Location within Rwanda | |
Established | 1999 April 2004 (Inaugurated) | (Construction)
---|---|
Location | KG 14 Avenue, Kigali |
Part of | Memorial sites of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda |
Criteria | Cultural: vi |
Reference | 1586-003 |
Inscription | 2023 (45th Session) |
Coordinates | 1°55′52″S30°03′36″E / 1.93124°S 30.060133°E |
Type | Genocide museum |
Visitors | 96,278 (2017) |
Website | www.kgm.rw |
The Kigali Genocide Memorial commemorates the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The remains of over 250,000 people are interred there. [1]
There is a visitor centre for students and others wishing to understand the events leading up to the Rwanda genocide against Tutsi in 1994. The Centre is a permanent memorial to those who fell victim to the genocide and serves as a place where the bereaved could bury their family and friends. The Centre is managed and run by the Aegis Trust on behalf of the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide.
The memorial and the memorial centre are in Gisozi, Rwanda, just outside of central Kigali. [2]
In April 1994, reports of systematic mass murder within Rwanda began to filter out of Rwanda and circulate throughout the world. Little was done to stop the genocide. To outsiders, the genocide was represented as tribal-based ethnic violence, with the Tutsis the victims and the Hutus as the perpetrators. [3] Precisely how many people were actually murdered may never be known; estimates vary between 500,000 and over a million. The number of people killed is widely accepted as being somewhere close to 800,000. [3]
In 2000, the Kigali City Council began to construct a building, which would eventually become the Memorial Centre. Aegis was invited to turn the genocide memorial center into a reality. The Aegis Trust then began to collect data from across the world to create the three graphical exhibits. The text for all three was printed in three languages, designed in the UK at the Aegis head office by their design team, and shipped to Rwanda to be installed.
This memorial centre is one of six major centres in Rwanda that commemorate the Rwandan genocide. The others are the Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre, Bisesero Genocide Memorial Centre and Ntarama Genocide Memorial Centre, the Nyamata Genocide Memorial Centre and the Genocide Memorial Centre in Nyarubuye. [4]
Human remains were brought from all over the capital after they had been left in the street or thrown in the river. They are buried together in lots of 100,000. The memorial was opened in 1999. [4]
The centre started when Kigali City Council and the Rwandan National Commission for the Fight against Genocide commissioned a UK-based genocide prevention organization called Aegis Trust to establish the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. In April 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the genocide, the Kigali Genocide Memorial was inaugurated.
The response from genocide survivors to the creation of the centre was immense. In the first week, over 1,500 survivors visited each day. In the first three months of the centre's opening, around 60,000 people from a variety of backgrounds visited it. Over 7,000 of these visitors were from the international community.
The centre documents the genocide, but it also describes the history of Rwanda that preceded the event. Comparisons are also made with similar sites in Germany, Japan, Cambodia, and Bosnia. Unlike the ex-concentration camps at Auschwitz Birkenau, the Rwanda site include human remains and the tools and weapons used in their destruction. [4]
The upstairs floor of the centre includes three permanent exhibitions, the largest of which documents the genocide in 1994, helping to give Rwanda’s nightmare a historical context. [5] There is a children’s memorial, with life-sized photos, accompanied by intimate details about their favorite toys, their last words and the manner in which they were killed. [3] There is also an exhibition on the history of genocidal violence around the world. The Education Centre, Memorial Gardens and National Documentation Centre of the Genocide contribute to a meaningful tribute to those who perished and form a powerful educational tool for the next generation.
The Kigali Memorial Centre is international. It deals with a topic of international importance, with far-reaching significance, and is designed to engage and challenge an international visitor base.
Audiovisual and GPS documentation projects record and substantiate survivor testimony and also record the Gacaca court process. The Memorial has had hundreds of thousands of visitors. The memorial concludes with sections on the search for justice through the international tribunal in Arusha as well as the local Gacaca courts (traditional tribunals headed by village elders). [5]
The informative audio tour (US$15) includes background on the divisive colonial experience in Rwanda and as the visit progresses, the exhibits become steadily more powerful, as visitors are confronted with the crimes that took place here and moving video testimony from survivors. [5]
The commission from the Kigali City Council was to develop the memorial site, where up to 250,000 genocide victims were buried in mass graves, into a memorial centre and permanent exhibition for the benefit of survivors and young people. The Aegis Trust manages the Kigali Genocide Memorial and is developing it with a school of education. [6]
The economy of Rwanda has undergone rapid industrialisation due to a successful governmental policy. It has a mixed economy. Since the early-2000s, Rwanda has witnessed an economic boom, which improved the living standards of many Rwandans. The President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, has noted his ambition to make Rwanda the "Singapore of Africa". The industrial sector is growing, contributing 16% of GDP in 2012.
