The world should be blamed for failure to stop the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, a senior Dutch official has said. Lilianne Ploumen, the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, was speaking during activities to mark the 20th anniversary of the Genocide against the Tutsi in The Hague on Monday. “The whole world, includin, my own country, shares responsibility for the tragedy,” Ploumen said. “Uniting survivors and perpetrators is a grandoise undertaking but Rwanda has been able to do it and to build a country devoid of ethnic division,” she said. The Dutch minister noted, among others, how Rwanda rebuilt the judicial system from scratch, brought Genocide suspects to justice, and took a bold step to abolish capital punishment despite the pain and resentment that followed the Genocide. Today, she said, a new generation of Rwandans has grown up in peace and security and, for them, a new chapter is being written with the most recent campaign “Ndi Umunyarwanda.” “I want to commend the people of Rwanda for what they have achieved in the last 20 years. Against all the odds , they have managed to give themselves a future once again,” Ploumen said.
