Genocide Memorials (Tentative List of Rwanda)
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Memorials of genocide: Nyamata, Murambi, Bisesero and Gisozi is the title of a cultural site that the East African state of Rwanda to its list of proposals for World Heritage has set. The site includes four memorials to the Rwandan genocide in Nyamata , Murambi , Bisesero and Gisozi .
background
Longstanding ethnic conflicts between the Hutu majority , who also formed the government of Rwanda , and the Tutsi minority and their rebel movement, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), resulted from the shooting down of an airplane in which the then President Juvénal Habyarimana was on April 6, 1994 returned home on a visit abroad, on genocide . The Tutsi were charged with the attack, and Hutu extremists from the presidential guard, army, police, militia and civilian population murdered around 800,000 to 1,000,000 people by mid-July 1994. About 75 percent of the Tutsi living in Rwanda fell victim to the genocide. Moderate Hutu who did not want to participate or who actively campaigned against the violence were also killed.
After the attack on Habyarimana, civil war flared up again between the RPF and government forces. The RPF managed to conquer most of Rwanda by mid-July. As soon as it took power in a region, the genocidal actions stopped there. Instead, there was a mass exodus from Hutu to neighboring Zaire. The RPF took over government and, under President Paul Kagame, attempted a policy of reconstruction and reconciliation.
Since 1995, memorials commemorating the genocide have been erected in several parts of the country . In some cases, existing buildings were used in which and in the vicinity of which massacres took place, such as B. a church in Nyamata or the technical school in Murambi . Other memorials, including those in Bisesero and Gisozi , have been rebuilt. In addition to the buildings in which some remains of victims and other material evidence of the genocide are exhibited, including spears, machetes, clubs, knives and photographs of some of the victims, there are also large burial grounds at the individual sites in which the bodies of the victims are on site and are buried from the area.
registration
Rwanda joined the World Heritage Convention in 2000. In 2012, four of the genocide memorials were entered as the first proposal on the tentative list of Rwanda .
To justify the outstanding universal significance, the following is given:
The proposed memorials are, on the one hand, a testimony to human intolerance towards one another and, on the other hand, a symbol of the determination to prevent the recurrence of the genocide in Rwanda and elsewhere. Therefore, recognizing these sites as memorials to humanity is an effective strategy in combating the crime of genocide and the crime against humanity, genocide ideology and denial.
The aim is to be entered on the World Heritage List based on World Heritage criteria (iii) and (vi):
(iii): The end of the twentieth century and the country's recent history were marked for a hundred days by the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, in which more than a million people were horribly killed. The historical sites of the Tutsi genocide and the material evidence they contain are real witnesses to the extermination that took place there in 1994. They are undoubtedly direct testimony to the historic challenge facing the Rwandan people and all humanity, because they illustrate the progression of marginalization of a population, the process of its annihilation and its effective implementation.
(vi): The memorials of the Tutsi genocide are places of collective memory for all humanity in the sense that on the one hand they symbolize the intolerance of man, which led to the annihilation of a group of Rwandans, the Tutsi, and on the other hand The place of obligation for the people is so that this (the genocide) does not repeat itself in Rwanda or anywhere else, as the Universal Declaration of the United Nations of 1948 with "never again" teaches.
Memorials
The following table lists the individual memorials that are part of the proposal. These sites together cover an area of 30,869 hectares.
| Surname | location | Remarks | image |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nyamata Genocide Memorial |
Nyamata District Bugesera Eastern Province ( geographic coordinates ) |
The former church of Nyamata is representative of many other churches in which Tutsi had sought refuge and were massacred. Around 10,000 Tutsis were murdered in this church, built in 1980. Next to the church is a burial place of around 50,000 people who were murdered here and in the surrounding area. |
 more pictures |
| Murambi Genocide Memorial |
Murambi district Nyamagabe Southern Province ( geographical coordinates ) |
Numerous Tutsi sought refuge in the Murambi Technical School, which was located on a hill on which French soldiers were also stationed. However, the soldiers withdrew and the Tutsi were attacked and massacred by fighters from the Interahamwe militia. Next to the former school building, which is used as an exhibition building, is a burial place for around 50,000 people who were murdered here. |
 more pictures |
| Bisesero Genocide Memorial |
Bisesero District Karongi Western Province ( geographic coordinates ) |
In Bisesero, numerous Tutsi fled to a hill, from which they were able to defend themselves against the attackers for a while with stones and spears and even captured some rifles from them. On the hill, next to the buildings of the memorial, which are connected by an almost 300 m long staircase, there is a burial place of around 40,000 Tutsi who were murdered here. At the foot of the hill is the monument of resistance with the weapons with which the victims defended themselves. Nine spears protrude from a ring of walls filled with stones. |
 more pictures |
| Kigali Genocide Memorial |
Gisozi district Gasabo Province Kigali ( geographic coordinates ) |
The largest of the memorials is located in Gisozi, about 3 km from the city center of the capital Kigali . It was built by the Aegis Trust in 2000 and inaugurated in April 2004, 10 years after the genocide began. Next to the documentation and exhibition center is a burial site for over 300,000 Tutsi who were murdered in and around Kigali. |
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Web links
- Sites mémoriaux du génocide: Nyamata, Murambi, Bisesero et Gisozi on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website on tentative lists (French).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Sites mémoriaux du génocide: Nyamata, Murambi, Bisesero et Gisozi. In: whc.unesco.org. UNESCO World Heritage Center, accessed June 12, 2017 (French).
- ^ Tentative list of Rwanda. In: whc.unesco.org. UNESCO World Heritage Center, accessed June 12, 2017 .
Map with all coordinates: