Freddy Mutanguha, director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, attended the 29th commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide on July 11, as well as the Srebrenica Youth School from July 7-12, 2024. There, he shared his personal story as a genocide survivor and his mission as a human rights activist and peace educator.
After obtaining university degrees in management and education from the Maastricht School of Management and the Kigali Institute of Education, Mutanguha today holds several leadership positions in peace education, genocide research and survivor care. He is the CEO of the British NGO Aegis Trust and Director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial. He also chairs the board of Miracle Corner Rwanda, which empowers Rwandan youth by equipping them with skills for social and economic success. Furthermore, he advocates for justice and remembrance of genocides and mass atrocities not only in Rwanda and other African countries but also globally, including Bosnia and Herzegovina (Aegis Trust 2024).
The Historical Context of the Genocide
Growing up in Rwanda, Mutanguha survived the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi as a teenager. The roots of the conflict can be traced back to European colonial influence in the first half of the 20th century, which cemented supposed differences between the three largest ethnic groups in Rwanda – the Hutu, the Tutsi, and the Twa. These colonial powers, particularly Belgium, institutionalized ethnic identities, creating tensions and inequalities that persisted for decades (Mamdani 2001).
The genocide against the Tutsi occurred between 7 April and 19 July 1994. Within only 100 days, approximately 1,000,000 people were killed. The killings were marked by extreme brutality and involved not just Hutu militias, but also ordinary citizens who were incited to participate in the violence through an orchestrated campaign of hate speech and propaganda. Radio broadcasts and public rallies were used to spread fear and incite violence throughout the country (Baisley 2014). In addition to the mass killings, there were hundreds of thousands of incidents of rape and other forms of sexualized violence (Sitkin, Lee, and Lee 2019). The international community’s response was widely criticized for its failure to intervene and prevent the mass atrocities. Despite clear evidence of the unfolding genocide, the United Nations and major world powers were slow to react, resulting in one of the most tragic human rights failures of the 20th century.
The genocide’s aftermath left a deep impact on Rwanda, with a tremendous loss of life, psychological trauma, and a society in need of reconciliation and rebuilding. Mutanguha describes the painful experience of the genocide survivors as follows: “We were wounded, both in our hearts and physically.”
Although the genocide’s legacy continues to impact Rwandan society and politics to this day, the country has made significant progress in recovery and reconciliation. Such efforts have focused on the unique forms of transitional justice implemented in Rwanda, and on rebuilding the nation through economic development and social programs.
Setting up the Kigali Genocide Memorial
The Kigali Genocide Memorial was established through a partnership between the government of Rwanda and Aegis Trust. Central to its creation and ongoing mission are genocide survivors like Mutanguha who played a crucial role in the documentation, education and reconciliation effort. As he describes, his motivation for global educational and peace work is deeply connected to his experience as a survivor: “Us survivors were angry. We felt that we died and now we are alive again, but the trauma was going on […]. Therefore, we wanted to come together and bring many people from around the world to learn from this experience. We invited people from different corners of the world including survivors of mass atrocities and genocide.”
This is also how his work on the Genocide Memorial in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, began. Mutanguha was involved in the establishment of the institution from the very beginning. Initially, as a volunteer, he helped to build the cemetery on the site of today’s memorial. He remembers: “It was a cemetery like [here in Srebrenica]. People were digging the graves exhuming bodies from different parts of the city bringing the remains and burying them in those graves. That was my voluntary work, and I was doing it each and every Saturday and Sunday.”
After the British NGO Aegis Trust began the construction of the Kigali Genocide Memorial in cooperation with the Kigali City Council, in 2000, he gradually became involved in the institution. He soon began to collect testimonies from survivors and perpetrators for the Memorial Centre’s collection.
His experience and knowledge were of great importance in the early stages of genocide documentation. He recalls: “I said I am survivor myself and I live in survivor’s community. So, I can collect the testimonies. I can get their pictures. I can get everything from them to build the exhibition. If you want the artefacts of genocide, I can collect them. I know where they are.”
| “They wanted to say okay, this is the past – can we move on? And I said no. No, we need to be clear on what happened, then we move on with that clarity.” |
Within six months, Mutanguha leading a team of 40 individuals employed by Aegis Trust and in collaboration with the government of Rwanda successfully established the Memorial Centre. They were able to do this through the careful gathering of stories and evidence; by knocking on survivors’ doors, collecting testimonies, and conducting genocide research.
Mutanguha remembers this process as being challenging, not only because of the sensitive subject matter, but also because of the obstructive attitude of genocide deniers and parts of the international community: “The most difficult challenge we had was how to talk about it. What are the tools we can use? Because we had to count so many deniers of genocide. Who even had a voice? At the same time, the international community wanted to silence us. They wanted to say okay, this is the past – can we move on? And we said no. No, we need to be clear on what happened, then we move on with that clarity.”
In his peace education work, he focusses specifically on younger generations. In doing so, he observes a strong desire among young people to understand the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and its wider historical context. “The reason why they have that desire is because they have a genocide at home”, he explains and describes how every younger generation is still indirectly affected by the genocide, as most of their parents and grandparents are either survivors or perpetrators. “We felt the pressure of the younger generations. They wanted to understand, and we were not ready to teach about it.” In addition, he continues, this younger generation has easier and faster access to information thanks to the internet and the research and educational work that has already been done since the end of the genocide. However, he also emphasizes that to learn from history, sources of information must be reliable, accurate and trustworthy. Unfortunately, the interment also contains denialist and revisionist content which can undermine trust in historical account of the genocide against Tutsi.
