Ottawa Citizen
April 6, 2005 Wednesday
Final Edition

Rwanda’s sad chapter remembered

by Jennifer Campbell, The Ottawa Citizen

It’s been 11 years since the Rwandan genocide, and only now are the
images of terror reaching wide audiences through films such as Hotel
Rwanda and books such as Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil.

Rwandan Ambassador Eugene Munyakayanza will be front and centre this
week, as his embassy kicks off the 11th commemoration of the 1994
genocide. Mr. Munyakayanza, who arrived in Ottawa in November, was an
educator in Rwanda in 1994 when the militia group known as
Interahamwe began a killing rampage that, in three months, left
800,000 bodies in its wake. Mr. Munyakayanza said he was powerless
during the genocide, adding that he, too, lost “many family members.”

“People were complete animals,” he said. “People lost their friends,
their brothers. It was a denial for human rights.”

Mr. Munyakayanza said the commemoration ceremony is important because
humanity has told itself “never again” too many times. He pointed out
that the phrase was uttered in 1915 after the Armenian genocide and
again in 1945 after the Jewish Holocaust.

“Those were followed by genocide in Rwanda,” he said, adding that the
international community must be made aware of the power of
intervention, a message so frequently and fervently put forward by
Canada’s Lt.-Gen. Dallaire.

“It is also important that the Canadian community be made aware of
the needs of the victims of the genocide,” Mr. Munyakayanza said,
“but also the needs of Rwanda to heal the wounds of the genocide.”

The commemoration, called “Remembering and combatting genocide
ideology in and outside Rwanda,” starts tomorrow at noon with an
opening ceremony at the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill.
Following bagpipes and a moment of silence, MP Don Boudria and the
ambassador will give speeches. A representative from HUMURA, an
organization that helps genocide survivors, will also speak.

That evening, at Saint Paul University (6:30 in the amphitheatre, 223
Main St.), Francoise Nduwimana, a human rights and international
development lecturer at the Universite du Quebec in the Outaouais,
will speak on the crimes committed against women, the “forgotten
victims” of the genocide.

Friday from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., a traditional Rwandan mourning ceremony
will be held at Pere Arthur Guertin Community Centre (16 Beriault St.
in Gatineau). The event will pay tribute to the victims of the
genocide through testimonies, songs and poems. Saturday’s program (at
Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington St.) is from 12:45 p.m.
until 7 p.m. Lt.-Gen. Dallaire will speak at 3 p.m. The nine-day
commemoration ends April 16 with a closing ceremony at the Maison du
Citoyen (25 Laurier St., Gatineau). The former president of AVEGA,
the Association of Genocide Widows Agahozo in Rwanda, will speak at 4
p.m.