The National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) has called for more lobbying at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) level to ensure some of the memorial sites in the country are designated as world heritage sites.

This, the commission says, will boost the quest to check the spread of the nagation and trivialisation of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi across the globe.

The idea was raised during an oversight meeting between CNLG officials and the senatorial Standing Committee on Political Affairs, which had been called to discuss the commission’s annual report for 2014/15 that was tabled before Parliament last year.

Giving a status update on memorial sites, Dr Jean Damascene Bizimana, the CNLG executive secretary, told the senators about the process to register some of the sites under UNESCO, but meeting all requirements may take up to 2018.

Bizimana said the procedure involves a lot of formalities that need to be assessed and approved by UNESCO using international standards thresholds.

So far, the country has lined up Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, Gisozi, and other memorial sites such as Murambi, Bisesero and Nyamata for scrutiny for inclusion on the list of world heritage sites.

However, he said, it would be better if lobbying was made to ensure more sites in the country are added onto the list.

"We have spent five months working on project proposals for these sites before we submission to UNESCO. We will also need to do comparative studies with other memorial sites across the world before UNESCO sends its experts to evaluate,” he said.

Once designated world heritage sites, according to Bizimana, all expenses for preservation and maintenance of the sites are catered for by UNESCO.

"UNESCO also uses these sites and the history behind them to develop international curricular programmes for schools, so this will help in fighting genocide negationism across the world,” Bizimana said.

Under UNESCO, this implies that those who negate the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi will be dealing with the international community other than Rwanda as a country.

International lobbying

However, Bizimana said, even if Rwanda was to fulfill all the requirements, there will be need for lobbying for the UNESCO member states to endorse these memorial sites at their annual summit.

"This requires a lot of diplomacy since approvals are done during an international summit convened once a year, and this is why we are looking at the 2018 summit because this is when we feel we will be ready,” Bizimana told the legislators.

Senators promised consistent advocacy and called for the reinforcement of the country’s embassies to ensure they have the personnel with skills to facilitate the lobbying process.

Senator Jean Nepomuscene Sindikubwabo, the committee chairperson, said some members of Diaspora have been proactive in Genocide commemoration activities, and these should be utilised in the UNESCO bid as well.

"We will discuss it at the committee level and make tangible recommendations to the government; however, we think at least embassies need to have one person in charge of such agenda,” Sindikubwabo said.

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