MESSAGE TO THE RWANDAN YOUTH ON THE 30th ANNIVERSARY OF THE RWANDA GENOCIDE
by
Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, PhD
Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro is the former Director of the Rwandan Information Office (ORINFOR), a Rwandan government agency that oversaw Radio Rwanda, Rwandan Television, and state-controlled print media. Dr. Higiro and his family were evacuated from Rwanda on 7 April 1994 and remained in Kenya during the tragic events of 1994.
On 19 July 1994, he flew to the United States where he has since remained in exile from his beloved country. Dr. Higiro is a Professor of Communications at Western New England University.
INTRODUCTION
Fellow Rwandan citizens,
From 31 July 1993, to 06 April 1994, I served as director of the Rwandan Information Authority (ORINFOR), a government agency that oversaw Radio Rwanda, Rwandan Television, and state- controlled print media. Prior to the appointment to that position in July 1993, I spent about three months in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) as one of the members of the official joint national subcommittee concerned with the resesettlement of internally displaced people (IDPs) from the prefecture of Byumba. The representatives of this subcommittee came from the major politcal parties: MDR (Mouvement Democratic Republicain / Republican Democratic Movement); PSD (Parti Social Democrate / Social Democratic Party); MRND (Mouvement Revolutionaire National pour le Developpement / National Revolutionary Movement for Development); and the RPF (Front patriotique rwandais / Rwandan Patriotic Front). I represented the MDR. My service during these three months in the demilitarized zone allowed me to mingle almost daily with RPF political cadres on the subcommittee and to interact with some of the residents of Byumba.
On 07 April 1994, in the very early morning, I sought shelter at a friend’s house and later called the United States embassy in Kigali to request the evacuation of my daughter (who was a U. S. citizen). On 09 April 1994, my family and I left Rwanda for Nairobi, Kenya during a U.S.-led evacuation. While in Nairobi, on 19 July 1994 (three hours before catching a flight to the United States), I accepted the cabinet position of Minister of Information in the first post-genocide government led by the RPF and the late Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu. While in the United States, I changed my mind and decided to accept a teaching position and live in exile.
Today, I am a professor of Communications at Western New England University.
I address this message to you to share my concerns about the interpretation of Rwandan
historical events by President Paul Kagame and some of the leading RPF ideologues.
In the wake of the RPF conquest of power in July 1994, the new political leadership of Rwanda developed a historical narrative portraying all Hutu as perpetrators of the genocide against the Tutsi, all Tutsi as victims, and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) troops as the liberators.
According to this narrative, the Hutu are the villains and the RPF troops the heroes. Since many Rwandans alive today grew up hearing this narrative in schools, public meetings, government- controlled media, and indoctrination camps known as ingando, the purpose of my message is to call your attention to its fallacies so you can adopt a critical approach when it is repeated to you.
My message will focus on what the RPF regime does not want you to know.
To do so, I will discuss the following:
• the historical antecedents to the RPF’s military invasion from Uganda;
• the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi;
• the consolidation of power by the RPF;
• the genocide against the Tutsi;
• the Israel of Africa;
• and the commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi.
1
The Historical Antecedents to the RPF’S Military Invasion from Uganda
The Bega and Banyiginya Political Violence
Politcal violence in Rwandan history is not something new. After Kigeri IV Rwabugiri’s death in 1895, his chosen successor Mibambwe III Rutalindwa immediately ascended to the throne. Before his sudden unexpected death Mwami Rwabugiri had also designated the new Queen Mother, Nyirayuhi Kanjogera, but this was not Rutalindwa’s birth mother (Rutalindwa’s birth mother had died). The Mwami (king) of Rwanda always came from the Nyiginya clan, considered the only pure Tutsi lineage, the lineage of the Mwami. Nyirayuhi Kanjogera was from the Bega clan, one of the four rival clans from which the Queen Mother was historically drawn.
Given the tradition of joint power-sharing by the Mwami and the Queen Mother, there was
therefore a long history of inter-clan violence as the four Queen Mother clans jockeyed to
enthrone a Queen Mother from their clan. These successions were often very bloody.
Over the brief year of his rule, Mwami Rutalindwa and the Nyiginya clan were at war with
Kanjogera and her brothers, Kabare and Ruhinankiko (from the Bega clan) for the control of the throne and the kingdom. The trio hunted down the banyiginya, Rutalindwa’s clan. The massacre that followed the death of Rutalindwa (1896) almost wiped out the entire banyiginya clan, and this was to pave the way for the rule of Queen Mother Kanjogera and the Bega clan. The Mwami who ascended the throne in 1896 was Yuhi V Musinga, the son of Queen Mother Kanjogera. Mwami Musinga and Kanjogera and the other Bega nobility held onto power until the 1930s (Kanjogera died in 1933 and Musinga was dethroned by the Belgians in 1931).
In Rwandan history, this episode (1895-1896) is known as the coup d’etat of Rucunshu.
According to the official historians of the Nyiginya monarchy — the abiru — and research done during colonial rule, there were many intra-Tutsi conflicts that rose to the level of what is today called genocide. The farmers’ kingdoms of the northwest and southwest were subject to military conquests and subjugation from the Nyiginya kings and this was also genocidal. The Nyiginya rule was characterized by extreme violence and a type of slavery called uburetwa (forced labor).
The current ideologues of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) have erased the coup of Rucunshu and the attacks against the north and northwest from Rwandan history because they do not want you to learn about the intra-Tutsi aristocratic conflicts that preceded colonial rule. What they want you to think is that before colonial rule Hutu, Tutsi and Twa lived in harmony. Which harmony?
Born to Rule and Born to Labor
Under colonization, indirect rule allowed the royal lineages to wield power serving as the
intermediaries between colonialists and the population made up of Hutu, poor Tutsi, and Twa.
The Hutu were not only subjected to forced labor but also to heavy taxation while being
excluded from education (only provided to the sons of the Tutsi chiefs and subchiefs). The latter came almost exclusively from Tutsi royal lineages or the matrilineal dynasty as not all Tutsi were involved in the monarchal rule. According to Belgian officials at the time, ‘the Tutsi were born to rule and the Hutu were born to labor’. This ideology stemmed from a European racist theory (known as the Hamitic hypothesis) according to which Tutsi were Hamites or Caucasians except that they were black.
The Bahutu Manifesto
Some Hutu who had received education from Catholic seminaries challenged the Nyiginya Tutsi rule by publishing on 24 March 1957 a document called Note sur l’Aspect Social du Probleme Racial Indigene au Rwanda (Note on the Social Aspect of the Indigenous Racial Problem in Rwanda). Historically known as ‘the Bahutu Manifesto’, this document requested that the Belgian-Tutsi administra;on undertake political reforms to end the political exclusion of Hutu elite, to end uburetwa (forced labor) to which Hutu were subjected.
In May 1958, twelve bagaragu b’ibwami bakuru (senior royal servants), all Tutsi, responded to the Bahutu Manifesto saying that there was no brotherhood between Hutu and Tutsi and that it is the Tutsi who had conquered Rwanda, meaning the Kingdom of Rwanda was the property of Tutsi.
An excerpt from the document states the following:
“Those who claim the sharing of the common heritage are those who have bond of
brotherhood among themselves. But the relations between us (Batutsi) and them (Bahutu)
have hitherto been based on serfdom, and therefore there is no founda;on of brotherhood between them and us. Indeed, what is the relationship between Batutsi, Bahutu and Batwa?
The Bahutu claim that Batutsi, Bahutu and Batwa are the sons of Kanyarwanda, their common father. Can they say who Kanyarwanda fathered them with, what is their mother’s name and what family she is from?” (Nkundabagenzi, 1962)
Some progressive Tutsi elite drawn from the pool of Tutsi who had received education from Belgian school of Indatwa (the school of the sons of chiefs and subchiefs) serving in the Belgian administration joined Hutu elite to call for these reforms.
King Mutara III Rudahigwa’s Sudden Death
In the meantime, King Rudahigwa suddenly died in Bujumbura on 25 July 1959, after visiting his doctor and receiving an injection. The rumor spread around Rwanda that Belgians had killed the king. Before his casket was about to be entombed at Mwima, traditional armies — that had been banned under Belgian rule — surrounded the casket and the mourners and the Belgian authorities, and voices called for the proclamation of a new king claiming Rwanda could not spend a single day without a king. Seeing the violence that might occur and to avoid bloodshed if he did not yield to those voices, the Governor of Ruanda-Urundi, Jean Paul Harroy, allowed the mwiru Alexandre Kayumba, one of the guardians (abiru) of the monarchy’s esoteric code, to declare Rudahigwa’s half-brother Ndahindurwa the new king of Rwanda: Kigeri V Ndahindurwa.
The proclama;on of the latter is known as the coup d’etat of Mwima as it was imposed by the Tutsi aristocracy on the Belgian administration and the people of Rwanda.
The Social Revolution of 1959
Amid rising political tensions, some chiefs and subchiefs hunted down Hutu elite suspected of harboring what they called ‘anti-monarchist ideas’. The attack against Dominique Mbonyumutwa on 01 November 1959 (as he led a Catholic mass) by a gang of Tutsi triggered retaliation from Hutu and violence against Tutsi. Some chiefs and subchiefs had already reactivated the traditional armies which the Belgian administration had banned. They reacted by sending traditional armies to every location where Hutu leaders could be found. In the political chaos that followed, traditional militias killed Polepole Mukwiye, Sindibona, Kanyaruka, Kayuku and others. Mulefu, then the subchief of Bufundu (Jeanette Kagame’s father) was allegedly involved in Mukwiye’s murder. On 07 November 1959 King Kigeri V held a meeting with his closest advisers and appointed Nkuranga chief of the armies with the mission to put down violence. The king surrounded by Chiefs Rwangomwa, Kayihura, Mungarulire, and Bagirishya told the crowd present at the royal palace that he wanted Kayibanda alive. The king’s attempt to quell violence and keep power failed. Tutsi chiefs, subchiefs and their servants left Rwanda for exile and King Kigeri V joined them to wage a diplomatic struggle and regroup to come back to retake power. (Jaspers, 2013)
In their political discourse, Tutsi aristocrats have never taken responsibility for their
participation in the violence of 1959-1962. Instead, they have always blamed it on Belgian Jean Paul Harroy, the governor of Ruanda-Urundi; Belgian Colonel Guy Logiest, the Special Resident of Ruanda appointed to quell the violence of 1959; the Swiss Bishop Andre Peraudin of the diocese of Kabgayi; and Rwandan Gregoire Kayibanda, the leader of MDR PARMEHUTU (Movement DemocraDque Republicain ParD de l’Emancipation des Hutu) and Second President of Rwanda.
There is total amnesia on the part of the Tutsi aristocracy on the violence perpetrated against Hutu even though some of them were tried and sentenced by a Belgian tribunal.
In the discourse of the Hutu elite, the social revolution of 1959 is the beginning of freedom; the Tutsi elite are now always pointing to 1959 as the beginning of oppression against Tutsi or the beginning of a catastrophe.
