21.03.07 - GENOCIDE/ANNIVERSARY - IBUKA WILL BEGIN COMMEMORATION OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE

Arusha, March 21, 2007 (FH) - Starting Friday, the Rwandan association ibuka (remember), principal organization of survivors of the 1994 genocide, will organize in Europe a series of rallies to commemorate the anniversary of the start of the genocide on April 7. The 13th commemoration will start by a conference at the Belgian Senate. Organized in collaboration with Senator Pierre Galand, the theme will be “Repression of Genocide Denial and Reparation – Issues and Perspectives,” the organization indicated on its website. “Very few concrete actions for punishment have been undertaken in favour of survivors of the genocide who suffer from multiple consequences of the genocide through negating discourse trivializing the gravity of the crimes,” deplores Ibuka, as an introduction. After the address by the president of the Belgian senate, Mrs. Anne-Marie Lizin, numerous speakers follow, including Senator Alain Destexhe who will speak on the “role of politics and politicians in reparation and the fight against denial.” Former Secretary-General of Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), Destexhe has also been involved in the same vein in crises in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda. Elected senator in 1995, he initiated the Special Commission of the Belgian Senate on the events in Rwanda in 1994 and was the secretary. The following Friday, the commemoration will move to Paris for an “International European Colloquium on the Survivors of the Genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.” Among the scheduled appearances are the French journalist Patrick de Saint Exupery who will evoke “the obstacles to recognition in France of the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.” A reporter in Rwanda during the acts for the french daily Le Figaro, Saint Exupery, in his book, “Confidential: France in Rwanda,” published 10 years after, criticizes the attitude of the French government at the time of the Tutsi genocide and insists on the responsibilities of the French government. Ibuka’s president will decry, for his part, “the precarious situation” of survivors “13 years after the genocide.” In Rwanda, numerous rallies are also planned. The main ceremony, which is traditionally marked by an important speech by the head of state, will take place in Maurambi, in the southern province. ER/PB/KD © Hirondelle News Agency