27 years after 1994 Genocide, deniers and revisionists tear apart survivors' wounds

At the hospital in Kabgayi, Muhanga District, southwestern Rwanda, a victim bears scars of the 1994 bloodbath. Photo: Gilles Peress, Magnum Photos

April 7, 2021 marks the 27^th commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda where more than one million innocent lives were lost in three months. April 7 was adopted by the UN General Assembly, in 2003, as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

There was a dark cloud over Rwanda, when the genocidal government army and Interahamwe militia went on a mass killing spree.

The then government planned the Genocide for a very long time as shown by studies. It is difficult to find the right words to describe the inhuman brutality of the Genocide.  Machetes were used to cut people into pieces as they pleaded for mercy. Stomachs of pregnant mothers were cut open with blunt knives. Their fetuses were removed and crushed to death.

People paid money to be shot to death rather than be killed by use of machetes. Worse still, in some regions, the killers removed the hearts of their dead victims, roasted and ate them with excitement and jubilation. Tutsi women were gang raped and killed by shoving long sticks into their private parts. The killers behaved far worse than wild beasts.

Whenever we commemorate the Genocide, all these gruesome pictures come alive in the memory of Rwandans remembering how their loved ones were tortured before death. Those who survived vividly recall how they got the permanent scars on their bodies. Genocide commemoration is a period of bitter remembrance. Many people end up in a coma due to trauma. Others have had unending traumatic episodes that have ruined their lives. Life will never be the same again for the survivors. They can forgive but they will never forget.

As we commemorate the Genocide against the Tutsi after 27 years, the world is experiencing the worst form of genocide denial and revisionism. The latter are crimes that are painfully tearing into genocide survivors' wounds.

Many genocide suspects continue to roam, freely, in foreign countries where they are given time and space to spread genocide denial and the double genocide theory. Their aim is distorting the truth and erasing the history. Although the world knows that the international media was absent and did not speak for those who were under threat of extermination, it is a big shame to see that today, the international media is actively siding with evil.

Sadly, media houses like CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Washington Post and many others turned into mouth pieces for genocide suspects, deniers, revisionists and Rwandan terror suspects.

“As the international media was silent when our people were being killed, they should as well be silent now and stop aiding the last stage of genocide, which is denial. The men and women in the media doing these shameful acts are in fact killing us twice, they are tearing apart our wounds,” a genocide survivor said. 

Journalists like Judi Rever and Michela Wrong have found a hobby, and source of livelihood, in stubbing and splitting open the wounds of genocide survivors, by writing books that distort history, promote genocide denial and double genocide theory. 

They have invented their own version of history by turning the heroes who stopped the Genocide into villains.  These journalists must be held accountable for the evil things they are doing against Rwandans.

On the eve of the Genocide commemoration, Wrong plans to launch a book - a direct provocation and testimony that she belongs to the camp of genocide deniers and revisionists.

During genocide commemoration period, genocide deniers and revisionists often intensify their evil campaign to paint a bad image of Rwanda's ruling party, RPF-Inkotanyi, and the person of President Paul Kagame. Those who have read the history of genocides all over the world understand the intention. Genocide survivors very well know what the RPF and President Kagame did to save them and what they stand for, now, and in the future.

And that is why the survivors, and many other Rwandans, overwhelmingly voted for Kagame to lead the country from the brink of a failed state to the country it is today.

Majority Rwandans this website has spoken to are of the view that it is high time the UN passed a resolution stopping media programs and all books and publications that deny, and trivialize the Genocide against the Tutsi as well as spread double genocide theory.

No such books are ever published denying and trivializing the Holocaust.

Why should the Genocide against the Tutsi be looked at differently?

The countries hosting genocide suspects should be pressurized to extradite them to Rwanda or ensure these criminals face justice in their host countries.