National Archives of Rwanda

The National Archives of Rwanda are located in Kigali. The earliest documents held in the Rwandan archives are from the 1890s However, in 1959 as Belgium's imperial project was dissolving, most documents from Rwandan and German colonial rule that were held in Kigali were transferred to an archive in Usumbura, in Burundi, which was also a Belgian colony at the time.[1] A presidential decree formally established a government archive in 1979. The Rwanda Archives and Library Services Authority was established by the Law in 2014.[2]

Part of a series on the
History of Rwanda
Kingdom ?–1962
German East Africa 1885–1919
1922–1962
Revolution 1959–1962
Republic of Rwanda 1962–present
1973 coup d'état
Civil War 1990–1994
Genocide 1994
First Congo War 1996–1997
Second Congo War 1998–2003

The archives were damaged during the violence of the Genocide against the Tutsi of 1994, and efforts to rebuild them did not begin until the 2000s. In 2013, the government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a non-profit human rights group called Aegis to preserve documents related to the 1994 genocide. In January 2016, Aegis announced that a group of volunteers has been arranged to index 1.8 million documents in the archives' holdings.[3] Some of these documents have now been made available online through the Ministry of Sports and Culture's website, but few documents from pre-genocide independent Rwanda are included.[4]

According to the archives' official webpage, most of their holdings consist of: --Correspondence—Reports and Minutes—Letters—Procès-verbal—Telegrams—Action Plans—Travel Clearances—Memorandums—Communiqué—Organigrammes—Judicial Files—Projects—Diplomas—Certificates—Decisions—Invitations—Penal Code—Finance and Accounting

See also

References
  1. Curtin, Philip (1960). "The Archives of Tropical Africa: A Reconnaissance". The Journal of African History. 1 (1): 129–147. doi:10.1017/s0021853700001547. JSTOR 179711.
  2. Musa Wakhungu Olaka (2015), Renaissance of libraries and archives in Rwanda (PDF), International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
  3. Toovey, David. "Young Rwandans trained to index national archives". RALS. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  4. "Archive History". Rwandan Archive and Library Services Authority.
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