Schooling is good for citizens but civic education is the glue that holds a nation together, Dr Jean Damascène Bizimana, the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) has said. 

Speaking at an event to commemorate thousands of victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi who were killed in Muhanga and neighbouring areas on Tuesday, Bizimana cited results of a 2010 study which showed that more educated people behaved inhumanely during the Genocide than the poorly educated or semi-literate compatriots.

He said the study, conducted by Ibuka, the umbrella of Genocide survivors associations, and CNLG, had found that 59.1 per cent of citizens who had only attended primary school hid Tutsi during the Genocide, while only 8.3 per cent of those with secondary school education participated in hiding the Tutsi.

Tragically, he said, the figure decreased even further among University graduates – at just 5.6 per cent.

"It’s as if the further one went in education the less humane they became, which probably also explains why it’s mainly the educated people that planned the Genocide,” Dr Bizimana said.

He explained that nation building needs citizens who understand their civic rights and obligations and who are ready to stand for core national values such as patriotism, unity, humanity, compassion, among others.

The former senator and academic blasted the pre-Genocide regimes that manipulated both the citizens and the notion of civic education by entrenching the deadly supremacist ideology of ‘Hutu Power’ which sought to alienate perceived minorities – a policy that tragically set the stage for the Genocide.

"Rather than use civic education to nurture the youth into good citizens as you would expect from a government they intoxicated them telling them that the country was for the majority and many young people grew up thinking that that was the truth,” he said.

Bizimana said this partly explains why the majority of perpetrators were below 45 years of age, with most of them falling between 20-40 years, while, on the other hand, 56.8 per cent of those who hid Tutsi were aged between 45 and 65 years.

The CNLG head said good education should empower students with knowledge to understand their civic rights and duties and their obligation to their compatriots and country, stating that anything less would produce undesirable results.

At the commemoration event, mourners also accorded decent burial to the remains of 53 Genocide victims, mainly retrieved from Kabgayi forest Nyamabuye Sector, a mass grave at Saint Bernadette Nursing and Midwifery School in Nyamabuye, and from other areas in the neighbouring Shyogwe Sector.

The whereabouts of the remains were largely revealed by some prisoners linked with the Genocide.

Bizimana cautioned politicians against manipulating the youth, urging them instead to teach the younger generation good values and habits.

This should be imparted from early childhood bearing in mind that the youth are the future of Rwanda, he said.

He also advised the youth to take advantage of the various opportunities at their disposal, such as education, to develop self and country.

Muhanga District mayor Yvonne Mutakwasuku thanked those who revealed the whereabouts of the remains for eventual reburial, urging others to borrow a leaf from them.

"As a way of taking a step toward healing and restoring dignity to our loved ones we lost in the Genocide, we encourage anyone with information about the possible whereabouts of the victims’ remains to provide it so that they get a decent burial,” she said.

In 1994, some 100,000 Tutsi from different parts of the country are believed to have sought refuge in the Kabgayi area in Muhanga, but the overwhelming majority of these were later killed – some in Muhanga and others in Ngororero where they were transported to for slaughter in buses.

And yet only the remains of about 10,860 victims have since been recovered and accorded decent burial at Kabgayi Genocide memorial, according to Mutakwasuku.

The majority of those who survived were rescued by the then Rwanda Patriotic Army soldiers after taking the area on June 3, 1994.

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