Nearly 27 years after the Genocide against the Tutsi claimed more than a million lives, there are still some people and governments that deliberately refuse to refer to what happened by its right name. They include those who dithered in acknowledging that what was taking place in Rwanda back in 1994 was a genocide. Speaking on the occasion of the 27th commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi last week, President Kagame said that two countries in particular continued to describe what Rwanda experienced vaguely. He did not name names but it has since emerged that the two countries in question are the U.S and U.K. That more than three years since the UN General Assembly designated April 7 as International Day of Reflection on 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda the U.S and U.K still use vague descriptions of a well-documented effort to exterminate Tutsi is absurd and abhorrent. This, despite the fact that the Genocide against the Tutsi was systematically planned, complete with all the stages of genocide, at the heart of which was the identity of the group of people targeted for annihilation. According to United Nations itself, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or d) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The Genocide against the Tutsi involved all the stages of a genocide, including classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination, and lately denial. Furthermore, the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda unequivocally established that what happened in 1994 was a genocide, while the prime minister of the regime that carried it out admitted before the same court that they had meticulously planned the slaughter. It is indeed contradictory that the two countries, while they admitted that a genocide had taken place in Rwanda – albeit belatedly – they fail to acknowledge the obvious fact that the genocidaires targeted a specific section of the population of Rwanda for extermination – and that the primary victims were Tutsi. Notably, this has been maximally exploited by unremorseful Genocide fugitives and their allies who are invested in denying and misleading the world about the Genocide against the Tutsi or distorting facts around it by advancing the theory of double genocide. Many of them, including five key fugitives, have found safe haven in the U.K, one of the countries that continue to sow confusion and in the process embolden those bent on distorting facts around the Genocide against the Tutsi. Nonetheless, we must never get tired of calling out deniers and all those who deliberately use ambiguous language with regard to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. This is mainly because distorting facts around genocide makes it difficult for the world to draw lessons and to detect and prevent similar atrocities, anywhere, in the future.
