The Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Abdirahin Abdi has said that the underestimation of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi by international press deterred urgent action to stop the massacres. 

In a speech he made during the fifteenth commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, last week, Abdi also blamed the international community for not acting promptly in the first few days of the Genocide.

"Had the international press not downplayed the crisis as just a mere civil strife, more concerns would have been raised to draw the world’s attention and therefore pressing for urgent action,” the EALA Speaker said.

Abdi repeatedly said that the Genocide would have been avoided had there been more care and direct intervention by the western world at the critical hour of need.

In a statement he made saying that he personally has a friend who lost his entire family in the gruesome massacres, Abdi wondered why it seems impossible for intergovernmental organizations to step up efforts against Genocide and similar acts.

"Is it not possible for the African Union, the East African Community and other bodies to put in place mechanisms to definite conflicts amidst our people and to promote a shared vision?” he asked, adding that the AU, which was then the Organisation of African Unity, was less empowered to act or had no mechanisms in place to deal with the crisis.

He commended the Rwandan government for establishing a home-grown justice system ‘Gacaca’, which he said has played a great role in ensuring justice and reconciliation in a country the Genocide had shattered.

He said that the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi had become very important for leaders to draw lessons from the failure of the International Community and how Rwandans have in a short time managed to come out from their terrible past.

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