The Tutsi Exile and the Right to Return
Even though the Tutsi aristocracy lost power, they did not lose the desire to retake it, and they tried to do this at every opportunity. Tutsi aristocrats fled to neighboring countries of Burundi, Congo, Tanzania and Uganda from where they plotted their return to power. They launched an armed rebellion called INYENZI (Ingangurarugo Ziyemeje Kuba Ingenzi) with military assistance from The People’s Republic of China, Cuba, socialist countries and Non-Aligned Movement countries. Inyenzi mounted vicious attacks against Rwanda, killing Europeans, Rwandan officials, and civilians in their path and they came close to capturing Kigali before they were stopped at the bridge of Kanzenze in 1963.
In 1964, President Kayibanda, publicly called on Tutsi refugee guerrillas to abandon terrorism and return home. They rejected his call; instead they established connections with host countries and even got involved in local politics in these countries. For instance, they exported their ideology of Tutsi supremacy to Burundi where Hutu, Tutsi, Hima, and Baganwa had previously coexisted peacefully. The Inyenzi continued to attack Rwanda until 1967.
Juvenal Habyarimana’s Military Coup in 1973
Violence against Tutsi broke out in schools and across Rwanda in 1973 and led to a military coup that year by Major General Juvenal Habyarimana. Some of those who staged the violence were Colonel Alexis Kanyarengwe, then chief of intelligence, and Pasteur Bizimungu, then a student at the National University of Rwanda (UNR) and a member of a nebulous salvation committee (Comite du Salut). The former became Chairman of the RPF; the latter became president of Rwanda in July 1994. This military coup created a deep divide between Northern Hutu elite (Abakiga) and Southern Hutu elite (Abanyenduga) as more than 70 ousted political leaders from southern Rwanda died in prison in mysterious circumstances (and apparently deprived of food and water). If silence on this episode continues, the deep divide will remain unless there is truth, remorse, and forgiveness. The violence against Tutsi and the ousted Hutu political leaders
from Southern Rwanda is inhuman and should be condemned.
The Denial of the Right to Return
While in exile, the descendants of the Tutsi aristocracy (many whose exile was by choice) found opportunity in the political conflicts of Uganda. Under President Idi Amin, some of them became his hitmen. When the Tanzanian army removed Idi Amin from power and Milton Obote retook power, the latter expelled to Rwanda the Rwandans who held government positions or ran businesses. His political opponent Yoweri Museveni — who had lost to Obote in a presidential election — fled to the bush from where Museveni launched guerrilla warfare as the National Resistance Army (NRA). Most of his recruits were the descendants of Tutsi. After putting Museveni into power, equipped with their miliary experience and having access to the military arsenal and other resources of the Ugandan government, these Tutsis formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front. The RPF invaded Rwanda on October 1, 1990, and they occupied Rwanda’s northern prefectures of Byumba and Ruhengeri. The RPF occupied and controlled these areas and used them as their bases to overrun the country after 06 April 1994.
President Kagame and some of his associates often claim that President Habyarimana denied to the refugees the right of return and that is why they took up arms. The narrative that President Habyarimana denied Tutsi refugees the right of return is only part of the story and it is dishonest. A commission comprised of representatives of the RPF, the government of Uganda, the government of Rwanda, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) was slated to visit Rwanda in October 1990 to assess the conditions of return. However, I concede that President Habyarimana did not prioritize the question of Tutsi refugees deserved right of return, even as the threat of an invasion was real. I attended the international conference of the Rwandan diaspora (Tutsi diaspora) in Washington in August 1988 at which the representatives of the Rwandan Tutsi refugees in Uganda stated to the audience that they had an army and resources and were ready to invade and take power.
The Ethnic and Regional Equilibrium Policy
In the public discourse, RPF officials claim that Tutsi during the Habyarimana era experienced discrimination in education and civil service due to the policy of ethnic and regional equilibrium.
In general, the policy of ethnic and regional equilibrium implemented by the National
Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND) was disastrous to Rwanda. The RPF
narrative asserts it discriminated against Tutsi only, but the policy affected most families in
Rwanda as Minister Colonel Aloys Nsekalije took advantage of it to favor two districts
(Commune Karago and Commune Giciye) in his home prefecture and to enrich himself and his mistresses selling admissions into secondary schools. Most Rwandan people including
university students strongly opposed this MRND policy and that is why the minister of primary and secondary education, Agathe Uwilingiyimana abolished it after taking office in 1992. The RPF narrative omits that, during the MRND regime, Tutsi businessmen thrived in the private sector where they controlled probably 70 percent or more of the Rwandan economy. The RPF also ignores these Tutsi businessmen’s contribution to the movement that initiated the creation of private secondary schools managed by parents’ associations (which obviously benefitted Tutsis).
RPF Barbarism
As mentioned above, the RPF occupied the prefectures of Byumba and Ruhengeri until April 06, 1994 (and of course after that). The conquest and occupation of that zone was brutal. RPF troops killed every human being in their path and those who survived were used as forced laborers who dug RPF foxholes and trenches, and who were forced to cook and porter RPF supplies and weapons. The RPF practiced a scorched earth policy. They looted houses, took away windows and the iron-sheets of the roofs; they took toilets seats, windows, doors and they sold the materials in Uganda. The RPF stole everything.
image: RPF zone Destruction of the Banque Populaire of (Community Credit Union) of Kiyombe, half a mile from my parents’ house The soldiers in the frame are RPF soldiers.
