Roundup: Rwanda envoy warns against genocide denial at UN commemoration

The Rwandan ambassador to the United Nations called on Tuesday for the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda to be renamed to reflect on the 800,000, mainly Tutsi, slain during the 1994 atrocity at the hands of the Hutu majority.

Rwandan UN Ambassador Eugene-Richard Gasana, sitting on the dais with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, other envoys and a genocide survivor, made the emotional plea during the 21st annual commemoration ceremony held at UN headquarters.

Six large white candles were lighted at the beginning and a minute of silence observed.

"It is regrettable that up to now, the UN consistently refers to our tragedy as Rwandan Genocide," he said. "This failure to use the right terminology by the UN and to continue to refer to this day as the International Day of Reflection of the Genocide in Rwanda has been an argument picked up by deniers of all kinds of inevident truth that this body does not recognize that a genocide was indeed committed against the Tutsi."

"In fact, genocide deniers from the grass roots -- the mainstream media to scholars -- continue today to refer to the genocide against the Tutsi as 'Rwanda Genocide' or 'Genocide in Rwanda,' arguing that the genocide was committed not against the Tutsis but against all Rwandans," Gasana said.

He did not identify any entity denying the genocide.

"We once again call on this respectable organization to live up to its responsibilities and act in line with the conclusion and decisions of its institutions, including ICTR (UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) rulings and resolutions of the (UN) Security Council if it is truly committed to preventing genocides," he said.

The Kigali envoy recalled that his government has made it a crime "proscribing genocide ideology, genocide minimization and denial."

"As one historian reminded us," Gasana said. "Denying, altering or distorting the facts of genocide is the final stage of genocide, fulfilling the perpetrators ultimate intention by erasing the one thing remaining of those who died and those who were left alive, the memory of genocide.' Therefore, we shouldn't shy of fighting genocide denial."

However, Gasana criticized world organizations' failure to stop the mass atrocity of Rwanda lasting from April through June 1994.

"The genocide was a source of unbearable pain for the country, and unmistakable disgrace for the world, including the United Nations," he said.

The ambassador was speaking at the 21st commemoration of the Rwandan Genocide Memorial Ceremony, organized by the UN Department of Public Information, in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the United Nations for the International Day.

The International Day honors the memory of the more than 800,000 people -- overwhelmingly Tutsi, and also moderate Hutu, Twa and others -- systematically killed across Rwanda in less than three months just over two decades ago. It is also an occasion to recognize the pain and the courage of those who survived.

Ban, in a message for the International Day earlier Tuesday, said that the world must make use of the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda to look back on the past -- and to squarely confront the challenges of the present, renewing collective resolve and summoning the courage to prevent such atrocities from happening again.

"Our annual somber observance is all the more meaningful this year as we mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations," the secretary-general said.

Referring to the genocide survivor also sitting on the dais, Ban said, Regine Uwibereyeho King "was abandoned by the international community when her country and her family needed help. She suffered the loss of her loved ones, but she managed to keep her compassionate spirit."

King is now teaching at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg in the Canadian province of Manitoba.

"I am here for those no longer here," King said in strong voice, noting that it was a miracle that she survived.

She still remembers that day she waited out a downpour at the end of the Easter break and the beginning of the genocide caused her to miss the last bus that could have taken her back to school in Kigali. There she would have faced certain death along with many of her slain classmates.

"The rain became a signal to me that I wasn't going to die," King said, adding that she lost two brothers in the genocide.

Living in the bush, surviving on rain water and hiding in an abandoned house, she prayed. "I made many promises to God I would help orphan children."

At one point, King said a machete-wielding Hutu attacker told her he "wanted to see the brains of an educated Tutsi."

A friend talked him out of striking.

"I was not physically attacked or wounded," King said. "I was very fortunate." Endi