President Edgar Lungu says Zambia will continue to partake in efforts aimed at bringing to book perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

According to The New Times, which is Rwanda’s leading English daily, President Lungu made these remarks following his visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Gisozi on Wednesday.

Rwanda has to date issued warrants for 11 Genocide fugitives believed to be holed up in the Southern African nations and President Lungu told journalists that his government was committed to hunt them down to help ensure justice.

Rwanda and Zambia recently finalised an extradition treaty.

“In our country we are law abiding,” President Lungu said, vowing that Zambia will not be a safe haven for Genocide suspects.

President Lungu said what happened in Rwanda in 1994 should serve as a lesson for other Africans so as to desist from divisive politics.
He also said there was need for Africans to look inward for solutions to the most pressing challenges they face.

At the memorial, President Lungu paid respects to the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and laid a wreath.

President Lungu said that the visit to the memorial “reveals how the entire continent of Africa was colonised, divided, and subdued by colonisers who employed a divide-and-rule strategy.

He urged other African countries to learn from what happened in Rwanda and to always look to Africa for solutions to their problems, instead of waiting for answers from outside the continent.

“As Africans we have a lot to learn from here. We cannot continue to be divided anymore and we cannot continue looking to outside as Africa,” he wrote in the guest book at the memorial.
He added: “May the souls of victims of the genocide give hope to a rejuvenated Rwanda”.
President Lungu’s visit to Rwanda follows a two-day visit to Zambia by President Paul Kagame in June last year.

Meanwhile, speaking at a State banquet hosted in his honor at the Kigali Convention Center, Wednesday, President Lungu called for unity among Africans.

“At global level the African continent and its people continue to receive negative perception; this calls for an urgent need for all Africans to unite and address the challenges that we face as a people. It’s upon us Africans to rise to confront the challenges that face us as Africans,” said President Lungu.