Our Status 
 
Objectives of the Project
 
Commemoration
 
Documentation and Education 
 
The Need
 
The Problem
 
Project Coordinators
 
 
 
Our Status

 The project will be independent of all governments, all political parties, and all interest groups, but we have on this basis been offered the full cooperation of the Rwandan government.

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Objectives of The Project

 Our first objective is commemoration: to launch a process that culminates in the international recognition of the genocide on its 10th anniversary in 2004. In that pursuit, we will cooperate with those who campaign against all genocides and will welcome and actively involve other communities that have endured great calamities in the recent past. 

 The second objective is documentation and education: to help preserve the memory of the genocide by remembering its victims and those who tried to aid its victims, and through public education on Rwanda and other genocides. 

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Commemoration

Initiatives to be pursued include: 

 Supporting the International Campaign To End Genocide;

 Convening commemoration meetings that could include survivors’ testimonies; performances by Rwandan poets, writers, actors and other artists; papers from various academic disciplines on the genocide and its consequences; reports from academics and practitioners on the effects of the aftermath in Rwanda from 1994 until the present; 

 Advocating greater international assistance to support Rwandan civil society initiatives for reconciliation and reconstruction;

 Launching an initiative to have the UN formally declare April 2004 Rwanda Genocide Remembrance Month;

 Launching initiatives to have Legislatures around the world recognize the 10th anniversary of the genocide;

 Encouraging civil society groups and NGOs around the world to organize local activities to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the genocide.

 As well, Daniel Libeskind, the internationally known architect of the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the Felix Nussbaum Museum in Osnabruck, Germany (named for a Holocaust survivor), is committed to designing a monument to commemorate the genocide. 

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Documentation and Education

Initiatives to be pursued include: 

 Developing a documentation project, such as the Cambodia Genocide Program managed by Yale University; 

 Collecting the testimonies of survivors; 

 Collecting and posting the names of all victims of the genocide;

 Compiling an honour roll of “the righteous,” those Hutu and Tutsi who tried to save members of the other group;
 
 Developing educational resource materials related to the genocide, to be available both in Rwanda and beyond;

 Encouraging schools to study the genocide in the hope that some classes will choose to commemorate it; 

 Undertaking further research into all aspects of the genocide and its aftermath.

 Other suggestions for recognizing the genocide are welcome. We encourage all those around the world interested in commemorating the genocide to initiate 10th anniversary projects that are appropriate to their own situation.

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There is a serious danger that the world has already lost interest in the 1994 genocide of Tutsi and the killing of moderate Hutu. Anniversaries of the tragedy are met  largely by silence and indifference. Media attention is minimal, and few take note of the occasion.  

The genocide in Rwanda revealed “Never again!” to be a slogan that is used mainly for speeches and ceremonies. Who can doubt that if another Rwanda arose again, it could well meet the same reaction by the international community? Memorializing the 1994 genocide on its 10th anniversary would  draw the world’s attention to the gap between rhetoric and reality, in the hope that the next time a comparable situation arose it would be more difficult to ignore. 

Memorialization also holds the power to forewarn us all--- not least our youth---about the possibility of recurrence and the dangers of indifference. At the same time, it acknowledges the mourning process of genocide survivors and perhaps contributes to healing and reconciliation. 

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Unless a determined effort is made to sustain the memory and the lessons of the Rwandan genocide, it seems fated to disappear from the world’s collective memory. Rwandans face many handicaps in sustaining the memory of the genocide: the marginalization of Africa in general in the world’s consciousness, the disinterest of the international mass media, the limited access of Rwandans to media , the reluctance of many victims to tell their stories. Without a systematic effort to comprehensively document the history of the genocide and to record survivor testimonies, the genocide will soon be forgotten, its unfolding and consequences lost to history or obscured by the passage of time.

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Gerald Caplan, Ph.D.
To reach Remembering Rwanda contact Gerald Caplan: caplang@rogers.com,Canadian-based Public policy analyst and public affairs commentator and author of "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide," the report of the International Panel of Eminent Personalities To Investigate the 1Rwandan Genocide, appointed by the Organization of African Unity (OAU);

Carole Ann Reed, Ph.D.former Director of the Toronto Holocaust Centre and Coordinator of the Graduate Diploma Program of Holocaust and Genocide Education at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto;
To reach Remembering Rwanda contact Carole Anne Reed ca.reed@sympatico.ca

Louise Mushikiwabo, MA
Born in Rwanda, now living in Washington, DC., who has been actively involved in human rights efforts directed towards Rwanda, especially related to issues of justice and accountability flowing from the genocide.

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