Rwanda will this year mark the 22nd Commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi with focus on fighting the extremist ideology.
Commonly known as Kwibuka, the period is an important occasion to remember the lives lost, show solidarity with survivors and unite to ensure that what happened never happens again – in Rwanda or anywhere else.
Kwibuka is also a chance to learn about inspiring stories of reconciliation and nation building.
Speaking Monday on the Kwibuka preparatory activities, the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide, Dr Jean Damascene Bizimana called on Rwandans and friends of Rwanda to partake in the fight against genocide ideology.
“Genocide ideology should be relentlessly fought because Genocide perpetrators and their backers have continued to distort the truth around it,” Dr Bizimana said.
The article 3 of law no 84/2013 of September 11, 2013 punishes the crime of Genocide and other related crimes.
It stipulates that “Genocide ideology shall be any deliberate act, committed in public whether orally, written or video means or by any other means which may show that a person is characterized by ethnic, religious, nationality or racial-based with the aim to advocate for the commission of Genocide and support it.”
Kwibuka means ‘remember’ in Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s language. It describes the annual commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
More than one million Rwandans died in the hundred days of the genocide. It was one of human history’s darkest times.
Twenty two years later, Rwandans ask the world to unite to remember the lives lost and come together to support the survivors of the genocide, and to ensure that such an atrocity can never happen again – in Rwanda or elsewhere.
Kwibuka is a series of events taking place in Rwanda and around the world. These events lead up to the national commemoration of the genocide in Rwanda, which begins on 7 April 2016.
The genocide began on 7 April 1994.
Rwandans will use Kwibuka to learn about Rwanda’s story of reconciliation and nation building.