Thousands of Genocide survivors, friends and dignitaries from public and private entities on Sunday participated in an exercise to accord decent burial to at least 950 Genocide victims in Mbuye sector of Ruhango District. The victims who were accorded decent burial were taken from mass graves in which they had been hastily buried in 1994 and moved to Mayunzwe Memorial Site. The event, which was presided over by the Minister for Sports and Culture, Julienne Uwacu, coincided with marking of the 24th commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi. “Genocide perpetrators should disclose where they put victims’ remains such that they get a decent burial. We still have Genocide victims who are unaccounted for and we cannot find them unless the perpetrators tell us where they are,” she said. She added: “We are still discovering mass graves even after so many years after the Genocide took place. People must know that hiding remains of victims constitutes a criminal offence”. Uwacu thanked everyone who had played a role in according the deceased a decent burial, saying that besides helping survivors mourn better their loved ones it also helps in conservation of evidence about the Genocide in which over a million people were killed. Dr Diogène Bideri, the Principal Legal Advisor at the National Commission for the fight against Genocide (CNLG), challenged academics to expose the work by some researchers who hid behind academic work to promote genocide ideology. “There were so-called researchers some of them were medical doctors, others biologists who reportedly carried out research that only serves the purpose of sowing the seed of discord among the people of Rwanda,” he said. Their books are still in circulation; people should read them and rebut them for what they are, which is tools used to disintegrate people, he added. Charles Habonimana, one of the Genocide survivors in the area, said that there should be different ways needed to conserve the evidence about the Genocide through writing and other scientific means to ensure everything about it is kept for posterity.. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
