On Wednesday, April 28, the Rwandan embassy in Senegal in collaboration with Gaston Berger University located in the Saint Louis region of northern Senegal organized a ceremony to commemorate the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Boris Boubacar Diop and KoulsyLamko, two authors from Senegal and Chad, respectively, were key speakers during the event which was attended by nearly 400 members of the university community, a statement from the Rwandan embassy in Dakar reads. As noted, Rwanda’s envoy to Senegal, Amb Jean Pierre Karabaranga, explained to the audience how the Genocide against the Tutsi was prepared over a long period of time until it was implemented in 1994. He explained how the genocide was carried out by neighbours, classmates, workmates as well as university lecturers of the victims. The envoy explained how, during the genocide, horrible crimes were committed to the extent that parents killed their own children or spouses, indicative of how much bad governance had ruined the nation. The genocidal regimes of the past divided the nation along ethnic lines, with the Tutsi being marginalized. Prepared and tried over four decades, the 1994 Genocide is a historical fact. What happened in 1994 was the climax of a long extermination plan orchestrated against the Tutsi by two consecutive genocidal regimes whose manipulation made citizens believe that Tutsi needed to be wiped out. Among others, during the years leading up to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the genocidal government used all its propaganda machinery to spread bigotry and hatred against the Tutsi. The Tutsi were, among others, called inyenzi ( or inzoka (snakes).The envoy urged the youth to learn from Rwanda’s tragic history and vow not to let the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi happen anywhere else. Diop, a Senegalese author who published a book on the massacres in Murambi – Murambi, le Livre des Ossements – shed light on how the genocide was prepared by different national entities including religious groups. Among others, Diop gave an example of Bishop Augustin Misago of G Diocese, who the deceived the Tutsi there that he would protect them and therefore prevented them from fleeing to Burundi and were eventually killed. The Senegalese author also noted how deniers of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi should not surprise anyone because they played a role in it, during the preparation and execution as well as at the end, in denying it. On the other hand, Lamko, paid much more attention to Rwanda’s history – from the arrival of the colonialists up to 1994. Lamko shed light on how very cohesive the pre-colonial Rwandan nation was. That changed with the arrival of the colonialists who ruined everything by dividing Rwandans so that they could be able to rule over them, he noted. Yves Munana Rwogera, the IbukaSenegal president, thanked the students who attended for they are the future of the continent. He invited them to participate in all commemoration activities being prepared in Senegal.
