The AUHRM Process
First Consultative Meeting of 15-16 November 2010
Based on the 2004 resolution a seminar was convened in November 2010 to discuss and recommend on the development of the AUHRM. The seminar brought together AU officials, members of the Permanent Representatives to the AU, members of survivor groups, international partners, specialists on the genocide in Rwanda, the Ethiopian Red Terror, memorialisation and human rights, in order to exchange ideas on the objectives, function and design of the Memorial and its relationship to the theme of peace. It was agreed that those present at the meeting would constitute a Technical Group of Experts.
The group recommended that AUHRM should manifest both the duty to remember, provide a place of recognition as well as mourning and the duty to overcome denial, silence and disregard. They also resolved that the memorial should have an educative function. The AU agreed to work on the plan to establish a mechanism for follow-up on the following recommendations:
a. The identification of an external space dedicated to the memory of the victims of Alem Bekagn central prison;
b. The construction of a permanent memorials to the Rwanda Genocide, Apartheid and slavery; and the organisation of an inaugural event to commemorate those who perished during the Red Terror campaign and victims of other human rights violations.
c. The establishment of temporary exhibits to memorialise human rights violations across the continent.
Second Consultative Meeting of 4-5 November 2011
The Second Consultative Meeting was held on 4-5 November 2011 to discuss and agree on modalities for building a permanent memorial for the victims of human rights violations in Africa within the AU Headquarters. The participants were tasked with developing concrete proposals to implement the existing recommendations for the memorial. They drew up an action plan, making recommendations on:
a. Funding and management
b. Public education, including publications and a website
c. An AUHRM network of memorial museums, human rights and survivors associations
d. Designs and forms of memorialisation, and processes for decision-making on these.
e. Commemorative events
The meeting set up an interim board to oversee the progress of the AUHRM project and to realise the decisions that were made during the meeting.
