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United Nations, Embassies remember victims of
Rwandan genocide

April 08, 2004

ISLAMABAD, 7 April (UNHCR) -- Representatives of the United Nations and the diplomatic community in Pakistan assembled on Wednesday to observe a minute of silence for the victims of the Rwandan genocide carried out 10 years ago and to contemplate how to ensure the tragedy is never repeated.

At exactly 12 noon, those attending the ceremony at the headquarters in Pakistan of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees fell silent. Similar observances were held at UN offices around the world.

"Last December, the General Assembly designated 7 April 2004 as the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda. It will be a time to commemorate the victims and to consider what more we can do to prevent a similar tragedy from ever happening again," UN Secretary General Koki Annan wrote in a letter for the ceremony.

""The Government of Rwanda has asked that the world's observance of the day include a minute of silence at 1200 noon local time in each time zone," said the secretary general, noting that the genocide was a trauma for the international community and the UN system itself.

The United Nations involvement with Rwandan refugees stretches back to over forty years. When UNHCR first began organizing emergency aid in the early 1960's for several hundred thousand Rwandans who had fled ethnic conflict inside their country.
The first office of UNHCR in sub-Saharan Africa was opened in Burundi in 1964 to address the Rwandan refugee crisis, and during the same decade UNHCR had established programmes for Rwandan refuges in Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire.

Only ten years ago Rwanda and its people experienced the genocide of up to one million of its people and the subsequent mass exodus of another two million. At the end of 1996 over 1 million refugees returned to Rwanda from Tanzania and Congo at a speed and density that stunned aid workers and the young Rwandan government.

All of this was captured and witnessed by millions around the world on the screen of TV.

For most of us the images left of Rwanda was that of war and killing and the failure of the international community to effectively mitigate either.

But there is another story about Rwanda to be told, a tale of concrete change against enormous odds, one of progress and achievements painstakingly gained.

"The people of Rwanda have not forgotten the past yet, they are looking forward to the future, it's important to support this effort. There is democracy in progress in Rwanda who count one of the highest number of female parliamentarians. The people of Rwanda have clearly demonstrated their will to reconstruct, co-exit and rebuild the future" said Ms. Guenet Guebre-Christos, Representative of UN Refugee Agency in Pakistan. Who served as a UNHCR representative in Rwanda from 1998 to 2000.

"Rwanda has been one of the most difficult places to work in and it marked all of us for our entire lives" Ms. Masti Notz, head of the UN Refugee Agency Office in Peshawar shared her testimony on the occasion, she served as a Senior Repatriation Officer in Rwanda from 1994 to 1997. "The people of Rwanda went about their lives as and in a total state of chock as if electrocuted, there was nothing left in the country intact, the situation there was difficult to understand and accept" said Ms. Notz.

Ms. Masti Notz, head of the UNHCR Office in Peshawar sharing her testimony on the event © UNHCR/A.Shahzad

"Rwanda has come a long way and now there has been an alleviation of spirit and there is a possibility of forgiveness and life's taking over" she said.

"It is very hard to express all that in words, it was not only a genocide but it was the killing of the humanity there, although all this happened almost a decade before, but all is in my mind as it happened yesterday and I am proud that UNHCR has played a major role in helping all those grieved families who have had lost their beloved ones in the mist of Rwanda genocide" said Arshad Mahmood, Associate Admin Officer in UNHCR in Pakistan on the event. Mahmood was there in late 1994, worked in Karagwe, Tanzania in the context of Rwandan emergency, and met with many Rwandese Refugees who flee from Rwanda and took refuge in Tanzania.

Arshad Mahmood, Associate Admin Officer of UNHCR sharing his testimony on the event © UNHCR/A.Shahzad

"The genocide in Rwanda is one of the greatest crimes against humanity in the second half of the twentieth century" said Onder Yucer, UN Resident Coordinator/UNDP Resident Representative in Pakistan.

"We have an obligation to develop models and methods that highlight the warning signs and predisposing factors for human violence and genocide, with such information, we can develop policies and strategies designed to counteract these atrocities" he said.

But, as speakers at Wednesday's ceremony emphasised, the focus of the International Day of Reflection is not what the United Nations did after the massacres - the lesson is that the international community must ensure that there is never a repetition of the Rwandan genocide.

 

Media Contact: Asif Shahzad, Mobile: 0300 5322 724