The government of Rwanda has entreated Ghana to learn lessons from the ethnic cleansing which claimed the lives of millions of Rwandans in 1994.
Chairman of the Rwandan Community in Ghana, Bernadin Gatete says failure by Ghana to embrace its ethnic and cultural diversity could plunge the country into similar atrocities.
Between April and June 1994, over 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in a genocide by the Hutu majority.
On the 6th of April there was the shooting down of a plane carrying Juvénal Habyarimana, the Rwandan president and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira over Kigali, which left no survivors.
It is still not clear yet who were the real perpetrators of the assassination.
The killing was then triggered by a media tirade by a journalist Hassan Nzege who called for extermination of Tutsi minority groups and provided names of people to be killed.
In 100 days there was mass slaughter of human beings in ways never seen before in the history of humanity.
The killings had come about as a result of deep seated hatred and ethnic differences between the Hutus and Tutsis.
Speaking with JOY NEWS on the occasion of the 23rd commemoration of the ethnic cleaning, Bernadin Gatete entreated the government of Ghana to strengthen laws which promotes justice and equity.
“The key lesson that we thought we should share with Ghana is that we should have a common denominator as a country.
We should avoid looking at each other from the things that differentiates us but rather the things that bring us together.
He called on the media to be circumspect in its reportage on ethnic issues.
The 23rd commemoration of the Rwanda genocide in Ghana, saw members of the Rwandan community including the diplomatic corps light candles in memory of the souls that were lost to the conflict.
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