Key Achievements and Key Lessons
A key achievement that Mutanguha looks back on with content is the inclusion and centering of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda’s school curriculum. In his opinion, young people can also draw important conclusions from past atrocities for a peaceful future. He states, “We are trying to build skills and values that prevent these atrocities from happening again.”
He believes that Rwanda has taken an unusual but innovative path in doing so: “We developed a particular methodology […], so that [genocide and peace education] was embedded into the national curriculum in a way that it would not be a standalone lesson. Therefore, all subjects must have elements of teaching about this subject. We created around 50 model lesson plans. This way, we want to make it a lifestyle.” Looking back, he sees positive results in this approach: “We have seen that it brings more empathy and consideration and forgiveness. By talking about history, you need to develop critical thinking as well as empathy and personal responsibilities skills.”
Today, Mutanguha carries two key lessons from his work in the field of peace education and human rights.
The first key lesson he draws on is the importance to recognize connections between different atrocities and genocides by looking at other examples around the world. At the same time, however, he also emphasizes that each genocide must be placed in its specific context. In relation to Srebrenica, this means “that the context of Rwanda, may be different from here.” In Rwanda, for example, remembrance work and genocide research were carried out in close cooperation with the government, as a large proportion of government representatives are victims of the genocide themselves. This is why the “government was supporting the memory and preservation work, and we didn’t have a lot of challenges because we had that support politically.” Here, he sees an important difference between the political context in BiH and that of Rwanda and African states.
By contrast, in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, remembrance work and reconciliation are still accompanied by challenges. The ongoing tensions are for instance evident in the debate surrounding this years’ UN resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica. The resolution, proposed by Germany and Rwanda, sought to designate July 11 as the International Day of Remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. It condemned genocide denial and called for the inclusion of court-established facts in educational systems. However, the leadership of the Republika Srpska entity opposed this resolution, framing it as an attack on Serbs and using it to further their agenda of “peaceful separation” (Balkan Insight 2024). This opposition not only reflects the ongoing denial but also complicates political efforts to achieve a unified, peaceful Bosnia, as it perpetuates historical grievances and hinders the development of a shared national identity.
At the same time, Mutanguha favours for the Rwandan context, he emphasizes the importance of considering the local context of a genocide and deriving solutions based on specific, local experiences. He illustrates this with the example of the transitional justice instruments called the Gacaca courts, which were established in the aftermath of the genocide, to prosecute crimes committed by civilians. He states: “It was too difficult to try those people because the number of suspects was very high. We are talking about 120,000 people suspected of genocide. And if you went into the normal justice system, this would be estimated to take 200 years to finish the last one [trial]. But the survivors cannot wait that long. They would not even be alive anymore.”
The international response to these legal difficulties was equally unsatisfactory, as Mutanguha explains: “The special Court for Rwanda that was created by the UN managed to handle only 100 cases. What about the remaining ones?”. Due to a lack of adequate transitional justice instruments, the Gacaca courts were introduced in the Rwandan criminal justice system in 2001. The term ‘gacaca’ means ‘short grass,’ referring to the tradition of male elders meeting in outdoor public spaces to solve local issues through discussion. The courts began trials in 2002 and operated nationwide by 2007. As a result, the Gacaca court system successfully processed around 1.2 million cases, offering a community-driven approach to justice. Over 250,000 local judges participated, facilitating quicker trials and reducing the burden on Rwanda’s overcrowded prisons ( and reducing the burden on Rwanda’s overcrowded prisons (HYPERLINK “http:// 2014” HYPERLINK “https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/1043986214536660” Nyseth Brehm, Uggen, and Gasanabo 2014). This approach not only helped to address the overwhelming number of cases but also fostered reconciliation through public confessions and community involvement. Although the Gacaca system also faced criticism for its lack of legal representation and perceived bias (Haberstock 2014), it can be noted that Rwanda has found a unique alternative to the Western style of jurisdiction.
| “So, to live together, we must find justice, so that something like that is actually unable to happen again.” |
When Mutanguha looks back on these legal developments today, he is certain, “that the solution of justice was with us, it was not coming from outside. We took the best practice from outside but the ingredients to solve a problem of justice were with us and in our tradition all along. Because people need to live again. Because the survivors and perpetrators are still living together. So, to live together, we must find justice, so that something like that is unable to happen again. Gacaca was part of our tradition.”
The second lesson he draws lies in the power of storytelling, “I want to teach about empathy”, he says. Instead of discussing such atrocities as abstract phenomena and their victims as statistical figures, he wants to make history tangible and approachable, especially for young people. “As a teacher you have to make your curriculum much more fun with the kids”, he adds.
Therefore, he is convinced that “we have to go through stories that inspire people to develop empathy through role models.” As an example of the power of such personal stories to evoke empathy, Muntanguha concludes his talk by recounting the story of 11-year-old Grace, who, despite being born into a Hutu family, rescued a one-year-old Tutsi baby whose mother died in front of her. Although Grace’s Hutu family rejected her for this act, she took the baby and found a way to care for her. Mutanguha recounts: “Her family was strongly against it, so she had to find food for the baby and a way to get her to a refugee camp by herself. She decided to join the rebels and was well-received.”
Both Grace and the baby survived the genocide and lived together as a family. “Today, Vanessa, the baby Grace saved, works here at the Genocide Memorial in Kigali as a guide.” Mutanguha believes that stories like Grace’s are vital in teaching empathy. They help children see the importance of making ethical decisions, thinking critically, and taking responsibility. He is convinced that sharing such powerful narratives in classrooms fosters dialogue and understanding, both for a critical evaluation of the past and for a peaceful future.
