Hutu’s, who lost loved ones, have to remain silent

Infused with this one-sided picture the twentieth commemoration of the genocide has Tutsi’s giving testimonies on radio and television while Hutu’s, who also have lost loved ones, have to remain silent for a hundred days. “If I would plea for a memorial for all perished Hutus, I would be arrested immediately”, Francis smiles bitterly. The journalist refers to the Rwandese politician Victoire Ingabire, who lived in the Netherlands for 16 years and returned to Rwanda in 2010 to participate in the presidential elections.

Upon her return, at the genocide memorial in Kigali, Ingabire called for an investigation into ‘crimes against humanity’ allegedly committed by Tutsi soldiers against Hutu civilians in 1994. In Rwanda, such a remark stands equal to ‘divisionism’ and ‘denying the genocide’, although foreign researchers several years after the genocide already documented how tens of thousands of Hutu’s indeed had been murdered during and right after the hundred days when the massacres took place. This statement, plus alleged links with the in Eastern Congo active Hutu rebel movement RDR, led to a prison sentence of 15 years for Ingabire.