President Paul Kagame has reiterated the role of parliaments in the fight against Genocide ideology through legislation and cooperation, with a view to achieve a peaceful world free from any discrimination.
He was speaking on Tuesday, October 11, during the 145th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and its related meetings in Kigali, that is underway in Kigali from October 11 to 15.
Among the issues on the Assembly’s agenda, there is ensuring gender equality driven legislatures, the impact of war and atrocity on civilian populations; war and climate change as triggers of global food insecurity; and the situation of the human rights of parliamentarians.
Kagame said that Genocide denial and revisionism are fast becoming a growing threat to peace and security globally and pointed out that "social media is partly responsible, but the truth is that hate speech and misinformation have existed for a long time.”
"Collaboration between parliaments is needed to work on all these challenges, to criminalise all forms of dehumanisation and racism worldwide,” he said.
He told the legislators that the topical issues they selected for the assembly’s deliberation, namely peace, democracy, and cooperation, are very important.
"There is no individual country, there is no region, there is no part of this world that can claim to have it all. It starts with working on democracy, working for peace. If we don’t do it through cooperation, I don’t think we can achieve anything,” he said.
"We see problems as stated earlier, in some parts of Africa. While one is thinking that this is confined to Africa, you immediately realize that other parts of the world are going through similar challenges that affect peace, that affect democracy.
For him, cooperation is the best way to find solutions to such challenges.
"I think we need to work together more and more, and not have people who assume that they have it all, and they can tell others what they should be doing. It doesn’t work like that. It’s not the reality of this world we live in, all of us,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Kagame said that solidarity in the fight against genocide ideology, however, is much more than enacting laws.
"It is about recognition of our shared humanity, for the betterment of our societies, and the protection of future generations,” he said.
The President expressed the hope that the parliamentarians convened in Kigali will take this message in their discussions in the coming days, and in their daily work "as we strive to work together, all the time”.
Duarte Pacheco, President of the IPU said that the spirit of Rwanda, a country that suffered impossible to imagine [the 1994 genocide against Tutsi] just 28 years ago, might influence work of the assembly.
"I understand that reconciliation and dialogue is key to achieve peace, economic and social development; and this is the key to the success of Rwanda,” he said., adding "all of us should learn from the past”.
Pacheco reiterated the comment of Ban Ki-moon, the former UN Secretary General that the international community failed to prevent the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
"All of you, all of us are world leaders, we must not fail again,” he said, addressing the parliamentary gathering in Kigali.
"That’s why we are here. We should work together with dialogue to identify solutions to the problems of our world, to promote better lives of the people we represent towards a better, peaceful, inclusive and sustainable world for our children,” he observed.