Bamporiki pointed out that Rwanda has a strong economic legacy

By Elias Hakizimana.

Bamporiki Edouard, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Youth and Culture pointed out that Rwanda has a great opportunity built on its various heritage symbols, urging Rwandans to take care of this heritage and preserve it.

He made the remarks on Thursday at a meeting organized by the National Commission of UNESCO, which was aimed at uniting the Committees for the Monitoring of International Conventions of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Culture and Heritage in Rwanda.

The conventions they were discussing about include the 1954 Convention on the Preservation of Heritage during the War, the 1970s Convention on the Prevention of Trade and the Transfer of Illegal Cultural Heritage, the 1972 Convention on the Protection and Preservation of Heritage and Natural Heritage, the 2003 Convention on the unrealistic cultural heritage and the 2005 convention about the network of cultural symbols.

Bamporiki said it was unfortunate that Rwanda had ratified this convention late because it had taken nearly 40 years.

He said that the same convention was an opportunity of Rwanda to request for registering the memorial sites of the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi to be included in the World Heritage List.

Bamporiki said it was another opportunity to continue to preserve Rwanda’s historical heritage, and called for it to be included in the World Heritage List in order to continue to benefit Rwanda and the world at large.

“These conventions are opening a wide door for Rwanda to enter in UNESCO, it is an economic heritage we were given by our ancestors.” He said.

He added that this legacy is important and must be preserved to benefit the future generations who will remember of what their predecessors left behind.

“We do not think of ourselves who are existing today, Let us think on behalf of the future generations. We need to think of what legacy to register first and the existing barriers to do so.”

Ambassador Robert Masozera, Director-General of the Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy said that they are going to step up efforts to publicize the conventions on heritage that Rwanda has ratified and boost the way these heritages are preserved.

He said that they will even inject more efforts so that Rwanda signs the convention on the legacy which is not yet ratified.

Both natural, historical and cultural Inheritance symbols are the most important economies in different countries of the world both financially and in terms of identifying those countries and their history.

UNESCO has so far registered more than a thousand sites in the World Heritage but Europe and North America dominate with 47% of registered heritages while Africa has only 8%.