nations Office to Geneva and Ibuka-Switzerland, her delegation will call upon the world to commemorate and pay tribute to the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
"We will honour the resilience of the survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi as it has been a foundation stone and a beacon of hope in rebuilding our country after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. We will speak to the resolve of Rwandans to build a united, dignified and prosperous nation, committed to preventing and punishing the crime of genocide, fighting genocide denial and revisionism, eradicating genocide ideology and all its manifestations, divisionism and discrimination based on ethnicity, region or any other grounds,” Amb Rwakazina said.
"Our message to the world will also be about the global fight against genocide denial and revisionism and the individual and collective role of members of the international community in preventing and punishing the crime of genocide, including by preserving the memory and history of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and enacting relevant legislation and punishing perpetrators.”
A provisional programme indicates that at the Palais des Nations, the home of the UN office in Geneva, the envoy will lead a procession for wreath laying at the Memorial Stele in the morning before a commemoration ceremony where UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will speak