Staff of the Rwanda Law Reform Commission (RLRC), last week, visited Commune Rouge Genocide memorial to honor victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and donated a cow to a genocide widow.

The commemoration was preceded by a ‘walk to remember’ from Gisenyi downtown to Commune Rouge Genocide Memorial Site.

Speaking at the commemoration, John Gara, the chairperson of RLRC. said the commission still encounters different complicated cases related to genocide like genocide denial and ideology.

"Sometimes people remember what happened in 1994 as it was the only hard moment Rwanda experienced, but remembrance should also reflect on all series of inhumane activities Tutsis suffered before,” Gara said.

He added that during remembrance, Rwandans should reflect on the country’s evolution and achievements and work to fight genocide ideology.

‘Routes to flee were cut off’

The Mayor of Rubavu, Jeremie Sinamenye, said it would have been very easy for Tutsi who lived in former Gisenyi prefecture to flee to DR Congo, but it was not possible because all roads were blocked by marauding Interahamwe militiamen.

"Genocide victims laid to rest at this memorial site are a few, compared to the number of Tutsis killed in this region and the extent to which Genocide was severe. That is why we always call upon people who know where bodies of genocide victims were dumped to come forward and reveal to give them decent burial,” Sinamenye said.

Innocent Kabanda, the president of Ibuka, the umbrella body of Genocide survivors’ associations in Rubavu District, said the former Gisenyi prefecture is one of the first places where the Genocide was experimented in the early 1990s.

Tutsi from the Bigogwe area who were accused of being accomplices of Rwanda Patriotic Front were killed by the then government, he said.

"Almost all of the former government’s top leaders that had formed ‘Akazu’ were from Gisenyi prefecture, all meetings of the genocide preparation took place in this district,” Kabanda recalled, naming some top leaders he remembers.

He added that most of those who were killed at ‘Commune Rouge’ were rallied by militiamen with false promise of protection at the Rubavu Commune’s Office before they were led to ‘Commune Rouge’ to be killed.

Commune Rouge had formerly served as a cemetery.

Ephrasie Mukantabana, a Genocide widow who received a cow from Rwanda Law Reform Commission, commended the donors and the government that never tires to think of their lives.

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