Kigali Memorial Centre

July 5, 2010

with contributions from International Participants

The visit to the genocide memorial was an emotional and difficult experience for most of the LAC participants, both international and Rwandan. The tour began with us seeing the mass graves one of which remains open for the public to view, after which we went into the museum building which houses three exhibits. The main room carries a detailed display on the background leading up to the genocide, the atrocities carried out during the genocide, and then a section on the aftermath. There is also a section focused on children during the Rwandan genocide and the final section documents other instances of ‘violence against humanity’ in the international arena.  For many, the hardest part was the children’s exhibit; there was a series of pictures with details of each child such as name, hobby, favorite food and the last item on each list was the way they died.

After the visit we had a debriefing and discussion which raised a lot of interesting issues about the memorial itself as well as topics concerning reconciliation in Rwanda post-genocide. Most of the international participants of GYC appreciated the comprehensive nature of the exhibits and the detailed historical background it provided; however, this raised questions about how the genocide was addressed in Rwandan schools. The Rwandese participants were able to inform us that in secondary schools the genocide is taught in history classes, and in universities there are optional lectures and clubs focusing on reconciliation. However, we remained unsure on the depth of teaching in primary schools. The discussion brought to surface issues surrounding reconciliation; though the law prohibits discussion of ethnicity the underlying tension still exists according to many Rwandans in the group. One participant mentioned that many Tutsis feel that the government is almost forcing them to excuse the Hutu perpetrators, while many relatives of perpetrators remain silent because they feel ashamed of their past.  We discussed how these issues are represented in the Media in the West and that the way they are written about is usually sensational (such as this New York Times article about the National University of Butare students). While the NY Times article was talking about a legitimate subject, it did so in a sensationalistic way, saying that tensions ‘lurked’. The Rwandans in the room acknowledged that some families do not allow their children to marry people from the other groups, but we also know that some youth are persevering to get married to the person they love regardless of their group, even if it means having a wedding with only 25 people attending (normal weddings have upwards of 800 people in Rwanda).

We concluded the debriefing session by discussing what we could do to prevent future genocides and singing ‘Never Again,’ a song written by a group of East African artists to commemorate the 15^th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.