On the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, UOW research fellow Dr Deborah Mayersen said the international community still has work to do to honour the victims of the tragedy.
The Rwandan genocide took place for roughly 100 days from 7 April, 1994 to mid-July, with the death toll estimated to be between 500,000 and 1,000,000.
Dr Mayersen said there are still lessons to be learned from the tragedy.
“There’s been a number of major reports that have come out in the wake of the genocide in Rwanda,” said Dr Mayersen, pointing to UN reports and other reports from the United States and Canada.
“But the outcomes of many of those reports really haven’t been implemented either within the UN or at an international level.
“While there’s been some progress, and we can see some evidence of an international community more likely to take action to prevent genocide or other mass atrocities, it’s still very much on a case by case basis and there’s still a great deal of uncertainty about whether the international community will take action in any given case.”
She said the international community should take action to ensure the mantra of ‘never again’ is fully adopted.
“There’s still much work to be done at a national and international level to perhaps honour the memory of the victims by trying to make ‘never again’ a reality,” Dr Meyersen said.
Coinciding with the anniversary, Dr Mayersen is tomorrow giving a talk, One Hundred Days of Horror: Portraying Genocide in Rwanda.
Featured as part of the History Research Seminar Series, the talk will look at how the genocide has been represented in graphic novels.
It will run from 12.30pm-2.00pm at LHA Research Hub (19.2072).
BBC animated report on the anniversary of the Rwanda genocide: