New foundation to promote research, fight genocide ideology

Yolande with youth in Italy after giving her testimony.

 By

Lavie Mutanganshuro 

Genocide survivor Yolande Mukagasana has, in partnership with other people, created a foundation

whose objective among others include fighting against denial and revisionism of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Dubbed Yolande Mukagasana Foundation, the foundation also seeks to fight against the ideology of genocide and promote any art that will have the same objective whether in writing, music, theatre or cinema.

It will also conduct research on the genocide against the Tutsi in collaboration with relevant organisations, archive the history of the genocide and promote the culture of reading and writing about the genocide against Tutsi.

Stressing the reason behind the formation of the foundation, Mukagasana noted that it is in bid to tackle the increasing genocide denial.

She said: "The ideology and the denial of the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi is still topical, especially in journalistic and academic sectors influenced by the perpetrators of the genocide and their friends," she said.

"As keepers of memory, we cannot accept the distortion of the history of Rwanda and of the genocide in particular,” she added.

Yolande Mukagasana.

According to Mukagasana, with the fact that the foundation was founded in partnership with people of different nationalities and age groups, it will not be limited to the fight of genocide against the Tutsi, but will also "denounce wherever there is a risk of such atrocity".

“We must know that our differences do not make us enemies, but the riches on which we must all rebuild together," she said, adding that: "The genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi is the history of Rwandans, it is the history of humanity."

About Yolande Mukagasana

The genocide against the Tutsi left Mukagasana widowed and childless. 

She says that since 1995, she has been confronted with the denial and revisionism of genocide while in the West, but went past that to bear witness of what happened in Rwanda in 1994 in different countries. 

Mukagasana who is an author of seven books related to the genocide against the Tutsi has received various awards including the Honourable Mention of the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education and the recognition by the American Jewish Community among others.