The Interahamwe is a Hutu paramilitary organization active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The Interahamwe was formed around 1990 as the youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development, the then-ruling party of Rwanda, and enjoyed the backing of the Hutu Power government. The Interahamwe, led by Robert Kajuga, were the main perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, during which an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi, Twa, and moderate Hutus were killed from April to July 1994, and the term "Interahamwe" was widened to mean any civilian militias or bands killing Tutsi.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias. While the Rwandan Constitution states that over 1 million people were killed, most scholarly estimates suggest between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsi died. The genocide was marked by extreme violence, with victims often murdered by neighbors, and widespread sexual violence, with between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped.
The Nyarubuye massacre is the name which is given to the killing of an estimated 20,000 civilians on April 15, 1994 at the Nyarubuye Roman Catholic Church in Kibungo Province, 140 km (87 mi) east of the Rwandan capital Kigali. The victims were Tutsis. Men, women, and children were reported to have been indiscriminately killed, with the attackers allegedly using spears, machetes, clubs, hand grenades and automatic weapons. Local Interahamwe, acting in concert with the authorities, used bulldozers to knock down the church building. The militia used machetes and rifles to kill every person who tried to escape.
This is a bibliography for primary sources, books and articles on the personal and general accounts, and the accountabilities, of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The Gacaca courts were a system of transitional justice in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide. The term 'gacaca' can be translated as 'short grass' referring to the public space where neighborhood male elders (abagabo) used to meet to solve local problems. The name of this system was then adopted in 2001 as the title of the state's new criminal justice system "Gacaca Courts" to try those deemed responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi where over 1,000,000 people were killed, tortured and raped. In 1994, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to try high-ranking government and army officials accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Gacaca Courts were established in law in 2001, began to operate on a trial basis in 2002 and eventually came to operate as trials throughout the country by early 2007. The Gacaca courts were presented as a method of transitional justice, claimed by the Rwandan government to promote communal healing and rebuilding in the wake of the Rwandan Genocide. Rwanda has especially focused on community rebuilding placing justice in the hands of trusted citizens.
Sometimes in April is a 2005 American made-for-television historical drama film about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, written and directed by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The ensemble cast includes Idris Elba, Oris Erhuero, Carole Karemera, and Debra Winger.
The Murambi Technical School, now known as the Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre, is situated near the town of Murambi in southern Rwanda.
Tourism in Rwanda is the largest source of foreign exchange earnings in Rwanda. It was projected to grow at a rate of 25% every year from 2013–2018. The sector is the biggest contributor to the national export strategy. Total revenue generated from the sector in 2014 alone was USD 305 million.
Gasabo is a district (akarere) in Kigali city, the capital of Rwanda. The headquarter of Gasabo is located in Remera Sector. The district also includes large areas of the city itself, including Kacyiru, Kimironko, Remera, Nyarutarama and Kimihurura.
Survivors Fund (SURF), founded in 1997, represents and supports survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in Rwanda. It is the principal international charity with a specific remit to assist survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and has offices in London and Kigali. It is registered with the Charity Commission for England & Wales.
Nyamata is a town and sector in the Bugesera District, southeastern Rwanda. Nyamata literally means 'place of milk' from the two Kinyarwanda words nya- 'of' and amata 'milk'. It is the location of the Nyamata Genocide Memorial, commemorating the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Kabgayi is located just south of Gitarama in Muhanga District, Southern Province, Rwanda, 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Kigali. It was established as a Catholic Church mission in 1905. It became the center for the Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda and is the site of the oldest cathedral in the country and of Catholic seminaries, schools and a hospital. The church at first supported the Tutsi ruling elite, but later backed the Hutu majority. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide thousands of Tutsis who had taken refuge here were killed. Some survivors admire the courage of many priests who helped them during those difficult days, like Father Evergiste RUKEBESHA and many others. Later, some Hutus including three bishops and many priests were killed by the rebels RPF soldiers. A mass grave beside the hospital is marked by a memorial. Inside the Basilica are kept the bodies of the three bishops killed by FPR rebels. Two of them were refused by the Rwandan government to be transferred in their own cathedrals.
Ntarama Genocide Memorial Centre is one of six genocide museums in Rwanda. Five thousand people were killed here in the Catholic church.
The Bisesero Genocide Memorial is a national memorial in Rwanda commemorating the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi. 40,000 people were killed where the memorial now stands.
The Nyamata Genocide Memorial is a national memorial and World Heritage Site in Rwanda commemorating the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group. It is based around a former church in the town of Nyamata, roughly 30 km (19 mi) south of the capital of Kigali, where thousands of Tutsi were killed. The remains of 50,000 people are buried there.
Gisozi is one of 15 sectors in the district of Gasabo in the province of Kigali in Rwanda.
Sosthéne Munyurabatware was a Rwandan man who saved a number of Tutsis from being killed by Hutu militias during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Trusted in his area, he helped several Tutsis cross the border to the Republic of the Congo (DRC). He was killed while returning from the DRC where Interahamwe led by a cell leader called Halindintwali Jean had killed him and his cousin Leopold Munyakayanza. In 2016, he was one of the 17 Rwandese selected at national level who were recognized for their deeds of humanity during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.
Media related to Kigali Genocide Memorial at Wikimedia Commons