World reflects on Genocide

The world community has marked the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in line with the UN General Assembly’s declaration of April 7, as the occasion to recall the bitter lesson of the worst tragedy in recent times, and to celebrate Rwanda’s rebirth as a stable and developing country. For the first time ever, the commemoration saw the call for the establishment of an information and educational outreach programme to “mobilise civil society for Rwanda Genocide victim remembrance and education in order to help prevent future acts of genocide,” said a statement from the UN Information Centre (UNIC) which was received by The New Times.It said similar events were held in Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, which are Rwanda’s partners in the East African Community (EAC). Commemorations were also held in Bangladesh, Belgium, China, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Iran, Madagascar, Mexico, Namibia, South Africa, Switzerland, Ukraine and Zambia. The statement from UNIC could not have come at a better time as Rwandans today mark the culmination of weeklong prayers and reflections on the events that led to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which saw an estimated 1,000,000 people massacred within 100 days between April and July.Also under scrutiny at the international level is the declaration by the United Nations of the Never Again policy in 1994, which was breached barely a year later in 1995, when the Bosnian Serb forces attacked the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica and massacred 8, 000 Muslims in just 10 days as the world watched in horror. It was the worst single crime of the Yugoslav war and the most pointedly reminder that the world community and, indeed, the UN itself, had not fully grasped the lessons of the Genocide against the Tutsi.As part of the ceremony to mark the day, this year, The Book of Life by Odile Gakire Katese, a renowned Rwandan actress, director, writer and cultural entrepreneur, and a former deputy director of the University Centre for Arts and Drama of the National University of Rwanda, was featured at the commemoration event at the UN Headquarters in New York. This year’s theme, Learning from History to Shape a Brighter Future, is a salutary recognition of how far Rwanda has come from the days of the Genocide and it is expected to serve humanity a lot more effectively than the declaration of Never Again. Actors and UN representatives read a selection from a collection of letters after a candle lighting ceremony, giving the sad occasion a truly healing effect. “These letters remind us of an essential truth: that mass atrocities are the accumulation of thousands of individual murders,” said the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, Edward Luck. “For the families of each victim, the legacy of pain and loss will last for generations. But so too will the love and the memories captured so movingly in these letters. As they attest, in the end life does indeed triumph over death.” On his part, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon honoured the victims of the Genocide and stressed that the only way to prevent such atrocities from occurring again is to learn from history. It was a lesson that the UN itself learnt the hard way after it failed to intervene in both the Rwandan and Bosnian tragedies in spite of the warnings.This has seen President Paul Kagame speak out firmly against the atrocities committed against civilians during last year’s chaos in Libya, and his government has also denounced on-going violence in Syria. It is part of the bitter lessons of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, when other nations and the UN looked away hoping that the crisis would run out by itself. It did not and innocent civilians were slaughtered as people of goodwill watched helplessly.“Rwanda has learned from the appalling tragedy of 1994. So has the world and the UN,” Ban said in a video message to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the Genocide. “Rwanda is making progress towards building a more peaceful and just society. The international community is striving to ensure that similar tragedies never happen again.” In his message, Ban highlighted efforts by the international community to strengthen conflict prevention and mediation and to uphold the military principle of Responsibility to Protect. “The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda delivered the first ever verdicts in relation to genocide by an international court, and continues to pursue justice and accountability. The International Criminal Court has become an effective deterrent for would-be perpetrators of grave crimes,” Ban said. “And to those who persist in suppressing their fellow citizens who cry out for dignity and freedom, we send a clear message: justice will be done.”