EAC Deputy Secretary General, Andrea Ariik Aguer Malueth, said plans are underway to table the request before the Council for consideration, as part of efforts to ensure EAC takes a leading role to prevent a repeat of the atrocities committed in Rwanda in 1994.

If the proposal sails through, the Commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi would be observed by EAC Partner States, Organs, and Institutions like any other EAC day, and given a commemoration budget in the EAC Annual Budgets.

“We are going to lay strategies to ensure that the genocide vice is uprooted from our region, through discussions and reflections on the dangers of genocide ideology and its denial,” Malueth stated.

Malueth spoke on behalf of EAC Secretary General Peter Mathuki during the commemoration at the EAC Secretariat in Arusha, Tanzania, on Monday, April 8.

The deputy secretary general disclosed that in an effort to show solidarity with the government and people of Rwanda to commemorate Genocide Against Tutsi, the EAC Heads of State Summit erected a Genocide Monument in the EAC Gardens at the EAC Headquarters in memory of the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

He further noted that the EAC Secretariat has marked 7th to 13th April each year as silent week in the EAC Calendar of Activities.

Acknowledging the rise of Rwanda from the 1994 ashes, Malueth said Rwanda’s tremendous strides had exceeded expectations.

The event was also attended by Louis Uwimana, EAC Liaison Officer from Rwanda, who emphasized Rwanda’s commitment to continue sensitizing the international community to enact laws that criminalize genocide and genocide ideology.

Uwimana also underscored Rwanda’s collaboration with national and foreign partners in the fight against denial and revisionism of the Genocide against the Tutsi.

Rwanda is among the eight member states of EAC. Others are Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, the Federal Republic of Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania.