At this genocide commemoration event in western Rwanda, remains of some 1,098 newly exhumed victims were laid to rest
IBUKA – the umbrella grouping of Genocide survivors associations is piling pressure on the Rwandan government to put its weight behind a global fund to support the survivors of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi.
The grouping wants what it has already branded as an ‘International Trust Fund for Survivors’. The chair of IBUKA says the obvious sources of the money for the fund should come from the United Nations, France and sale of fugitives’ property.
“The state of Rwanda should also be ready to put money in the fund because the state machinery was used to plan and execute the genocide,” said Prof Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu.
“Why not sell-off the houses of Felicien Kabuga,” added Dusingizemungu at a genocide commemoration event last week in Huye district, southern Rwanda. He was referring to the fugitive billionaire businessman accused to be the man who procured all the crude weapons used by genocide militia to exterminate Tutsis.
For years, he remains on the United States most wanted list with a $5m bounty. Despite various leads, he has stayed off the arrest radar.
Currently, the government of Rwanda puts some 5 percent of the national budget into the Genocide Survivors’ Support Fund (FARG in French acronyms). Government figures show it has spent over Rwf 190 billion from 1998 to 2015 to support Genocide survivors under FARG.
What is different with the fund that IBUKA is calling for? They want the International Trust Fund for Survivors to benefit all survivors – whether they are poor or wealthy.
“The Trust Fund should be seen as reparations for the survivors – which is legitimate,” said IBUKA chair.
