RPP: The Remembrance of the 18th Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide

(GOTHENBURG, Sweden) - Fellow Rwandan and friends of Rwanda today is 18 years since the 1994 genocide that visited our country and people.

This is not a week for a political statement but for the Rwandan people to display unreservedly their unified strong stand in denouncing the grim horror of the 90 days of relentless and inexorable attacks and assaults that was inflicted on our country and people. One million people, all innocent, the defenseless and downtrodden were brutally murdered by the government that was supposed to protect them.

Today, we join millions of Rwandan people at home and in the diaspora and friends of Rwanda all over the world, especially the genocide survivors during this sad week in remembrance of the 18th anniversary of the infamous genocide committed against Tutsi people by a cruel and fascist regime.

We affirm our position, which is that the cold blooded murder of our people and the loved ones they left behind shall always be remembered and is permanently ingrained in the collective conscience of the Rwandan people and of the entire civilised world.

We take note and acknowledge that many moderate Hutus civilians who were trying to protect their Tutsi neighbours were also victims and we deeply feel their pain and sorrow during this week.

The genocide of 1994 should be a lesson for each and every Rwandan to learn from in order to ensure that it will never and never happen again in Rwanda or elsewhere in the world.

Thank you,

John V Karuranga, President
Rwanda People’s Party
FB: Rwanda Peoples Party
www.rwandapeopleparty.org
Email: rppimvura@yahoo.com

Submitted by: Jennifer Fierberg, MSW; a correspondent, Assistant Editor, and Volunteer Coordinator for NGO News Africa through the volunteer project of the UN. and Salem-News.com. Jennifer is also the media co-coordinator and senior funding executive for The Africa Global Village (www.africaglobalvillage.com)

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Ralph E. Stone April 7, 2012 7:18 am (Pacific time)

I agree that the 1 million who died in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide should be remembered. But it is also time to dispel the myth used by Rwanda President Paul Kagame about the Genocide and the role played by the U.S. leading up to the genocide. Yes, the 1994 Genocide was horrible, but it was just one episode in a long history of violence in that part of the world. The U.S. and Kagame keep focusing on the 1994 Genocide, but neglect to put it in context. If they did, their complicity in the genocide would be revealed. For a version of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide closer to the truth, I recommend the Report of the Independent Inquiry into the United Nations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, dated December 15, 1999. Kagame's government has maintained political power and manipulated public sympathy by promoting a highly politicized ideology of the 1994 Genocide. Anyone who challenges the official story is branded a "genocide negationist," a "genocide revisionist," or "killers of remembrance" by the Kagame regime. Even the Genocide Memorial Centre, which my wife and I visited in 2004, promotes his version of the Genocide. See my April 10, 2011 Salem-News article "Kagame's Rwanda: Myth and Reality"

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