The RPF displaced people, killed those who did not manage to flee as it advanced, and shelled the camps of the internally displaced persons (IDPs). RPF supporters claimed at the time the RPF never killed because it was ‘a liberator’ and that it was the MRND, President Habyarimana’s party, who were forcing people to flee.
As a native of Rushaki, a village located in the former province of Byumba (at the Rwandan
Ugandan border), I held a differing view even before I fled Rwanda in April 1994. The RPF
conquered large portions of that province years before 06 April 1994. In addition, from June to August 1993, I was a member of the joint commission that resettled the internally displaced people in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) of Byumba. This commission included the representatives of the RPF. The three months spent in this zone allowed me to see the
devastations caused by the war in general and by the RPF in particular. I heard stories about abductions and rape committed by the RPF from local people.
Under pressure from western countries, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), President Habyarimana and opposition parties engaged in negotiations with the RPF in Arusha, Tanzania. Even while the negotiations were taking place, the RPF was committing massacres in the northern prefectures of Byumba and Ruhengeri; its agents in Rwanda planted landmines, launched grenades into villages, and infiltrated Hutu militias to create insecurity across Rwanda. The RPF perpetrated the assassinations of prominent Rwandan politicians such as Emmanuel Gapyisi, the president of MDR-Gikongoro; Felicien Gatabazi the executive secretary of the Social Democratic Party (PSD); Martin Bucyana, the president of the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR); and former burgomaster Fidele Rwambuka. Radio Muhabura, the radio of the RPF blamed all the violence that wracked Rwanda on the MRND.
Since there were no investigations to arrest the perpetrators and no reports made public, it was assumed that President Habyarimana and his security forces were the culprits. People like me who knew nothing about guerrilla warfare blamed insecurity on President Habyarimana. It is only after the RPF began to celebrate their victory that RPF operatives began bragging about the violence they had unleashed against civilian targets during the war.
Image: Destruction of the archives of the Parish of Runaba. The person in the frame is an RPF soldier.
Image: Destruction of the archives at Commune Kivuye: the building served as the office of the MRND, President Juvenal Habyarimana’s political party.
The Arusha Accords or Talk and Fight.
The RPF and the Rwandan government reached an agreement known as ‘The Arusha Accords’ after protracted negotiations marked by violations of ceasefire. The agreement favored the RPF since it gave it three cabinet positions, allowed 10 RPF representatives at the National Transitional Assembly (NTA), allowed 50 percent of the troops and 40 percent of officers in the army to be from the RPF. The downside of the Arusha agreement, from the RPF point of view, was that it mandated presidential and legislative elections in two years. The elections would have wiped out the military and political gains that the RPF had made in four years of war (1990-1993). So, the RPF engaged in sabotaging the implementation of the Arusha Accords and they prepared for the resumption of the war. Political parties split into factions and the RPF rejected the representative of the CDR as a member of the National Transitional Assembly.
About three or four days before 06 April 1994, a source very close to the RPF confided in me that the war was about to resume.
2
The Assassination of Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana & Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi
On 06 April 1994, Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, a very close friend of mine from the time we were students in Canada, telephoned me to inform me that I was going to have a new boss at ORINFOR after President Habyarimana returned from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania that day.
Habyarimana was at a regional peace and security summit that was also attended by President Cyprien Ntaryamira (Burundi), President Ali Hassan Mwinyi (Tanzania), and President Yoweri Museveni (Uganda). Faustin told me that my new boss would be Dr. Dismas Nsengiyaremye as Minister of Informa;on and predicted tough times ahead for me. In the evening, a missile hit President Habyarimana’s Falcon airplane as it was about to land at Kanombe International Airport in Kigali; he and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, their close advisers and the French crew died. Immediately a narrative that Hutu extremists had shot it down circulated around the world. Members of the peacekeeping force known as UNAMIR oversaw the protec;on of the airport. One would think that the U.N. would have sprung into action to launch an investigation, but they didn’t.
In comparison, on 14 February 1994, former Lebanon Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was killed with 22 other people in a huge bomb explosion. The United States, France and Great Britain introduced a resolution at the U.N. Security Council to create an independent international commission with mandate to investigate his assassination. Syria, an enemy of Israel and a country accused of supporting terrorism was then rumored to be behind the assassination. The commission headed by Canadian former prosecutor Daniel Bellemare submitted its 10th report in March 2014 on the case and pointed to a pro-Syria network of killers. The Special Tribunal (STL) or Hariri Tribunal then tried some of the suspects.
Unfortunately, the assassination of the two African presidents did not figure prominently on the agenda of the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council. The U.N. had a peacekeeping force in Rwanda and the Kigali international airport fell under its control. The terrorist act occurred during a ceasefire. One would think that the same superpowers would show the same diligence to launch an investigation especially after the death of more than 800,000 people. According to Rene Degnisegui, the special envoy for the Human Rights Commission, the terrorist act against the presidential plane was the trigger of the events that followed.
The International Panel of Eminent Personalities created in 1998 by the OAU also called for an investigation. To this date the U.N. has not created a commission to investigate.
Available evidence suggests that the United States and the United Kingdom have thwarted
attempts to launch investigations into the assassination of the two African presidents and the crimes committed by the RPF. For instance, while working as an investigator for the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Michael Andrew Hourigan initiated a
preliminary investigation into the case and was forced by Louise Arbour, the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, to resign. Unlike Arbour, Carla Del Ponte who succeeded her in that position conducted secret investigations into the violations of human rights committed by the RPF.
Carla Del Ponte says in her book:
“We knew that to open an investigation into the Rwandan Patriotic Front will irritate
Kigali, because President Paul Kagame and other Tutsi leaders based a great part of their
claim to legitimacy on the victory of the RPF against the genocidaires in 1994.”
