The National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide (CNLG), has unveiled plans to set up a modern research and documentation centre on Genocide in an effort to fight Genocide and its ideology.

According to officials at the commission, the establishment of the centre is provided for in the law on the mission, organization and function of CNLG.

The centre will have the objectives of collecting oral, written, audiovisual testimonies and other documents on Genocide.

The Executive Secretary of CNLG Jean de Dieu Mucyo said yesterday that they are currently trying to come up with a modern centre by getting examples from different centres around the world.

"We hope to have a modern research center where all documents on the 1994 Genocide will be put. We will include all documents from Gacaca and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and other courts to help researchers access the information they need in an easier manner,” Mucyo said.

He added that the centre will help conserve archives and distribute audiovisual testimonies to several people like University students and researchers.

He clarified that CNLG will not do any modifications on recorded documents and that will simply add a brief generics such as the complete identification of the witnesses.

Speaking at the conference, Prof. Paul Rutayisire a historian, said that there was a lot of work to be done to come up with the centre given the lack of written materials on the Rwandan History.

He criticized the custodians of the National Library and Archives centre for doing little in looking for materials of the Rwanda historians who had written about the country’s history.

He also cautioned that though the centre was going to rely much on oral testimonies, there was need to handle it with extreme care.

"Oral testimony is good, but it should be handled with care because it can easily be falsified or modified for several reasons,” he cautioned.

The Documentation centre is expected to be set up at Nyanza Genocide Memorial Centre in Kicukiro.

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