Since 2019, the Legislative Assembly of Queensland, Australia, annually welcomes the event of ‘Rwandan Genocide Commemoration’, organized by the so-called Rwandan Association of Queensland Inc (RAQ), a group openly propagating the double genocide theory, a form of genocide denial.

 

This year is no different.

 

The Queensland Parliamentary hall is expected to hold this same event, on April 22, which is in itself a form of denial and revisionism of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

 

On top of that, it is now custom that this group of individuals together with some Australian lawmakers, commemorate what they call a “Rwandan genocide’, and have adamantly refused to use the correct, and universally acknowledged, terminology, “the genocide against the Tutsi”. Rwandans around the world, including members of Ibuka, the umbrella of genocide survivors’ associations, have petitioned the Speaker of the Australian Parliament, urging him not to give a platform to these Genocide deniers.

 

The numerous requests got the answer that the Parliament House is accessible to every Australian citizen if a Member of Parliament supports them.

 

 It is absurd that, year after year, Australia continues be a bystander to Genocide denial, and offers its parliament premises as a platform for people who are clearly advancing the double genocide ideology, and sowing division among Rwandans in Australia.

 

As reported before, a closer look at the people behind organizing this annual event, shows that they are; Genocide fugitives, and their offsprings, who are hiding under RAQ. Theogene Ngabo, president of RAQ, is believed to be the MRCD-FLN representative in Australia, running errands for a splinter group of the DRC-based genocidal FDLR militia. He is alleged to have committed Genocide atrocities in the former Muvumba Commune, in Byumba, now Gicumbi District.

 

The FDLR was formed, in DRC, by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. It has members abroad, including in Australia. Contrary to uninformed analysts - and the militia’s backers in Kinshasa,  the DRC capital, and elsewhere - who say that FDLR was diminished, it is still a security and ideological threat, until it is completely disarmed and demobilised.

 

In a 2019-night attack on northern Rwanda, FDLR killed 19 innocent Rwandan citizens.

 

Weeks before Rwanda hosted the June 2022 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, or CHOGM, the FDLR militia shelled into Rwanda, with weapon systems they could only have acquired in very recent times. That, certainly, is not evidence of FDLR being diminished.

 

Regrettably, sympathizers of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in and so-called experts from the Western are openly defending the genocidaires, blessing their negationism, and, with no shame, distorting Rwanda's history and daring to justify what is unjustifiable.

 

Rwanda has chosen the path of truth, justice, and reconciliation, but this path does not mean that perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, or the deniers of the Genocide against the Tutsi, should go without answering for their crimes. There should be no safe haven for genocidaires and deniers. Genocidaires must answer for their crimes against humanity, their crimes against the Tutsi.

 

Australia should not allow them to escape justice and continue to haunt Rwandans now living abroad in countries that gave them a new start.

 

Another example is Amiel Nubaha, the former president of the association, is the son of Frodouard Rukeshangabo, a former education inspector in Rwanda nicknamed “trophy hunter” for his enthusiasm in hunting down, directing the mass murders and torture of the Tutsi during the Genocide, in Eastern Province. In absentia, his father was sentenced to 30 years in prison by the Gacaca courts. Nubaha and his father are active members of RAQ in Australia.

 

The fact that the Australian government is letting Genocide fugitives roam free in their country is a story for another day. But letting these genocide suspects, deniers and anti-Rwanda subversive groups advance their lies in the Australian Parliament for more than five years in a row, is unacceptable.

 

Australian authorities and lawmakers are betraying Rwandans and the entire world, with the simple fact that they continue to allow this to go on for so long. It is not only an insult to the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi – by denying their suffering. It is also a message of encouragement to the criminals who perpetuate genocide denial, as well as genocide ideology.

 

The Australian government needs to recognise that the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi is a fact of history and represents one of the most appalling crimes against humanity committed in the course of history.

 

The Australian government, and especially the legislature, aught to know that denial is the final stage of Genocide.

 

 Australian lawmakers and other politicians need to know that genocide denial is as much an offence as the Genocide itself.

 

Deniers of the Genocide against Tutsi are mainly outside of Rwanda in places where denial is not a penal offence. Despite the Genocide against the Tutsi being stopped in 1994, many fugitives from the former Rwandan genocidal government, army, militias, and other groups fled to neighboring countries such as DRC, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania as well as far off in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and beyond, where they continue, till this day, to spread Genocide ideology, genocide denial and hatred against the Tutsi. Some found a safe haven in parts of Australia.

 

The Australian government needs to acknowledge the importance of empathy and accuracy in countering genocide denial ideologies and hate speech that often arise in discussions surrounding the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Genocide denial and related dangerous narratives are harmful. They lead to violence.

 

Australian politicians and citizens should all stand up to it.

 

They should not classify genocide denial as free speech, because it is not.

 

In many Western countries, Holocaust denial is a crime.

 

The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda should have the same protections.

 

Genocide denial is always connected to the perpetrators and ideologues of the Genocide.

 

All of humanity, including Australians, should be on guard.