According to Florence Hartman, Del Ponte’s former spokesperson, once Del Ponte made it clear that there was no haven for RPF suspects, U.S. Ambassador for War Crimes Pierre-Richard Prosper tried to persuade her to stop investigations. Since she refused to back down, in August 2003 the United States and the United Kingdom introduced a resolution to the U.N. Security Council that would split the tribunal into two independent entities, Del Ponte would then be removed from the Rwandan cases. Resolution 1503 of the U.N. Security Council of August 28 did just that. In September 2003 the U.N. Security Council replaced Carla Del Ponte by Hassan Bubacar Jallow from Gambia as prosecutor. Hartman writes that shortly after the U.N. adopted the resolution and a new prosecutor was appointed, Ambassador Prosper flew to Kigali to reassure Kagame that Tutsi military suspects would not be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, France and Rwanda have staged investigations designed only to mislead the public in their attempt to bury forever both countries’ roles in the Rwandan genocide. The
investigation the French Judge Marc Trevidic conducted on the shooting down of
Habyarimana’s plane, and the report on France’s role in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994
written by Vincent Duclerc, served as political maneuvers to whitewash the RPF’s and Kagame’s crimes and appease the Anglo-Saxons (U.S. & U.K.) and their protégé, Paul Kagame. A world order dominated by a small number of powerful countries need pawns in other countries to assert and maintain their supremacy. The two reports commissioned by a conflicted party only makes sense for France and Rwanda. Ask yourself why are Kagame and his allies fixated on the role of France and not the role of the United States under President William Jefferson Clinton and Uganda under President Kaguta Yoweri Museveni?
In any event, Rwandans know who brought down the plane and we know the role played by France.
3
The RPF Consolidates its Power
U.S. Military Assistance
As soon as the RPF took control of Rwanda, the United States under President Clinton
dispatched a military contingent supposedly to provide humanitarian assistance to war survivors in Rwanda and Rwandan refugees in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and to assist in the reconstruc;on of the country. It set up a military assistance program to transform the RPF guerrilla army into a more professional army. The Rwandan army became an important component of the U.S. strategy of the Africa Command (AFRICOM) headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.
Propaganda and Lobbying
In the wake of the RPF victory, a political discourse portraying the RPF as the liberators
developed in international media, academia, and international relations. Any deviation from this narrative makes a person an outcast or a genocide denier. Some individuals who played a major role in shaping this political discourse deserve to be mentioned. On the propaganda level, Catherine Watson wrote glowing articles about the RPF and had them published in the United Kingdom and the United States; Philip Gourevitch lionized Major General Paul Kagame in a book entitled `We wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with our Families` published in 1999; Rakiya Omar of African Rights, about the crimes committed by Hutu only; Stephen Kinzer who marketed General Paul Kagame in a book called `A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It `(2008). There are others, including Gerald Kaplan in Canada, Phil Clark and Linda Melvern in the United Kingdom. Hollywood did not sit idly by either: it capitalized on the Rwandan tragedy by producing a film called Hotel Rwanda.
On the level of non-government organizations, Roger Winter, the director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees provided logistics to the RPF for different meetings during and after its victory and engaged in lobbying U.S. corporate media and U.S. government officials. U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young became a lobbyist and propagandist for Kagame and the RPF. The Clinton’s and Paul Farmer and so many more became spokespeople or lobbyists spreading the RPF narrative and celebrating the RPF, and Kagame was given awards and received with honors at many U.S. colleges and universities.
On the diplomatic level, in 1994 Madeleine Albright was the Clinton administration’s U.S.
Ambassador to the United Na;ons (U.N.) — the friend of the RPF —and when she became U.S. Secretary of State, she provided the RPF regime with unwavering support. To ensure her continued support, while she was visiting Rwanda in 1997, the RPF on 10 December 1997, staged and perpetrated the massacre of Tutsi who had sought shelter at the former Mudende Adventist University (that became a displaced persons camp) and blamed it on Hutu extremists that had supposedly crossed into Rwanda from Zaire. The massacre’s goal was to create more sympathy for the RPF (Tutsis) so that Albright could provide all the assistance needed for the Ugandans and the RPF to take control of Zaire. Other senior U.S. officials who helped Rwanda consolidate power were Susan Rice and Samantha Power who served in several senior positions under the Clinton Administration, the Obama Administration, and the Biden Administration; Jendayi Fraser who served as Under Secretary of State for African Affairs under President Bush and later became Kagame’s lobbyist in Washington, DC. Ambassador Pierre Prosper — who had Carla Del Ponte fired and after leaving the U.S. Department of State became Kagame’s lobbyist
— is another prominent figure in the political network used by Rwanda.
In the United Kingdom, three names typically crop up: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Lynda Chalker and Clare Short played a major role in Rwanda’s entry into the remnants of the former British empire known as the Commonwealth. Chalker served as minister of state for overseas development and Africa under Prime Minister John Major; Short served as secretary of state for international development under Prime Minister Tony Blair. After leaving office, Tony Blair became an adviser to Kagame represented with a team headquartered at Village Urugwiro, Kagame’s state office. There is of course General Dallaire who is a hero in Canada even though his performance in Rwanda was a disaster.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
When the U.N. established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1995 most Rwandans thought that the perpetrators would face justice, justice would be blind to ethnicity and there would be closure to many families. The justice that was delivered was selective as it targeted the political elite from one ethnic group — the Hutus. Western powers turned the ICTR into a post-colonial structure of silencing a Hutu elite to further their interests under the pretense of defending human rights. The genocide in Rwanda opened the way for the United States to chip away at French influence in the Great Lakes region. After the victory of the RPF, Rwanda and Uganda became the beachhead of imperialism in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
The U.S. used Rwanda as a platform to project military power across Africa by training and
equipping its military and enabling it to be called upon to send anywhere at any time a
peacekeeping force in politically unstable countries to defend western interests without
accountability to the Rwandan people. So, the U.S. upended the ICTR mission by providing
funding, ensuring that the members of the prosecution were American and pressuring
prosecutors into not issuing arrest warrants against RPF officials.
