Rwanda commemorates 30 years of the Tutsi genocide (READ MORE)

Several dozen official delegations are expected alongside President Paul Kagame this morning, to light the flame of the Gisozi national memorial where nearly 250,000 victims of the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis are buried. A symbolic flame which marks the launch of this 30th anniversary and an entire day devoted to mourning and contemplation.

Official ceremony and speeches, from the government and the Rwandan head of state at the BK Arena stadium in the morning, large march of remembrance in the afternoon, returning after four years of reduced commemorations during Covid-19. In the evening, a vigil, in tribute to the more than 800,000 Tutsis killed from April to June 1994.

This April 6 will mark the start of a period of nearly 100 days of commemorations, punctuated by other ceremonies on the anniversary dates of the various massacres perpetrated during the three months of genocide.

Among the leaders expected in large numbers, the African continent is largely represented since at least seven heads of state and government have already arrived. Among them, the Congolese Denis Sassou-Nguesso and the South African Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as representatives of regional institutions, the Mauritanian head of state Mohamed ould Ghazouani for the African Union and the South Sudanese Salvaa Kiir for the Community of ‘East Africa. However, no delegation is expected from Kinshasa, due to the very tense context with Kigali linked to the crisis in eastern DRC.

Outside the continent, former US President Bill Clinton, in office in 1994, will head the US delegation. His administration had for a long time refused to use the term “genocide”. Visiting Kigali, four years after the events in 1998, he expressed his regrets about the blindness of the international community.

Podcast to listen to againRwanda: from the Revolution to the beginnings of the Tutsi genocide

Two days after the Élysée’s declaration that France and its allies could have “stopped the genocide” but “did not have the will”, Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné met his Rwandan counterpart Vincent Biruta this Saturday evening. In a short statement, the head of French diplomacy affirmed alongside him “want to demonstrate the trust and friendship rediscovered between the two countries”. “Reconciliation is a long journey that requires deep and sincere introspection on the part of everyone” and “requires us to put words to our responsibilities,” he said.

After their meeting, the ministers signed two bilateral agreements: one on air services between the two countries and the other a declaration of commitment of 400 million euros for Rwanda over the next five years dedicated to the air transport sector. health, training and the environment.

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In 1994, between 800,000 and a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in less than a hundred days in the last genocide of the 20th century. Today, three decades later, nearly 65% of the population is under 30 years old. Born after the genocide, some young people get involved in preparations for commemorations, such as at the Musanzé memorial, in the northern province of the country.

A shirt, a torn dress, pants. Surrounded by around ten other young students, Mireille Ingabire, 20, takes out clothes one by one piled up in large bags. “We are sorting the clothes of the people who were killed here at the memorial. I myself see the horror through these clothes of the victims of the genocide… “I see that there are young people who were my age, adults, children who perished during the genocide,” she says.

In total, more than 800 people were killed in this former appeal court in the town of Musanze. Shovels in hand, the young people dig the earth in front of this brand new memorial, to install plants before the commemoration period. Among them, Steven Gisa, 23 years old, child of a survivor. “The genocide took away many members of my family,” she explains. I have no aunt, uncle or grandparent. When young people my age go on vacation to their aunts or grandparents, I wonder why I can’t. But it’s the story that put me in this situation. You have to accept it, that’s how it is. »

For the young student, 30 years later and with the aging of those who experienced the genocide, it is now the turn of his generation to take over, in the work of memory and transmission.

This is precisely what psychotherapist Émilienne Mukansoro is trying to do in her village of Mushubati, on the heights of Lake Kivu. She has companion of numerous groups, women, young people, survivors or not, particularly on questions of memory and transmission between generations. A difficult transmission for the generations who experienced the genocide.

In her workshop room, downstairs from her family home, Leoncie, a 65-year-old survivor, questions the silence she kept for a long time with her children and grandchildren: “What pushed us not to telling our story to our children is because we were hurt by the trauma of the genocide. But I realized that we older people have failed with our children, with our grandchildren, we have failed. »

Stay silent to protect the youngest from the truth, a strategy that psychotherapist Émilienne Mukansoro has often observed. “But silence doesn’t stop transmission, it doesn’t stop young people from absorbing things. »

A silence sometimes broken by young people who seek to know their past, listening to conversations behind doors and windows, to gather scraps of truth about their family’s history. A necessary truth to tell for Émilienne. “Children and young people need to ask questions of their elders, and they have a duty to answer, not to leave them in something abstract. And I tell myself that this is where young people will draw the strength to continue their lives. »