As Rwanda prepares to mark the 30th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, senators have said the role of researchers and scholars will be critical in conserving the history of the Genocide, and fighting genocide ideology and revisionism.
This was said during a consultative meeting of senators and researchers and scholars at the Parliament on Tuesday, March 19.
The scholars and researchers were invited for the consultations because they play a critical role in documenting the history of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, fighting its revisionism and denial as well as combating genocide ideology, said Senate President François Xavier Kalinda as he opened the consultative meeting.
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"The Senate appreciates that your ideas are critical in the battle against genocide ideology that continues to rise in neighbouring countries," Kalinda said, adding that perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi were still being protected and supported by countries within the region and beyond.
"This is caused by Rwandans who committed the Genocide, who have fled to these countries and solicited support from other people in their revisionism and denial of the Genocide against the Tutsi," he said.
"Your ideas will help the Senate to fulfil its responsibilities, especially the responsibility to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, to fight denial and revisionism of genocide and uproot genocide ideology and all its manifestations as well as the fighting ethnic, regional and other forms of segregation and discrimination."
The role of research is therefore pivotal in combating the ideas of people seeking to revise the Genocide against the Tutsi and preventing the spread of genocide ideology.
Research is a critical weapon in that battle," he said, adding that the meeting would also identify existing challenges in conducting and communicating research findings.
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Emmanuel Hakizimana, a research analyst in the Ministry of Unity and Civic Engagement, said that although the history of the Genocide against the Tutsi has been documented in most parts of the country, some parts and aspects still needed to be studied further.
"Research about the history of the Genocide against the Tutsi has been conducted in 16 out of 30 districts and the results published. With research, we want to understand the history based on facts and evidence.
To establish these facts, we rely primarily on official documents and any other documents that contain information about the lives of Rwandans from the kingdom, through the first and second republics and the preparation of the Genocide," Hakizimana said, adding that the Ministry has begun digitally archiving the documents.
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"In understanding how the Genocide against the Tutsi was perpetrated, research helps us to understand the role of the Rwandan society. It has been established that for instance when we explain the history of the Genocide to the young generation, they tend to think that young people and children did not play a role in the Genocide against the Tutsi," Hakizimana noted.
"But research has shown that there were groups of children that were used to hunt for targeted people. Even women played a role in the Genocide, as well as foreigners."
Challenges
The researchers and scholars highlighted that although more aspects about history of the Genocide and its consequences need to be studied, there were still challenges holding back their work, including financial and accessibility issues.
Prof Vincent Sezibera, a clinical psychologist who heads the Centre for Mental Health at the University of Rwanda says one of the least understood consequences of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi was the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which affects survivors.
"Trauma or PTSD is not peculiar only to Genocide survivors; even survivors of a car accident or natural disasters suffer from PTSD. The effects of the Genocide against the Tutsi on a person's mental health, for instance, goes beyond that because the person might have suffered and narrowly survived, but also lost his or her loved ones," Sezibera said.
"We need to understand how that person lives with the trauma they faced in addition to the loss of loved ones," he said, adding that more research was needed to study the psychological impacts of the Genocide.
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Assoc Prof Etienne Ruvebana, a scholar in international criminal law, who has written extensively about justice in post-Genocide Rwanda, said that despite the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi being "a fact of common knowledge," one of the challenges remains that even within the intellectual community, there were scholars who seek to deny and revise that part of history.
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Ruvebana and Sezibera said scholars such as Belgian law professor Filip Reyntjens and American lawyer Peter Erlinder, chose to revise history of the Genocide against the Tutsi despite being academics.
Another challenge, Ruvebana noted, was that even as a growing number of Rwandan scholars and researchers have published works that have received critical acclaim, these remained hardly accessible to the Rwandan public.
"What we have done in research is not communicated primarily to those who need to know it," Ruvebana said, adding that a notable number of research publications by Rwandans, which are recognised in international universities, are unavailable in Rwandan libraries.
Yes, everyone should know about the history of the Genocide against the Tutsi, but Rwandans should be the primary consumers of that knowledge."
Senator Jean-Pierre Dusingizemungu said that even that research that is available in Rwanda was written in foreign languages, which makes it hard for the general Rwandan public to understand its content.