And then, of course, there was the RPF invasion of Zaire, backed by the United States, Canada, the U.K. and some other allies, where the RPF was given a free hand to commit massive atrocities, and genocide.
The Community Courts or Gacaca
Another instrument used to consolidate power was the gacaca courts (or community courts) to try the perpetrators of the genocide. Even though it granted release to some individuals, the confession system brought in replacements in crowded prisons. Furthermore, it allowed the seizure of the assets belonging to Hutu and their redistribution to Tutsi genocide survivors.
Finally, it stigmatized all Hutu socially.
Money Flow
Out of guilt or empathy western donors, their financial institutions, and non-government
organizations poured money into Rwanda’s reconstruction. The RPF leaders profited off the acquired resources to build themselves mansions and the capital Kigali to the detriment of rural areas. The top-down policies of the regime increased economic inequalities benefittng the tiny military Tutsi elite comprised of aristocrat returnees from Burundi and Uganda. Just look around and you will find the descendants of Rwakagara, the famous ancestor of the Bega; the son, daughter and nieces of Michel Kayihura, the vice president of Conseil Superieur du Pays who replaced King Mutara II Rudahigwa when he was traveling; the sons and daughters of subchief Murefu; the son of Rwangombwa; etc. These Tutsi aristocrats control all the political and economic levers of the country.
Small Colonies of Tutsi in Western Countries or Rwandan Diasporas
To build a power structure with deep ramifications abroad, the RPF government initiated a
policy of creating small colonies of Tutsi in foreign countries overseen by over forty Rwandan embassies. These small colonies carry different names, one of which is Ibuka or ‘Remember’.
Through these organiza;ons, the RPF-led government has been able to inject roving hit squads structured around former RPF cadres or intelligence officers using travel documents issued by host countries. These hit squads have been involved in transnational terrorism and the assassinations of prominent political personalities including businessmen and journalists such as Rwanda’s former Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga; Colonel Lizinde Theoneste; Chief Intelligence Officer Colonel Patrick Karegeya; Journalist Charles of Inyenyeri News and Ukuri; businessman Louis Baziga; and businessman Innocent Rutayisire — to name just a few.
These small colonies of Tutsi serve also as lobbyists for the RPF-led government in the host countries. They terrorize genuine Rwandan refugees by collecting intelligence and monitoring
their activities. Rwandan embassies around the world spend resources organizing them so they can use them to stage events portraying Rwanda as a peaceful country that is developing at an accelerated speed, and they portray General Kagame as the beloved leader who is just irreplaceable.
Co-Optation of Civil Society
Inside Rwanda, the RPF regime obliterated the vibrant civil society that existed before 06 April 1994, suppressed dissent, and took control of the media and political parties, thereby achieving the autocracy like that wielded by the Nyiginya-Tutsi monarchy in pre-colonial Rwanda. People who have resisted cooptation have disappeared or died in mysterious circumstances. Today, General Paul Kagame is not only president, but he is also the Mwami / king of Rwanda without its symbolic Karinga, the royal drum. Remember the Mwami of Rwanda owned everything: the land, cattle, and the people, and had the right to kill. The new Mwami has killed at will:
Businessmen Assinapol Rwigara and Venuste Rwabukamba; Artist Kizito Mihigo; journalists Leonard Rugambage and John Williams Ntwali — to name a very few. Add to the victims the many people who have been disappeared and are presumed dead.
4
The Genocide Against the Tutsi: Criminalizing an Entire Ethnic Group
When speaking in public, every Rwandan official and every Rwandan is required to repeat “the genocide against the Tutsi.” Most people agree that what befell Rwanda in 1994 was a
catastrophe. At first it was qualified as the Rwandan genocide or itsembabwoko
n’itsembatsemba. This label implies that the responsibility in the commission of the genocide was shared and that its perpetrators regardless of ethnicity were accountable before the law.
Remember that the RPF started killing civilians from the time it invaded Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990 to this day. It committed massacres all over Rwanda not to mention in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Despite what we know, the RPF imposed a narrative of the genocide against Tutsi meaning that all Tutsi were the victims of the genocide, and all Hutu were the perpetrators of the genocide.
This Hollywood way of telling stories oversimplifies what happened in Rwanda in 1994.
I am a Hutu and consider myself a genocide survivor who barely escaped the Presidential
Guards sent to kill me on 07 April 1994, in early morning. The genocide involved Hutu militias — the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi — who were sometimes infiltrated by RPF operatives.
The president of the Interahamwe was Robert Kajuga, a Tutsi. As the RPF conquered territory, people fled — including Tutsi — and they lived together in the same camps for internally displaced persons uprooted by the war. In additon, RPF massacres have been documented by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Human Rights Watch, and Refugees International. There is plenty of testimonies of RPF massacres targetting Hutu but also targetting Tutsi who had stayed behind in Rwanda after 1959. The RPF the Tutsi who stayed in Rwanda as Hutu accomplices. On top of these massacres, there were massacres targetting Hutu committed in Zaire (now DRC) at Tingi;ngi and Mbandaka. Some Hutu survived the different massacres mentioned here; those who are in Rwanda must pretend amnesia and not talk about their
traumatic experience. What about the Twa? Were they spared?
