On October 7, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, along with a UN Security Council (UNSC) delegation that included its current president, Ambassador Agshin Mehdiyev, paid tribute to the more than 250,000 people buried at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. Recalling how the United Nations failed to prevent the genocide in 1994, Ambassador Power could not hold back her tears.
watch the video below (credits to AEGIS Trust)
Speaking at the memorial, Ambassador Power expressed remorse and sympathy to Rwandans, and presumably to survivors. She restated the international community’s commitment to stand with Rwandans as they recover from the genocide.
This may sound promising to some Rwandans. But for an ordinary survivor living in the hills and facing the consequences of the genocide every day, even sincere statements like this can sound like diplomatic rhetoric at best and an empty gesture at worst. Something beyond remorse is needed.
The United Nations failed to prevent or stop the genocide in 1994, and almost 20 years on, it is still doing next to nothing to ease its continuing effects on survivors’ lives. One of the best ways to fix this and give survivors hope is to honor the UN’s own resolutions calling for assistance to survivors of the genocide against Tutsi and by establishing a dedicated UN or Voluntary Trust Fund for Survivors of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda.
In fact, the United Nations General Assembly has consecutively issued resolutions calling for UN agencies to provide support for survivors, but those calls have largely been ignored. Resolution 59/137 in 2004 called for “Assistance to Survivors of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda” and has been readopted at consecutive General Assemblies, including most recently in December 2011 withResolution66/228 calling for “the Secretary-General to continue to encourage the relevant agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations to implement resolution 59/137 expeditiously, inter alia, by providing assistance in the areas of medical care and treatment for victims of rape, including HIV-positive victims, trauma and psychological counselling, and skills training and microcredit programmes aimed at promoting self-sufficiency and alleviating poverty.” To date, the resolution has not been meaningfully honored. In fact, there is no framework for restorative justice for genocide survivors, either in Rwanda or internationally.
With the support of influential figures like Ambassador Samantha Power and the current members of the UN Security Council, there is a unique chance to show real sympathy to survivors by addressing reparations and setting up an explicit form of restorative justice for survivors to be prioritised through funding from agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations, or through the support of the international community through other means. Such support would send a tangible message that something beyond remorse is underway, and that the lasting effects of the genocide on survivors and on Rwanda have not been forgotten.
By Albert Gasake
Related articles
- Reflection on “I have a dream” speech 50 -year-anniversary (justicetosurvivors.wordpress.com)
- https://justice-survivors.com/2013/04/10/a-snapshot-on-a-possible-international-trust-fund-for-the-survivors-of-the-genocide-against-the-tutsi-in-rwanda/
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