By IANS,
New Delhi : India and the UN have expressed solidarity to help growth in Rwanda as the country marked the 17th anniversary of a genocide that killed nearly a million people.
The High Commission of Rwanda held a commemoration event here that was attended by over 30 high commissioners and ambassadors of various African and other diplomatic missions in India, Indian government and UN representative, a statement said.
UN Information Center director Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman conveyed a message on behalf of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon: “On this day of remembrance, let us pay special tribute to the people and government of Rwanda for the resilience and dignity they have shown in working towards national recovery and managing the trauma of this atrocious episode of history.”
The UN secretary general said that he expected countries and global multi-national institutions to expedite the arrest and prosecution of the remaining fugitives of the 1994 genocide.
Gurjit, Singh, joint secretary (east and south Africa), in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said India and the world look to the example of Rwanda that rose from the carnage of 1994 and in less than two decades is considered to be one of the top 10 democracies and among the fastest growing economies of Africa.
Singh said India was working closely with Rwanda as part of India’s Africa development strategy.
India will soon be funding a vocational training centre in Rwanda.
Rwanda’s High Commissioner to India Williams Nkurunziza said the commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda was a sad day in the country’s history, marking “decades of wrong choices, poor judgments, twisted partnerships, politics of divisionism, exclusionism and impunity” that destroyed the culture of unity and fuelled an artificial ethnic hatred.