Kwibuka 24: Remembering the Rwandan Genocide

Entering the grand General Assembly Hall of the United Nations building, Stuyvesant students were met with the beautiful sound of a musical performance by the String Quartet of the UN Symphony Orchestra. Filing into seats, teachers and students quietly settled down, ready to listen and learn from speeches by those impacted by the Rwandan Genocide.

The AP World History classes taught by history teachers Zachary Berman, Allyson Compton, Brenda Garcia, and Kerry Trainor were in attendance at the 24th International Day of Reflection on the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda on April 13. This ceremony, called Kwibuka, raises awareness each year for the brutal Rwandan Genocide of 1994, in which members of the Hutu ethnic majority murdered nearly one million Rwandans of the Tutsi minority.

“We've been studying decolonization in Africa in my AP World History class the last few weeks, so the students that were able to attend the conference were able to deepen their understanding of the topic,” Compton said in an email interview. “Kwibuka means ‘remember,’ and it is especially important to me as a history teacher that my students understand that one objective of studying history is remembering the past so that events like the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda are not repeated. [...] I hope my students were challenged to think of why genocide is still occurring and to what extent international organizations like the United Nations have adjusted their efforts at stopping genocide since 1994.”

The first speaker was Consolee Nishimwe, the author of “Tested to the Limit: A Genocide Survivor’s Story of Pain, Resilience, and Hope.” A Tutsi survivor of the Rwandan genocide, Nishimwe told the heartbreaking story of her family’s experience. At only 14 years old, she was forced to grow up quickly to help her family survive.

“My family was a beautiful family. They were teachers and serving the community. They taught me to love everybody, to care for others,” she recounted. “[But] people we considered to be our friends, neighbors—they did the most horrible things [...] During those three months, you didn’t know who was kind.”

Nishimwe went on, describing how her home was destroyed and her family torn apart. “I never thought that they were going to say that they had murdered my dad. My dad who taught their kids, my dad who was carrying every young person in our town, and now, their reward [was] to kill him simply because he was a Tutsi,” she said. [On] May 9th, these killers came, and they took my brothers. [...] We saw them walking, [holding] each others’ hands, [...] and they said they [were] going to join dad in heaven.” Soon after, 14-year-old Nishimwe was taken hostage along with her mother and sister.

She spoke tearfully about how she was dragged away by a soldier and raped. “On the way [back to my mother], I wanted to find anybody to kill me because there was no reason for me to be alive anymore,” said Nishimwe.

Concluding her speech, she said, “There are so many survivors, fellow survivors, who cannot even speak [about] what they went through, but I had to speak on their behalf.” Nishimwe made one final statement, reminding every person listening that it was a genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis in 1994, and upon her descent from the podium, each person in the audience stood up to applaud.

Valentine Rugwabiza, the permanent Representative of the Republic of Rwanda to the United Nations, spoke as well. She thanked secretary general António Guterres for being the first of his title in the United Nations since 1994 to have named the targeted group and victims of the genocide.

Rugwabiza continued, acknowledging the presence of students at Kwibuka. “I am especially encouraged today to see many young people in this room. Your presence here today shows your willingness to listen. Our hope is that what [you] would have heard today will convince you that each one of us [have] the responsibility to protect our community. It starts by standing for what is right and speaking up against what is wrong,” she said.

And the students do take this to heart. Sophomore Ali Taoube shared over an email interview, “The trip was a really powerful experience. It was one thing to talk in class about awful events like World War II and the Holocaust, and it was another to see and listen to someone who had personally been attacked in one of the most recent genocides, someone who had lost their home and family to it.”

We as students and New Yorkers hold a powerful position in the community and in the time of student activism. Taoube added, “By hearing first-hand accounts of atrocities committed only a few decades ago and understanding the failure of the international community as a whole to respond to it at the time, we can understand how to prevent [these atrocities] from occurring again.”

Rugwabiza agreed: “Stating the truth of what happened in Rwanda in 1994 during the genocide is central to our reconstruction. We know far too well that the decision not to name the victims of genocide is never accidental. It is always intentional. The intention is to deny the truth of what happened, and in doing so, deny the humanity of the victims and survivors on one hand, and on the other, deny the responsibility and obligation of accountability of the planners and perpetrators of the genocide. [...] They know what they planned. And they know what they did.”