Minister Jean Damascene Bizimana (Middle)P and other panelists during the conference
Senegalese community this week joined the Rwandan community in Senegal, leaders of Ibuka, the umbrella of Genocide Survivors’ Association for an International conference on Genocide.
The conference was attended by more than 300 people including university students, friends of Rwanda and Rwandan community in Senegal at large.
It reflected on Rwanda’s history from colonialism to date and how hatred inculcated among the citizens by bad leadership grew over time to escalate to the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi where over one million innocent Tutsi were massacred.
Prof. Boubacar Boris DIOP, a Senegalese author interested in Rwanda with a book, ‘Murambi, le Livre des ossements’, also took the audience through Rwanda’s incidents from 1959 when extremist Hutu started killing their Tutsi compatriots.
The killings continued through the first and second republics, and culminated to the Genocide. With the latter, he elaborated on the savagery of the Genocide in Murambi, where more than 50,000 Tutsi had found refuge at a technical school that was under construction.
They were killed mercilessly in front of French peacekeepers.
Adama DIENG, former deputy Secretary General of the United Nations reminded that the UN was on several occasions warned about the happening of the Genocide in Rwanda but took no action.
Equally, Gen. Babacar FAYE and Col. Mamadou Adje who were part of the UN peacekeepers in Rwanda around and during the Genocide, said that there were substantial evidences that the Genocide was being prepared, with the training of Interahamwe militia, the key machinery of the Genocide.
Meanwhile, Rwanda’s Minister of Unity and Civic Engagement Dr. Jean Damascene Bizimana shared Rwanda’s recovery journey and the unity and resilience of the community.
Community justice-Gacaca, he said, played a vital role in this process.
