COMMEMORATION OF THE GENOCIDE PERPETRATED AGAINST TUTSI IN RWANDA AT LOCAL LEVEL: POLICY ANALYSIS-PRACTICES-CHALLENGES-COMPETENCES AND PERSPECTIVES.

One of the good strategies to fight against human tragedies is to build strong memory around what happened with an aim of keeping historical facts on one side and educating current and future generations on the other hand. The genocide perpetrated against Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994 aligns with that framework and its commemoration has been at the center of efforts and political programs by the government of Rwanda. In fact, over the last twenty three years, the genocide has been publicly and officially commemorated inside and outside the country, with a neat improvement in its planning, execution and evaluation. Since 2013, commemorative activities are decentralized from national level to grass root level, in order to allow great and efficient involvement of different categories of Rwanda and hence, contribute to the reconstruction of shared history and memory around that genocide. This paper intended to explain how that decentralization is being implemented at local level, with an emphasis put specifically on policy analysis, practices, challenges, competences and perspectives. Interviews with key people as well as a thorough documentary analysis helped to gather and analyze data on what is really done and how to improve commemorative activities in future.