Rwandans seek to block negationist conference

A group of Rwandans in the Diaspora have stepped up efforts to block a planned conference by well-known negationists of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda scheduled to take place in Montreal on March 29. According to an online petition launched by the Rwandan community in Montreal, a protest petition already signed by 36 individuals was launched by a community newspaper for the Rwandan Diaspora, ‘Hobe Montreal’. A review of the comments posted on the ‘Hobe Montreal’ webpage indicates the profound anger and bitterness that the latest conference has raised. French author-journalist Pierre Pean, Spanish lawyer Jordi Palou-Loverdos, Belgian journalist Peter Verlinden and Canadian author Robin Philpot have all been invited. Pean will speak via video-conference. Canada must put in place dispositions to contain and counter these negationists who risk contaminating the peaceful population, says one who has signed up. A Genocide survivor says Canada is a democratic country that should not allow the conference on its territory. I completely disapprove of this conference. It is a shame, said another. Another says: To deny the Genocide is to carry out the Genocide. It is inadmissible to see these negationists propagate their ideas around the world intolerable and scandalous, says another petitioner. A petitioner who says survived the massacres expresses her disapproval with negationists saying they hurt the victims. It is enough to read what Pierre Pean wrote about me without my knowledge, writes author Yolande Mukagasana. I really wonder whether our Genocide is recognized when the survivors are denied and the world does nothing she says. In Rwanda, the Genocide survivors umbrella association IBUKA has called on the government to use all tools at its disposal legally and diplomatically to have such revisionist activities halted. IBUKA says such activities have become an annual norm when survivors are preparing to remember their loved ones. The latest controversy comes as the country is preparing to commemorate the mass killings that according to government left well over a million lives destroyed between April and July in 1994. The petition in Montreal may not be legally binding but shows the decision makers that the conference is more counter productive happening than not taking place at all. Last year, a similar meeting planned at the Louvain Catholic University in Belgium was moved to another location following protracted protests from the Rwandan community in the country. To deny a Genocide that killed over a million people - among them the old, babies, the sick on hospital beds, where rape was used as a weapon - is to deny humanity, says author Mukagasana. RNA

National

Rwandans seek to block negationist conference