Rwandan Genocide: Embassy In China Marks 23rd Anniversary

Scores of Rwandans and diplomats attended the event in Beijing on April 7, 2017.

Beginning on April 7, 1994 and lasting 100 days, over a million Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in an unprecedented genocide committed by soldiers and militia loyal to late President Juvenal Habyramana. Habyramana, an ethnic Hutu, was killed in a plane crash in the capital, Kigali, on April 6, 1994, thereby providing an immediate fillip to the pogrom.

To commemorate the 23^rd anniversary of the genocide, the Rwandan Embassy in China on April 7, 2017, organised a ceremony in the capital, Beijing. With the theme, “Remember The Genocide Against The Tutsi. Fight Genocide Ideology, Build On Our Progress,” the event was attended by the Rwandan community in China and diplomats. Rwandan Ambassador, Charles Kayonga, said this year’s theme was appropriate in the face of “revisionist” propaganda to confuse the world as to what actually happened.

“We have the responsibility to share our experience for the world to know and avoid what happened to us,” he noted. He said though the colonial masters divided the people along ethnic lines, if post-independence leaders had fostered unity, genocide would not have taken place. “It is time to remember the dead, honour those who fought the killers and praise the survivors for their forgiveness and doggedness to succeed in life,” Ambassador Kayonga stated. He commended the international community and the Chinese government for standing by the Rwandan government to stabilize the nation.

Some 23 years on, the country has known accelerated development and is contributing to peacekeeping efforts elsewhere in the world, the Ambassador pointed out. “The lesson learnt from the massacres is that th...