The National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide (CNLG) on Friday, April 3, announced two major changes in the recently announced commemoration programme. The calendar came to implement the Governments preventive measures amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. As of now, Rwanda has 89 COVID-19 confirmed cases. According to CNLG, the new changes are in line with the Governments recent decision to extend the COVID-19 lockdown which will now go through April 19. In an earlier roadmap for the commemoration activities that was announced by the commission, on April 7, a delegation comprising different representative was supposed to meet a designated Genocide memorial in each district to launch the commemoration week. The event of inaugurating the commemoration week at the district level will not take place, but instead all citizens will observe these events in their homes while following commemoration programmes that will be aired on local media platforms, reads part of a statement from the commission. In the latest announcement, CNLG also said that citizens will follow via local media the inauguration ceremony of the commemoration week, which will take place at Kigali Genocide Memorial in Gisozi and will be followed by a general address from the guest of honour, most likely President Paul Kagame. There will be few mourners to pay respect to the genocide victims buried there, the lighting of the flame of hope and one minute of silence shall be observed, according to CNLG. The second change is the cancellation of an official conclusion commemoration event that was to see few officials paying tribute to politicians killed during the genocide, an event that was supposed to be held in Rebero where some 14,000 genocide victims are buried. The ceremony was to be observed on April 13, the closing day of the official commemoration week. CNLG says that the final day of the commemoration week will instead feature media programmes analysing the role of political parties in dividing citizens, as well as the new political dispensation of unity and how it can be leveraged for social and economic development. Every year in April, the country holds a commemoration week to remember the over a million victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
