Members of the senatorial Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Human Rights and Petitions have launched a two-month inquiry into how unity and reconciliation is being promoted in the country and efforts to eradicate genocide ideology and discrimination.

The assessment is being done in line with the Senate’s mandate to monitor how fundamental principles on which Rwanda is built are being promoted by both the government and members of the civil society.

Promoting unity among Rwandans and fighting genocide ideology and any other type of discrimination in the Rwandan society are among such principles, which the Senate has a mandate to advance.

The senators will meet different stakeholders to assess the country’s efforts at unity, including officials from the National Itorero Commission and the country’s Unity and Reconciliation Commission, among other players.

While meeting the MPs last week, officials from the National Itorero Commission explained that their efforts to provide the right civic education to Rwandans have paid off in line with promoting unity and are poised to be scaled up across all facets of society such as schools, communities, and institutions.

The chairperson of the National Itorero Commission, Boniface Rucagu, told the MPs that scaling up the Itorero programme will require everyone’s input among the country’s intellectuals right from politicians to teachers and influential members of the civil society and private sector.

"All the country’s intellectuals should help us to improve the quality of what we are doing. Itorero programme is still at its early stages and every idea on how we can improve it is welcome,” he said.

Itorero is the country’s civic education programme that teaches Rwandans values such as unity, heroism, patriotism, hard work, and dignity.

Since it was initiated by the government in 2008 as a replica of the Rwandan cultural practice that was halted by colonialists, the programme has so far trained about 1.7 million Rwandans, Rucagu said last week.

"Those who are trained under Itorero go back home with the understanding that the unity of Rwandans is at the centre of the country’s peace, development, freedom, and a happy life for every Rwandan,” Rucagu told MPs.

The third Rwanda Reconciliation Barometer report, released last year by the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), indicated that up to 92.5 per cent of Rwandans felt that unity and reconciliation had been achieved and that citizens lived in harmony.

However, the report also indicated that 27.9 per cent of Rwandans still view themselves through the lenses of ethnic groups, while 25 per cent of them still see divisions and genocide ideology among their compatriots, 22 years after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in which more than a million people were killed.

That finding about people who still view themselves through the lenses of the Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa is one of the reasons why senators last week pushed the National Itorero Commission to scale up its programmes as part of efforts to change negative mentalities among citizens.

"You need to build a forward-looking system to educate people, starting with influential members of society and those who are still young,” said Senator Narcisse Musabeyezu.

Senator Gallican Niyongana, the chairperson of the senatorial Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Human Rights and Petitions, told The New Times that findings from their investigation will be submitted to the Senate so it can draw recommendations on the way forward in promoting unity.

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