Hutu Extremists and Hutu Moderates
There is another type of binary analysis found in many writings inspired by the official narrative of the Rwanda genocide which groups Hutu into two camps: the Hutu “extremists” and the Hutu “moderates”. The label “Hutu extremists” generally refers to ex-FAR (ex-Rwandan Government Forces), Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi or Hutu militia and the members of political parties of the MRND and its allies while the label “Hutu moderates” includes the individuals who belonged to the political factions supposedly allied with the RPF. These individuals (Hutu extremists and Hutu moderates) are Hutu elite who did not represent even 10 percent of the Hutu. Were there Hutus who do not fit either category? Should Tutsis who were members of the MRND and Interahamwe be classified as Hutu extremists? How should we label the Hutus, the Tutsi, and the Twa who reject the supremacy of a group of Tutsis who conquered Rwanda with Museveni’s sponsorship?
As already stated, at the end of 1990 the RPF started shelling our village and my parents and other villagers fled to live in the camps of IDPs. Then the camps moved and the IDPs moved as the RPF conquered territories. My parents eventually joined me in Kigali, then fled to Zaire.
Were my parents or other villagers Hutu extremists or Hutu moderates? Were terrified elderly, children, and women carrying babies on their backs Hutu extremists or Hutu moderates? Did they have registration cards of political parties, or did they wish that the war would end so they could move on with their lives? The official narrative ignores the people who do not fit into either category of Hutu. The use of the dichotomy ‘Hutu extremists and Hutu moderates’ is a fallacy used to oversimplify the complexities underlying the events that occurred from 01 October 1990, date at which the RPF and Uganda launched their military invasion of Rwanda.
Meanwhile, multiple categories of Tutsis also existed, but the RPF narrative consolidates all
Tutsis as one category: genocide victims.
A Racist Ideology of Tutsi Supremacy
According to Rwandan rulers, the three ethnic labels Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa no longer exist.
However, the label “Tutsi” is repeated ad nauseam in every aspect of daily life. When used, it must sound uniformly in the following phrase jenoside yakorewe abatutsi — “the genocide committed against the Tutsi.” Genocide against the Tutsi implies that all Hutu committed genocide and must be hunted down or stigmatized as a community forever. Some examples may be used to persuade those who may label me a genocide denier.
In 2020 Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu stated the following at a commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi:
“There is an idea that we have been discussing, maybe we have not really provided
specifics. It is an idea we borrowed from our Jewish friends. You find that among them
there are those who commit themselves to do the professional work of hunting down
those who killed their relatives during the Holocaust. I ask myself that this type of
commitment Jews took we can also embrace it so that those who must be taken to court
are taken to court; those who should be harassed are harassed, those who must lose
their mind lose their mind and other possible actions are undertaken.” [The last
sentence hints at transnational assassinations.]
Let’s be honest, the genocide against the Tutsi is a divisive racist ideology pervading the public discourse in Rwanda. In September 2023, during a discussion moderated by Egidio Bibio Ingabire, a journalist at the Rwanda BroadcasDng Agency (RBA), an RPF activist using the alias Marie Marie, said:
“Who are those who negatively criticize our head of state? Who are they? What are
they? Personally, I know some of them because I live with some of them in the Americas,
I know them. When it is not the child of a perpetrator of genocide against the Tutsi, it is
people who came from the refugee camps of Tingitingi; others came from the camps of
that place, they are called the camps of Benaco. It is those. Their fathers are old, some
died in foreign places in the forest of Kongo [meaning they did not receive a dignified
burial; it is an insult in Rwandan culture].
So, do not be disturbed by those people who say things when insulting the head of state;
that is how they were raised, that is the baby milk they were fed. You cannot take a
puppy (umwana w’imbwa) and transform it into a calf (inyana). They have lived four
hundred years as dogs. I personally say it; I am not afraid of saying so. Do you hear me?
When you gave a servant power; the Belgian gave power to a person whose job is to
carry big jars of beer or wine [In precolonial Rwanda Hutu offered jars of banana wine or
sorghum to their Tutsi masters carrying them on their head or lifted them as their Tutsi
masters sipped the content], and made him a human being, those are the results one
should expect. I personally say so with pride. I am very clear about it.”
The moderator and the participants in the discussion did not challenge her statement or
repudiate it. The current Tutsi oligarchy dehumanizes all Hutu as it looks down at them as
animals and servants. Its world view is reminiscent of the Rwandan myth according to which Tutsi are celestial beings (ibimanuka) as they fell from the heaven bringing animals and tools with them and found Hutu on the ground. The statement is racist and represents racism pervading Hutu and Tutsi relationships. How can people coexist peacefully when one social group of them considers itself as superior to others or one social group considers others non- human beings?
Another example illustrating the normalization of hate comes from RPF ideologue Tito
Rutaremara’s tweets posted to Twitter on 07 October 2021. He claimed that Hutu parents
taught their children at a very young age to hate Tutsi as they sat around the family fireplace at night or shared meals at night in darkness. He asserted without evidence their conversations always portrayed Tutsi as evil and that in schools teachers taught students to harass Tutsi students and to shame them. To him, history lectures in secondary school taught students that Tutsi had ruled Hutu with an iron stick. His discourse implies he does not recognize the pain and suffering inflicted on Hutu before precolonial rule and during colonial rule.
Here is a sample of some of his tweets:
“At night, when children are sittng around the fireplace, children were abused and told
that Tutsi were the culprits.”
