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°="justify">The U.N. has apologized for postponing the opening of an exhibit marking the anniversary of the 1994 Rwanda genocide over Turkish objections to a reference to the killing of Armenians in Turkey during World War I, the Rwandan ambassador said Wednesday. "We were contacted by the U.N. Under Secretary General [for public information Kiyotaka Akasaka], who told me they are reviewing the text [of the exhibit]," Rwanda's permanent U.N. representative Joseph Nsengimana told the AFP. "He apologizes. The exhibit will [officially] open very soon."
The exhibit, which was to have been inaugurated by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, is meant to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide during which Hutu extremists killed some 800,000 people, most of them ethnic minority Tutsis.
Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman, said the controversy arose when a Turkish diplomat walked by the exhibit as it was being put up last week and complained about a reference to the killing of several hundred thousand Armenians in Turkey during World War I.
He said the reference was on a small panel with a quotation from Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-born Jewish lawyer who coined the word genocide in 1943, had earlier shown interest in the Armenian "genocide" and campaigned in the League of Nations to ban what he called "barbarity" and "vandalism."
Haq said a review panel made up of officials of the U.N. departments of public information and political affairs as well as those with expertise in genocide affairs would now look over the photographs and the text of the exhibit ahead of the inauguration.
"This is what they were supposed to have done," he said. "I am hoping it will be very quick."
The exhibit is partly organized by Aegis Trust, a British-based international organization lobbying to prevent genocide worldwide.
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