A man who saved more than 114 Tutsis during the 1994 Genocide has said that people of goodwill could have saved many more lives. Leonard Rurangwa, who was last year recognized for his heroic action, said recently that many Tutsis would have survived the Genocide had many Hutus offered to hide them from marauding Interahamwe and government forces. Many souls would have been saved if their neighbours had come to their rescue since soldiers were mostly at war with the advancing RPA, Rurangwa told The New Times on the sidelines of a meeting at Kimisagara Youth Centre. Many people would have survived deep in the villages if only people had accepted to hide them or even not reported about their presence in certain hiding places, he added. He observed that while the extremists were up in arms against moderate Hutus, the latter were not in extreme danger, which explains why some of them managed to save some people. Rurangwa and six other people who were also recognized as heroes and heroines were among the people who addressed a group of youth at Kimisagara Youth House. During the five-day gathering, speakers urged the young participants to live a life of integrity and heroism. The other six rescuers who spoke to the youth are Jerome Ruzagiriza, Félicien Ntaganda, Joséphine, Pasteur Gratien Mitsindo and Joséphine Dusabimana. Between April 7 and July 4, 1994 extremist Hutus massacred over one million Tutsis during a Genocide organised and systematically executed by the then government. Rurangwa said that many people participated in the Genocide due to their deep-rooted hatred for Tutsis. He added that some killers who are now out of prison on provisional release were uncooperative in Gacaca courts and were not remorseful largely because of the bad ideologies that had been entrenched in the Rwandan society for many years before the Genocide. Pasteur Mitsindo, who saved over 332 people during the Genocide, said that the problem was not whether one was Hutu or Tutsi, but rather how people perceive each other. He added that what was important was to understand that all humans were created by God and thus had a right to life. Nobody has a right to take the life of another, he said. A technical assistant with the German development agency (GTZ), Pascal Mwema, said the meeting was organised so that people who rescued others during the Genocide could encourage the young to live together in harmony. We need the young to know that they don’t need to be extraordinary in order to save a life, he said. We believe such role models, however few they are, can inspire the young generation to perform heroic and nation-building deeds. It does not mean that you do good things only in tough situations like the Genocide, but even during peaceful times like now, he added. Ends
