Kigali, 10 Mai 2007 (FH) – Ibuka, the leading Rwandan organization of survivors of the 1944 genocide, launched sharp criticisms of the census of the rescapés, survivors, organized in all of the country by the ministry for the Local Administration, Good Governance and Social Affairs.
This census, which started on the following day of the 13th anniversary of the genocide, aims notably to equip the country with reliable data on the situation of the rescapés in order to better direct the activities of assistance
According to Naphtal Ahishakiye, chief of the Department of Memory within Ibuka, "all is in place" to arrive at results which do not correspond to reality. "We are ready to challenge them before it is too late", declared Mr. Ahishakiye in an interview with the Hirondelle agency
"The census sheet is full of errors, the questionnaire requires a certain educational level and a certain degree of confidence and intimacy to administer it", he argues. "The forced voluntary help of the investigators leads to carelessness; the population was not informed and, worse still, the investigators were not trained ", deplores the representative of Ibuka.
He worries, furthermore, that false rescapés might corrupt the census takers to be registered with an aim of profiting later from assistance. "It is not astonishing to think that we will soon be nearly 4 million rescapés", he joked.
And yet, he says, Ibuka had submitted to the ministry concerned a project, of a total cost of 400 million Rwandan francs, which envisaged, in particular, the training and the payment of the census takers.
This project, moreover, recommended the recruitment of the investigators among the rescapés themselves, in order to support the proximity and confidence, still according to the Ibuka representative.
During the 13th official commemoration of the genocide, on 7 April, President Paul Kagame asked for reliable data on the neediest survivors.
There currently exists a fund to assist the neediest survivors (Fonds d’assistance aux rescapés du génocide, FARG) but whose management has always been criticized by the survivors as well as by the highest authorities, including President Kagame.
ER/PB/MM© Hirondelle News Agency