Nyamata (Bugesera): Officials, diplomats and the staffs of the Belgians Development Agency, Enabel gathered at the Nyamata Genocide Memorial where they paid respects and laid wreaths to the 50,000 victims of the genocide against the Tutsi buried at the site.
The Genocide memorial site was formerly a church where the Tutsi victims who had sought refuge at the sanctuary from the neibhouring areas of Nyamata town and Bugesera in general were massacred to perish.
The Nyamata Genocide Memorial, which bears witness to the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi, is among of the four memorial sites in Rwanda that were listed by the UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites last year.
According to Racheal Murekatete, the site guide, the victims of Nyamata initially used stones and traditional arms to defend themselves but the killers who were majorly the armed government forces annihilated those who tried to fight back using teargases and grenades.
Prior the outbreak of the Genocide against the Tutsi, the militia’s had assassinated the Italian educationalists Antonia Lokateli on March 1992, the Headmistress of the (Les Centres d’enseignement rural et artisanal intégré) CERAI by then a school which is adjacent to the church.
Murekatete revealed that “Locateli was assassinated after exposing the ongoing killings in the areas of Buge sera via an interview she held with international media organizations of RFI and BBC.”
The scenes at the entrance of the church speak it all as the floor indicates damages left by the grenade hits and the blood stains are still intact on the rooftops of the church. Also, inside the church, the skulls had fractured lines indicating the torturous banging of the pangas on the victim’s heads during their killings.
The Genocide archives indicate that Bugesera was an uninhabited region of Rwanda covered by dense forests and rife with Tsetse flies but during the 1959 revolution, the Tutsi’s were forcibly relocated from the areas of Gisenyi, Gitarama and Bugesera to Bugesera region.
Speaking at the event, the Resident Representative of Enabel, Dirk Deprez, said it is important for the interest and solidarity of the survivors and the Belgian Development Agency, Enabel so see that what happened never happens again.
Deprez said that Belgium and Rwanda have a difficult historical past whereby the officials from his country have apologetically addressed their ugly misdeeds.
“Our prime ministers have come here to apologize for our responsibility and I think that that position has never changed.This year during the commemoration we had our delegation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense who reiterated our solidarity with Rwanda so that it never happens again,” he noted.
Cynthia Umwizerwa, a staff of Belgian Development Agency, Enabel reiterated that despite the Belgium ties with Rwanda was formerly disappointing however, that an existing relationship can be mutually exploited for the betterment of everyone.“We all know that Belgium had strong ties with Rwanda but their ties were not really leading to anything productive so coming here as the staff of Belgian Development Agency, Enabel after the genocide gives the responsibility as Rwandan that I should never leave anyone behind in whatever I do.
“We still have good political ties with the Belgians but then we have to basically cooperate and help everyone achieve what they want,” Umwizerwa noted.
One of the survivors of the Nyamata is a French-Rwandan author Scholastique Mukasonga whose award winning memoir ‘Coachroache’ describes her family’s tribulations and deportation to Nyamata in 1960’s. (End)