8 July 2010 - Film star Clive Owen, an ambassador for the Aegis Trust, last week joined Rwandan genocide survivor Freddy Mutanguha, MPs Mary Creagh, Stephen Crabb and Stephen Twigg, Aegis Chief Executive James Smith and many others in the Jubilee Room at the Palace of Westminster to celebrate the achievements of Aegis in its first ten years and to reflect on the challenges for genocide prevention in the years to come.

Stephen Twigg MP, who until his return to Parliament at the election was special projects director for Aegis, introduced the speakers, starting with Freddy Mutanguha, Director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda. Contracted by Kigali City Council, the Aegis Trust runs the memorial centre and was responsible for its creation in 2004. It is now one of the most visited sites in Rwanda with over 80,000 visitors a year, ranging from local schoolchildren to visiting heads of state.

Speaking about the development of Aegis’ genocide documentation and education programmes in Rwanda, as well as its ongoing social support for some of the thousands of destitute survivors in Kigali, Freddy Mutanguha said, “The world didn’t react to the genocide, but now as survivors we are here to let them know what happened. Let us work together to make sure that genocide doesn’t happen anywhere in the world, but at the same time, let us work together to help and support survivors of genocide.”

Clive Owen, who visited Rwanda with the Aegis Trust earlier this year and wrote about that experience in The Times, commented, “I have seen for myself how the Aegis Trust works closely with their partners in Rwanda to record what happened in the genocide, to keep the evidence for future generations in order that they may question how and why this indescribable human catastrophe occurred and therefore be better equipped to prevent it from happening again in Rwanda or elsewhere.” He emphasised the importance of education; “Young Rwandans have to learn about the genocide in the education programme at the Centre – not in a way that divides or creates deep resentment, but in a way that builds a shared future free from fear.”

Mary Creagh MP, the new Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Genocide Prevention – which is coordinated by Aegis – paid tribute to another aspect of the organisation’s work: focussing the minds of parliamentarians and Government ministers on concrete steps needed to end the impunity of perpetrators.

Referring to Aegis’ campaign last year to change UK law on genocide, she said, “I am not a lawyer, so sitting down with the Trust and going through this quite technical, complicated legal aspect was a big learning point for me, but one of the things that I learnt from the Trust was actually that sometimes when something is very difficult you just need to make it very simple, get your head around it, get your arms around it and then make it impossible for those in a position of power not to do something about it.”

Mary described the moment she knew the campaign would succeed: “John Bercow [then Chair of the APPG] and I went to meet with the Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw, and we were expecting a big battle because we knew the civil servants didn’t really want to do this and Jack just said, “you know what, I think you’re right”. That was the moment when we just thought, all that sitting  and learning and thinking  and arguing and cajoling had actually been worth it.  So we managed to change the law, but what I realise now is that the second part of changing the law is to make sure that we get justice, because there can be no reconciliation without justice, and justice does not have a time limit on it.”

Urging Parliamentarians to join the APPG Genocide Prevention, Mary added a final word on the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review; “I think we have a really important job there to start talking about the UN’s international responsibility to protect. It’s not just a debate about Trident, big guns and big ships, but it’s actually a debate about how we get the resources and the people power in there to make sure that when acts of genocide are going on, the UN is strong enough and has a strong enough mandate, political and military, to make sure that we don’t see another Srebrenica, where UN soldiers simply sit by while acts of genocide are committed.”

Stephen Crabb MP, Mary’s immediate successor as Chair of the APPG, has now been appointed to a ministerial role as a whip for the new coalition Government. He has also been asked by David Cameron to take over responsibility for Project Umubano, a social action project in Rwanda which he and Andrew Mitchell set up four years ago.

“I first went to Rwanda in 2007; I had the privilege of being part of a small cross-party group of MPs who visited Rwanda then, and it was like no other parliamentary visit I've been on before or since,” said Stephen. “It was there that I first came across the work of the Aegis Trust... and that visit in 2007 has in many ways affected the work that I've done in the last three years.

“The very first thing we do with our volunteers when we take them to Rwanda is do a visit to the Kigali Memorial. And I say to them, I can guarantee that it will be the most moving, troubling, shocking, but also inspirational visit they might do ever in their lives. Inspirational because at that memorial site you see the fantastic work that is being done there to educate not just a new generation of Rwandans, but the international visitors as well, about the horrors of the genocide and what steps are being taken to make sure that it doesn't happen again in Rwanda or anywhere else.

“And I really pay tribute to the work of the Aegis Trust over the last ten years in the educational work they do in Rwanda, here in the UK, but also the legislative work as well, as Mary's just described... In 1994 too many good men and women did nothing when they had the opportunity, and as a result evil triumphed. I pay tribute to the Aegis Trust for doing its bit and encouraging parliamentarians, and people from the wider community as well, to make sure that it doesn't happen again in the future.”

Aegis Chief Executive Dr James Smith thanked the preceding speakers for their kind words and noted that when Aegis started, it was the only organisation in the UK addressing this issue; there has been much progress in the past ten years internationally, not least the appointment of a special advisor for genocide prevention to the Secretary General of the United Nations, but much remains to be done.  “We know that it’s going to take generations, even centuries to begin to erode, gradually, this drive that societies and communities somehow have towards self destruction. So governments need to play a role, non governmental agencies, civil society, the media, we all have a role to play.”