We do not want silence to win – French youth

A delegation of more than 10 French youth leaders will travel to Rwanda this weekend on a bold mission to denounce their government’s role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and establish links with their Rwandan counterparts. They are members of the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (Egam), which brings together 35 main anti-racist organisations from 29 European countries committed to fighting racism and anti-Semitism. Paul Max Morin, the Executive Director of Egam, told The New Times that beside the capital Kigali, they also plan to travel to Huye and Karongi during their one-week stay. “We carry a message for the Rwandan youth. Our goal is to establish links between the new French and the Rwandan generations,” Morin said. “We want to enlighten the delegation about the history of the Genocide because we believe you cannot ably speak of it when you have not come where it took place,” he added Earlier this week, the group published a statement titled; “Tutsi Genocide: Now is time for the truth,” in which they cite facts that prove French government’s involvement in the Genocide and call for an end to concealment of that responsibility. The delegation comprises young French leaders of political parties, youth organisations and European leaders of anti-racist NGOs. French journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupéry and Alain Ngirinshuti, Ibuka-France vice-president, will accompany them. In 2004, Saint-Exupéry published a book entitled; L’Inavouable ( loosely translated to “The unmentionable”) in which he highlights the role of France in the Genocide. He has updated it with a new edition; Complices de l’inavouable: la France au Rwanda (France in Rwanda: Accomplices of the unmentionable). Morin says they come to Rwanda, 20 years after the Genocide, a point in time when “some members of the French political elite keep obstructing the truth regarding the collaboration between some senior French officials and the genocidal regime in Rwanda during and after the Genocide against the Tutsi”. Their new and committed generation, he said, rejects the poisoned heritage of the collaboration and questions the older generation’s silence as well as inability to stop the Genocide. “Our action is political and educational. We want the people in charge at the time to face their responsibilities,” he said. Oscar Twizerimana, the head of the association of student survivors (AERG) at the University of Rwanda’s Huye campus welcomed the move by the French youth. “It is important for French citizens to examine the role of their former government in the Genocide,” he said. “As an association of student Genocide survivors, it is helpful that France accepts its role and then possibly pays reparations to the survivors,” he added.

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We do not want silence to win – French youth