Somalia and other countries still faced with wars can obtain hope from Rwanda, and believe that one day their dream for peace will come true, Senior Programme Officer Eastern and Central Africa Interpeace programme has said.

"When we come to such a beautiful country remembering the tragedy that befell it, thinking of what is happening back home, we seem like we do not exist,” Abdirahman Raghe  said, adding, "Rwanda is one good example we dream of and think we should emulate.”

He was speaking over the weekend at Hotel Novotel Umubano at the closing ceremony of a-two-day consultative meeting organized by the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP), an organization striving for peace through dialogue and consensus in partnership with Interpeace.

The meeting was aimed at establishing measures to fight negation of Genocide crimes and putting clear laws and legal framework against revisionism. It also released a draft report on the mechanisms to fight against the negation of the Tutsi Genocide.

Raghe said that seeking peace is done not only for the present generation but the generations to come as well, and that it is the expectation of the entire African community. He added that the colonial history was bad; therefore what is important currently is the healing process.

Charles Ndayiziga, Burundi’s Director General of the National Center for Alerting and Prevention of Conflict, said that countries should not adopt bad policies from other countries but rather what is good for them.

"People were commenting back home that what was in Rwanda in 1994 left and went to Burundi. But we can not just criticize, we instead have to continue visiting each other in order to learn from each other,” Ndayiziga noted.

The Director of IRDP, Pierre Rwanyindo Ruzirabwoba, said that peace and stability issues can be handled in a proper way and establish solutions if people have a will and cooperate.  

He pointed out that participants in the meeting gave the institute a focus, leading to their focal point of peace building.

The conference was intended to revitalize efforts to fight the Genocide ideology, negation of the Tutsi Genocide and revisionism as exercised by the Genocide perpetrators.

Ends