On April 7, we began activities to mark 21 years after a ferocious genocide was unleashed on Rwanda and the Rwandan people, a carnage that would brutally take over one million innocent lives within just 100 days.

The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi is the most vicious and unfathomable mass murder in modern history.

We remember, pay homage, respect and  honour  our relatives, friends, neighbours, innocent children, women and men; those we knew and those we didn’t have the opportunity to know; who were massacred in the most brutal and dehumanizing way.

They were innocent souls who lived an ordinary life. They had dreams like every one of us. Yet their lives and dreams were brutally cut short, not because they had committed any crime, but because of how God created them – Tutsi.

As we remember all the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, we stand in solidarity with all the survivors of the Genocide who continue to endure untold trauma, suffering and pain. We commend them for their resilience, perseverance, and strength of character.

We salute them for the dignity with which they have faced the tragedy and worked to rebuild their lives. Most of the survivors refused to succumb to the weight of the tragedy of the Genocide. They have recollected whatever pieces of their lives that remained, stood up, and have endured despite insurmountable odds.

During this year’s Genocide commemoration, we would like to focus on the challenge of Genocide denial and trivialization of the crime of genocide. Genocide is the most heinous crime on the face of earth.

What happened in Rwanda in 1994 had happened during the Jewish Holocaust in the Second World War. It could also happen anywhere else. We must never allow this tragedy to befall humanity again. It is therefore vital that we take a firm stand and vow to speak out eloquently and stand to be counted in the fight against genocide.

In order to prevent future genocides, we need to understand the genocide process.

Dr. Gregory Stanton, in 1996, in a document to the US State Department outlined eight stages of genocide. The first six stages may be classified as Early Warnings and these could be detected early and prevented in any society:

1. Classification: This begins with the denoting of 'Us versus them'.

There is creation of distinctions based on nationality, ethnicity, race or religion. In the case of Rwanda, there was a creation of a bipolar society of Hutu Vs Tutsi.

In order to eradicate any future risks of genocide recurrence, Rwanda is recreating a national identity and breaking down all forms of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, religion or race. A unifying Rwandan identity is being re-established and national unity and reconciliation is a core project in the process of post-genocide nation-building.

2. Symbolization: Denoting names 'Jew', 'German', 'Hutu', 'Tutsi'.

Using symbols like the Nazi Swastika arm bands, Hutu and Tutsi identity cards introduced in Rwanda in 1930s. This is similar to Jewish reisepass imposed on Jews by 1938 and Nazi Germany requiring all Jews to wear the Yellow Star of David in Nazi occupied Europe by 1941.

Rwanda has addressed the issue of symbolization by abolishing ethnic based identity cards and introducing an individualized national ID not tying any individual to their ethnicity, region, occupation or parentage.

Rwanda’s 2003 constitution and law bar any form of discrimination based on gender, religion, region or ethnicity.

3. Dehumanization:

Once classified and denoted a symbol(s), one group denies the humanity of another, and makes the victim group seem sub-human. In Rwanda, Tutsi were called cockroaches. They were described as having tails and dropped ears like animals.

In all genocides, hate propaganda in speeches, print, hate radios vilify the victim group. The targeted group is described as animals, vermin, filth, diseases, etc. This is used to justify their extermination using any weapons and wiping them out is depicted as an act of ‘cleansing’, ‘purification’ removing filths.

In German, Der Sturmer Nazi Newspaper during the Jewish Holocaust ran a headline: ‘The Blood Flows, The Jew Grins’. A Nazi SS propaganda pamphlet ran a page with different pictures some depicting Jews as Sub-human with a caption that asked: ‘Does the Same Soul Dwell in these Bodies?’

This is very similar to the special issues of Kangura newspaper in Rwanda that ran a detailed issues describing Tutsi as cockroaches and calling for their extermination.

Dehumanization of any form must be prevented by prosecuting hate crimes, incitement to committee genocide, shutting down hate media and taking the toughest action against any incitement of hatred and racism.

4. Organization:

Genocide is a group crime. It is therefore organized. The state usually plays a leading role in organizing, mobilizing the killing machine, providing weapons and training and setting up the genocide infrastructure. 

Elaborate plans are made and genocide is promoted as the ‘final solution’. In Rwanda, Hutu militia were trained and armed. Government provided the resources and protection to the killers and empowered to exterminate their neighbours.

It is important that both the planners and executers of genocide are held to account through timely and swift administration of justice.

5. Polarization:

Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate messages are spread. Laws forbidding social interaction, intermarriage are enacted. Moderates are silenced, threatened and intimidated and even killed.

Attacks are staged. In Nazi Germany, demonstrations were organized against the Jews. Moderated German dissenters were the first to be arrested and sent to concentration camps.

In Rwanda, the 10 Hutu commandments were enacted and disseminated. Demonstrations against the ‘inyenzi’’ (cockroaches) were stage managed.

To prevent polarization, any laws or policies that segregate or marginalize groups must be protested in the strongest terms.

6. Preparation:

Victims are forced to wear identifying symbols. Deaths lists are compiled. Weapons for killing are stock piled.

In Nazi-Germany, concentration camps and gas chambers were built and Jews were deported to concentration camps in different parts of Europe to be gassed.

In Rwanda, Tutsi were forced to carry identification cards, machetes distributed, militia trained an unleashed on their neighbours.

7. Extermination (Genocide):

Mass killing and extermination of the victims is the stage when the ‘final solution’ is implemented.  This is very organized massive and swift extermination. The objective is to ensure no victim survives.

8. Genocide Denial:

Denial of the genocide is always the final stage of the genocide. Denial takes place during and after the genocide. There is denial that there was mass killing at all. Statistics are minimized, access to evidence and archives are denied. Witnesses are killed or intimidated.

The victims are mocked and presented as the cause of what befell them. What happened is referred to as a civil war and not genocide.

Denial is aimed at evading accountability, justifying what happened and is a larger part of the continuation of the genocide project.

Rwanda has experienced all the stages of genocide and we are still faced with a challenge of active genocide denial.

Any of the stages outlined by Dr. Stanton could be manifest, even in the earliest stages in any society. It is therefore very important that we are continuously on the look out to fight genocide and speak out against any form of hatred, discrimination, bigotry and racism.

Rwanda has come a long way. Under the leadership of President Paul Kagame, the genocide was stopped. Rwanda has been rebuilt into a new and hopeful nation. The infrastructure has been rebuilt.

The economy of the country continues to grow very vibrantly. Institutions of good governance and democracy have been established. Progressive laws to promote tolerance and national cohesion have been put in place.

The country is stable and a beacon of hope and prosperity.  The leadership and citizens of our country are determined to continue consolidating national unity and reconciliation and to build a truly habitable and harmonious society characterised by tolerance and peaceful co-existence for the current and future generations.

That is what the project a New Rwanda is about and we are determined to realise it.

This article was extracted from a speech by Ernest Rwamucyo, Rwanda’s High Commissioner to India during an event to mark the 21 commemoration of the 1994 against the Tutsi.