The international community’s failure to stop the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi was disastrous, but its continued failure to confront a lingering threat of genocide denial and distortion is unacceptable, officials have said. The call was echoed on April 6, a day before Rwanda commences weeklong activities to mark the 31st commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, during which more than a million people were killed in a carefully planned massacre that lasted 100 days. Speaking at the Kwibuka International Conference, held in Kigali, Jean Damascene Bizimana, the Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, criticized the international community’s silence on the ongoing situation in the neighboring DR Congo. Minister Bizimana pointed out that thirty-one years have passed without the same international community, once guilty of abandoning Rwanda, saying a word about the fate of the Congolese refugees driven from their homes by the FDLR since July 1994. The FDLR- a UN-sanctioned outfit- is a DR Congo-based terrorist militia founded by remnants of the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. “More than 900,000 Congolese Tutsi refugees have left their country, their territory, their homes and are residing in camps in Rwanda, Uganda, and elsewhere. The crimes they suffered are known worldwide but remain unpunished. Can we then say that the genocide of the Tutsi has taught the international community anything?” Bizimana said. The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda saw more than one million people killed in three months. In the lead-up to 1994, lists of Tutsi families and individuals to be killed were drawn up, militias were organized, and quantities of weapons were imported and distributed to citizens as tools for work while the international community was watching. “We are seeing near Rwanda, similar acts of targeted killings towards the same Tutsi and Banyamulenge ethnic group in the DR Congo on the orders of the Congolese authorities. Acts of incitement to hatred and direct and public incitement to commit genocide are being launched by officials,” Bizimana added. He said that the current situation in DR Congo “certainly shows” that the root causes of the Tutsi genocide lie in Belgian colonization, which destroyed the existential identity of Munyarwanda. “If there had not been European interference in Rwanda, and in Africa in general, we would not be holding a conference like this on a genocide that took away more than a million people, all killed for who they were. The conference held under the theme “When Never Again Fails: Continuation of the Genocide Ideology” brought together government officials, Genocide scholars, survivors, and the youth to, among others, confront the lingering threat posed by denialism, historical distortion, and hate speech. First Lady Jeannette Kagame was also in attendance. For Dr Alex Mvuka Ntung, Researcher and Analyst on the Great Lakes Region, the current situation in the DR Congo reflects what happened in Rwanda, thirty-one years ago. “We need to remove the borders in our minds and look at the region as a country of nations. What I see is a question of whether the Genocide against the Tutsi has been relocated,” he said. Mvuka said that the Great Lakes region has a shared history, particularly after ethnic manipulation that was brought about by the international community. “It is an area where we have had ethnic manipulation, and the same place is home to several colonial narratives including the Hamitic hypothesis making Tutsis invaders and settlers.” “Those narratives are everywhere. This is black-on-black racism. And that is what we are seeing in the DR Congo. This is the same Genocide within the same house. We are seeing lynching, and cannibalism that we saw in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.” He described the current situation as “epistemic justice” where victims are neither listened to nor believed. “We know that there are about 200 armed groups and none of them has a political grievance other than that of eliminating Tutsis.” Why there was no double genocide Florida Kabasinga, a former prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda debunked arguments by Genocide ideologues, warning that the rhetoric is often used to confuse and manipulate. “It doesn’t explain the roadblocks, the targeted killings, or the Government’s coordinated role,” she said, referring to the plane crash narrative. Kabasinga maintained that Genocide denial is the final stage of a genocidal process after classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, persecution and extermination. Kabasinga shared similar sentiments with Dr. Alice Nderitu, a former UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide. Nderitu pointed out the several gaps in the international system which continue to frustrate efforts to fight the perversive Genocide ideology. Reacting to the Genocide perpetrators who roam freely in the neighboring DR Congo, under the FDLR, Nderitu called on the international community to act towards bringing such elements to the books of justice. “If these people are living in the DR Congo, indicted by a UN tribunal, and they are living free, what then does Never Again mean? Why are we not all mobilized in establishing where those people are, so that they face trial?” “The international community needs to ask itself how one can not condone living next to a bicycle thief but instead condone living next to someone who planned and implemented the killing of millions of people.” “There is actually a failure in terms of implementation and what really needs to be done. In terms of Genocide ideology, we do know for a fact that people who have been targeted before are three times higher at risk of being targeted again. This is why we continue to see targeted killings in the DR Congo until today.” Different panelists maintained that genocide ideology continues to thrive, often with the aid of global platforms, complicit narratives, and an international system that is yet to act towards curbing the vice.
