Liberal statement on the National Day of Reflection on the Prevention of Genocide

April 7, 2015

OTTAWA – Liberal Critic for Rights and Freedoms and International Justice, Irwin Cotler, today issued the following statement on the National Day of Reflection on the Prevention of Genocide:

“Seven years ago, on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, the House of Commons unanimously adopted my motion to designate April 7th as a National Day of Reflection on the Prevention of Genocide.

“Today, on the 21st anniversary of this genocide, we remember that in less than 100 days beginning on April 7th, 1994, one million Rwandans – mostly Tutsis – were slaughtered, victims of a government-orchestrated campaign of incendiary incitement and mass murder.

“What makes this genocide so unspeakable is not only the horror of the genocide, but the fact that it was preventable. No one can say that we did not know; we knew, but we did not act. As the Security Council and the international community dithered and delayed, Rwandans were murdered.

“Indeed, the great tragedy was not only that so many Rwandans were murdered but that so few others intervened to save them. The genocide in Rwanda stands alongside the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, the genocide in Bosnia, and other campaigns of mass murder as one of the darkest periods in human history.

“We must strive to prevent such horrific tragedies from occurring again by speaking up and acting against racism, against hate, against mass atrocity, against injustice, and against the crime of crimes whose name we should even shudder to mention – genocide.”