Rwandans living and working abroad have pushed for the enactment of laws punishing the denial and minimisation of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, in foreign countries globally.
Their push aims to put an end to this crime and atrocity which destroys the truth and memory.
As British journalist Linda Melvern maintains, more than two decades after the genocide, the core group of those who organised, paid for and perpetrated the killings remains determined to continue the crime through denying and minimising it.
Last year Melvern published a new book, ‘Intent to Deceive: Denying the Genocide of the Tutsi’, detailing how, among other things, the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide and their supporters continue to deny the atrocities.
They have mounted an information war against the Rwandan government and tried to persuade the world with disinformation and fake news that the victims (the Tutsi) brought the catastrophe upon themselves.
As they continue to peddle falsehoods, génocidaires and their supporters have found new and receptive audiences, while they continue to fool gullible journalists and unwary academics.
Each generation will fight it
More than 1,100 Genocide fugitives are hiding in the neighbouring DR Congo, Uganda, Malawi, Tanzania, France, Congo-Brazzaville, Belgium, Kenya, USA, The Netherlands, Zambia, Burundi, Canada, Mozambique, Central African Republic and elsewhere.
Genocide denial and revisionism is more noticeable overseas where these criminals found a safe haven and continued to hoodwink people who know little about them.
Félix Ndahinda, a Netherlands-based researcher in international law, conflict studies and victimology, underscored that for any known Genocide, even those committed before the coining of the term by Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, and subsequent international criminalization, faces patterns of denial.
Denial and attempts to rewrite history, Ndahinda says, shift responsibilities or reverse roles or blame victims are quite common to many post-genocide situations.
"And they tend to last for a long time. Knowing how fractured the field of Rwanda studies is, I expect this to last for many years, unfortunately,” he added.
The revisionist movement has been very skilful in occupying many spaces in the West, Ndahinda stated, explaining that they are organising big conferences, lobbying various influential groups, institutions such as universities or interest groups, states, influential individuals, and communities, for their mission.
The researcher’s view is that those opposing the genocide revisionist movement need to take their message to the same, and ideally, more platforms than the deniers’ movement.
Fighting propaganda and disinformation
Rational, factual responses by people who know what they are doing is vital, he added.
"I believe the only way to deal with this is to keep fighting propaganda with facts and truth. This is best done when responses are methodical and facts-based. The next Rwandan generation needs to have a good command of its history and be ready to deal with this challenge. You fight propaganda with facts, disinformation with information.”
It is because of this long-drawn-out nature of the fight against genocide denial that the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) continues to urge the young generation to know the truth about Rwanda’s tragic past so they can ably work for the continued reconstruction of a united and peaceful Rwanda.
The Commission on March 8 launched a book with historical facts that supplement the already existing body of knowledge on the Genocide. It captures key moments in the planning and execution of the Genocide.
In an interview with The New Times, Melvern echoed Ndahinda, noting that as seen with the Holocaust in Europe, genocide denial never ends.
The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II - between 1941 and 1945 - when Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population.
Denial continues long after the killing is over and ensures the crime continues, Melvern said.
She added: "Each generation will have to fight it. It needs to be constantly challenged wherever it occurs and cannot be ignored. Genocide denial if left unchecked, allows a denialist worldview to become established.
"The claims that the massacres of the Tutsi during the 1994 Genocide were somehow spontaneous and the victims are responsible for their own destruction will only increase; each claim as awful as the last. The only way to challenge denial is with the facts: only the facts will disprove the claims of deniers. The facts are all we have to counter it.”
Melvern said that in order to counteract genocide denial it is necessary to understand and recognize it.
She noted that the deniers do not simply say the Genocide against the Tutsi did not happen. They try to minimise its status, she explained, and to try to diminish the death toll, to claim there was no planning involved, to claim that "each side” was equally guilty.
"There are mainstream publishing houses and as you know the BBC that has fallen for this disinformation and fake news. There are not two versions of what happened - an ‘official story’ and another story these people seem happy to promote.”
"For those who so wish the facts of the 1994 Genocide can be immediately verified by resort to a mass of evidence and sources of indisputable accuracy. What we seem to have is one set of journalistic standards when reporting Western events -- and another set entirely when reporting Africa.”
Jessica Gerondal Mwiza, deputy chairperson of Ibuka-France, told The New Times that the biggest obstacle to fighting Genocide denial is racism because there are many ideological deniers and their views and beliefs "taken up massively by people who, out of racism, do not do deep research before speaking and writing about our history.”
Mwiza said: "It hurts us a lot because they could be on the side of the truth, but a certain arrogance, as well as a search for sensationalism, often leans them on the side of [Genocide] negation.
"It is very serious that they do not realize that behind these manoeuvres there are people in suffering, memories that are murdered, and survivors who are despised.”
France is known to be home to at least 47 indicted Genocide suspects. Genocide deniers there, among other factors, have a big support network. Some of the genocidal regime’s top officials were airlifted to Paris when the regime collapsed in 1994. Others would first wander elsewhere before also ending up in France where they would be welcome.
François Mitterrand, in power in France during the 1994 Genocide, and his government and relatives, bear great responsibility in the massacres, according to Yolande Mukagasana, a Genocide survivor and president of a Foundation whose objectives include fighting against denial and revisionism of the 1994 Genocide.