RESIRG message at the 29th Commemoration of the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi in Rwanda

• International Research and Genocide Network (RESIRG) commemorates the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi in Rwanda, calling the public to enforce ‘Never Again.’

 April 7, 1994 – April 7, 2023. The worst of the worst has happened, the unnameable, the inexpressible, the unspeakable, the unrepresentable. What do we know of this reality brought to the scale of just over a million victims who, before Raphaël LEMKIN, in 1943, had not yet found a name in any language?

29 years of Commemoration of the victims of the genocide, which was perpetrated against the Tutsis of Rwanda, carrying away more than a million Tutsis: from the oldest to the youngest, and up to those fetuses who will never see the sun… And we would be asked to forget.

“Who remembers the Armenians? Adolf HITLER is said to have uttered on August 22, 1939, on the eve of the irreparable disaster that will have taken away six million Jews. To those who would be tempted to forget, or who are already stricken with amnesia, even aphasia, Elie WIESEL challenges, not only survivors or survivors, but all of humanity: “The executioner kills twice: the first time by the sword, the second time by oblivion. »

This year, the commemoration of April 7 comes at a time when the harbingers of genocide are appearing in a country neighboring Rwanda, as if the “Never again”, proclaimed in the aftermath of the Holocaust, was futile or utopian…

In our press release of December 19, 2022, we launched a most urgent appeal, an interpellation, in the context of a civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Emanating from both official and public authorities, hate speech and calls for violence to the stigmatization of Congolese Rwandophone Tutsis and the demolition of symbols, such as temples mainly attributed to said Tutsis.

The modus operandi here recalls the hypothesis of John GREGORY STANTON, a hypothesis which is broken down into 10 stages: classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, persecution, project of extermination, denial of the genocide. With obvious impunity, incitement to hatred and ethnic cleansing is relayed by social media, which have a field day, because they are implicitly or explicitly supported by the highest authorities in the country.

History shows us that the international community has, unfortunately, in the past largely ignored such appeals, until the worst has come. There is a risk, here too, of late intervention. But later might be too late.

However, the United Nations, as well as certain Governments and Organizations, have developed so-called “early warning” mechanisms, based, in particular, on observers in the field, to intervene in good time, with legal means, both humanitarian and military. We hope that the UN, which has designated April 7 as the “International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda”, is already drawing lessons from the past and not passively assisting in the development of mass killings, as it did for the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda.

Taking the full measure of its mission, its goals and its objectives, the International Research and Genocide Network (RESIRG Asbl) plans to carry out research work, not only on the preservation of the memory of the victims of the genocide, but it is also resolved to alert the public to any possibility of genocide, so that the torch of “Never Again” is always lit.:

“The process of dehumanization brought to its conclusion inspires an inexhaustible reflection on the conscience and the dignity of men, because the worst is always possible” (Simone Veil, Speech at l’ONU, January 29, 2007)