{“Ibuka ! Ibuka ! Ntukibagirwe n’agato…” “Remember !Remember!Don’t forget for a moment…”}
The words of the Tutsi Genocide survivors’ remembrance song resound in the dry air on a hill in Bisesero. On this day of June 2014, we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the massacre.
A large crowd has gathered for the occasion, some taking shelter in the shade of the massive trees, some standing under the blazing sun, some seated on plastic chairs and the ground.
Dressed in beautiful outfits reserved for great occasions, their elegance conveys a particular dignity. Their impassive faces harbour contained emotion. French youths and their European and Rwandan counterparts have humbly come together to burry the remains of some victims, 20 years after the Genocide against the Tutsi. Standing next to the decorated coffins, young people chant in Kinyarwanda as the crowd listens respectfully. Out of modesty or respect for the foreigners, nobody dares to express their incredulity. And yet…
“Is everything here real?”
“Ya minsi y’amarira, Amajoro y’amaganya..” “The nights of tears, the nights of distress”
“The French” are back, but this time to commemorate the Genocide and pay homage to almost 50,000 victims who perished in this very place in 1994.
Twenty years ago, the French were there with their military fatigues and weapons. Alerted by the village nuns, they went to seek Tutsi hidden on the high hills of Bisesero. What they found there were young men looking like old men—ragged, starving, wounded and terrorised.
The latter recounted the massacres, the fear and the death which loomed under the regular strikes by the militia surrounding the hill.
The French soldiers crossed paths with the perpetrators of the Genocide, those perpetrators who had greeted them as allies and who were proudly recounting the most atrocious of their executions.
Faced with this situation of vital urgency, these soldiers sent by France as part of Operation “Turquoise”—a humanitarian mission by the then French government ‘obeyed their orders’ and abandoned the survivors to an inevitable death. The orders were indeed not to save their lives, but to cover the retreat of France’s allies, the perpetrators.
In June 2014, the French youth and their European friends participated in the burial of the bodies of some of the “survivors” found on the hill. They are also paying homage to the soldiers who disobeyed orders to come back to Bisesero and save the Tutsi from death.
“Ya mivu y’amaraso, Ubwo abacu bashiraga…” “The blood flowed, when our own were exterminated…”
When speaking the same language, one of dignity; when living by the same values, those of human rights; when sharing the same priority, that of truth, the youth of Rwanda, France and Europe show the need to create a shared future, in spite of a historical heritage so heavy that it could be paralysing.
The realisation of hope, the construction of this “Imbere heza”, of a shared future is now possible due to the involvement of the youth. The French youth are now at the frontline, urging us to demand “The Truth” concerning the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.
The “Truth, Right Now” demands that the French political leaders come out to explain what happened. Numerous undeniable facts reveal the extent of collaboration of certain Frenchmen, at the highest level of state apparatus, with the Rwandan perpetrators, before, during and after the Genocide.
The Rwandan survivors need to hear the truth spoken by France, a nation whose voice still resonates in a particular way in Rwanda. It is a moral debt that should be paid. We mustn’t imitate the Turkish State, which still denies the genocide against the Armenians, 100 years down the road.
Moreover, numerous French and Rwandan officials accused of participating in the Genocide continue to live in France in perfect impunity, just like the many people responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in former Yugoslavia. Human Rights and the Rule of Law are being undermined. We are confident the French justice system will act in a decisive manner.
“The Truth, Right Now”, equally means opening the archives so that historians can work unhindered.
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It also means creating a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission to ensure that French institutions, and notably political organisations, can profoundly understand their role and work on their identity. It will ensure that past indiscipline is not covered up by public silence, and that it is never repeated. Belgium, where such a Commission was put in place 17 years ago, offers us a clear example of a society that knew how to examine its past with lucidity and courage.
The findings of the Parliamentary Information Mission of 1998 in France were real but too weak; their effects on society were too insignificant; their consequences for those responsible officials were shamefully inexistent. In short, the findings were thoroughly unsatisfactory. This Inquiry Commission is a sane democratic act and after twenty years it is of utmost urgency.
“The Truth, Right Now!” also means passing on the memory of this crime against humanity—the Genocide against the Tutsi—to young generations, either through formal or informal education.
This education requires a more comprehensive history for school curricula, as well as memorials, particularly one, worthy of the name, in Paris, but also everywhere in Europe. Only by such measures as these will current and future generations achieve lucidity and vigilance.
And finally, “The Truth, Right Now!” is a commitment: a commitment not to leave the survivors alone; a commitment that France will not be absent from official commemorations any longer.
These practices are acts of friendship between individuals and peoples. This is why, on April 7, 2015, we will join Rwandans once again to commemorate the Genocide.
May those concerned respond to the demands we share, as if they themselves had stood on the wooded hill of Bisesero staring at the dignified, calm and resolute face of the youth of Rwanda, France and Europe, and listening to the chants of memory. That day we saw the face of the future. “…Ibuka!”
{This is a joint article by Benjamin Abtan, President of the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement; Jean de Dieu Mirindi, National Coordinator of the Association of the Genocide Surviving Students; Laura Slimani, president of the Young Socialists; Laura Chatel, Federal Secretary of the Young Ecologists; Lucas Nédélec, Federal Secretary of the Young Ecologists; Charles Habonimna, president of the Alumni Student Genocide Survivors (Rwanda); Géraldine Guilpan, president of the Young Radical Leftists; Nordine Idir, Secretary General of the Young Communists of France; Yannick Piquet, Vice-President of the Movement of Young Belgian Socialists (Belgium); Dominique Sopo, president of SOS Racisme; Marian Mandache, Executive Director of Romani Criss (Romania); Sacha Reingewirtz, president of the French Jewish Student Union; Djordje Bojovic, spokeperson of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (Serbia); Marcel Kabanda, President of the Ibuka-France; Levent Sensever, spokesperson for Durde (“Say no to racism and nationalism) (Turkey); William Martinet, president of the French National Student Union; Corentin Durand, president of the National High-School Union and Sonia Aïchi, president of the Independent and Democratic High-School Federation.{{}}}
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