“Often when children shared food placed on a basket in darkness at night, an adult
would pull the basket away and children would dip their hands onto the floor, and they
would scream asking where their food had gone?”
“The adults would reply saying, ahh. I am sure it is those evil Tutsi who took away your
food.”
“When children were sleeping at night, an adult would come and pull away the quilt
covering them, cold temperatures would wake them up and they would cry for help.
That adult who was hiding somewhere in the room would come and say the evil Tutsi
had taken the quilt.”
“Other nasty things regarding Tutsi were taught in stories and conversations around the
fireplace at night. When children reached primary school (1rst, 2nd, 3rd grade) they were
taught Tutsi were evil people.”
“When children reached 4th, 5th, and 6th grades, the teachers would begin teaching them
the Tutsi’s evilness by giving them examples helping them understand Tutsi’s evilness;
for instance, they would tell them that Tutsi made Hutu carry on their head a hot pot
that burned their head.”
“Cases illustrating Tutsi’s evilness were ready. Teachers would start asking Hutu children
to stand up, then Tutsi to stand up in rotation and the teachers would tell students the
parents of the Tutsi were evil.”
Rutaremara did not mention to his followers the research he has done to draw a generalization dehumanizing Hutu. His tweets did not say what Tutsi teach their children or what the RPF he serves — he is one of the founders and ideologues of the RPF — teaches the Rwandan people today besides the genocide against the Tutsi. The above tweets are just racist stereotypes Rutaremara spread online, but they reflect the Tutsi supremacist ideology developed during pre-colonial Rwanda, carried into exile in Burundi, Uganda, the DRC, and Tanzania, and brought back when the RPF took power. His view of Hutu as hatemongers is not different from the hate spread by Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and Kangura journalists against Tutsi
when they said Tutsi were sneaky, untrustworthy, dishonest or snakes.
Whatever he says in his tweets cannot be generalized to all Hutu since I come from a region of Rwanda where we have our own subculture and do not make a distiction between Hutu and Tutsi. In that region, we speak Oruciga and we consider all people who speak Kinyarwanda Banyarwanda regardless of their ethnicity. I learned ethnic identities in secondary school when I heard for the first time that there were tensions between Hutu and Tutsi students. That is when I became concerned about my ethnic identity as my parents and close relatives had never mentioned to me that we were Hutu. However, I knew the clan and the lineage I belonged to. It seems that even in other parts of the country ethnic identity was not significant, it was rather the clan and the lineage to which a person belonged that were the most important.
Rutaremara’s tweets epitomize the Tutsi supremacy emblematic of the RPF.
New Social Identities
After 1994, the RPF divided people into the following social categories: the Tutsi returnees, the Tutsi genocide survivors (abacikacumu), the Bagogwe, the Banyamulenge, the Hutu, the Twa.
As said earlier the Tutsi returnees belong to the pre-1959 old Tutsi aristocracy and hold power (the government apparatuses, the business sector, and the media of propaganda); the Tutsi survivors live segregated in the villages (imidugudu) created by the RPF government for them and they are grouped in associations sponsored by the government such as Ibuka and AVEGA (Associations des Veuves du Genocide Against the Tutsi). Under the label Ibuka, the RPF government operates other organizations like FARG (Genocide Survivors and Support Fund), AERG (Associations des Etudiants et Eleves Rescapes du Genocide), and GAERG (Groupe des Anciens Etudiants Rescapes du Genocide). These groups receive preferential government treatment in the delivery of education and social services. The estimate of government support they receive revolves around 417 billion Rwandan francs according to Julienne Uwacu, director of Itorero and Culture. (Ntabareshya 2024) The Bagogwe and the Tutsi returnees serve in the
presidential guard while the Banyamulenge serve in the special forces of the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF). These groups are allowed to hold exclusive meetings where they are exposed to the narrative according to which the genocide against the Tutsi started in 1957 and exposed to hateful ideology like that running through Rutaremara’s tweets, Dusingezemungu’s speech and Marie Marie’s racism. Hutu who also survived in the killings perpetrated by Interahamwe, Impuzamugambi and the RPF are not allowed to organize to articulate their needs and concerns.
The Israel of Africa
Meanwhile the genocide against the Tutsi has given carte blanche to a Tutsi oligarchy to
destabilize Eastern and Central Africa. As discussed earlier, under colonial rule Belgians believed Tutsi were Caucasians, the descendants of Ham, and favored them over Hutu categorized as negroid. The Belgians administered Rwanda through the principle that Tutsi were born to rule and Hutu to labor until the Rwandan people booted out the Nyiginya-Bega Tutsi monarchy and ended Belgian colonial rule. This European racism has neither faded nor disappeared. The atrocities committed by the RPF in Rwanda and Zaire and the DRC can be overlooked because, in some quarters in western countries, Rwanda is considered “The Israel of Africa.”
British journalist Mark Doyle wrote:
“Rwanda has been described by some as the Israel of Africa. The ethnic Tutsis of
Rwanda experienced their genocide in 1994 but a Tutsi-dominated government then
came to power and has ruled ever since. Like the Israelis, the Tutsis have enemies on
their borders, and now they have sent in their powerful army to deal with the ones who
have bases in neighboring DR Congo.”
As a journalist whose statement stems from his sources, I have no doubt that his analogy
reflects the pervasive racism towards Central Africa (e.g. the Hutu) he noticed in the western halls of power when reporting on Africa. Why do they equate Rwanda with Israel? Rwanda is a brutal autocratic regime. When he switched the official Rwandan language from French to English, President Kagame did not seek the consent of the Rwandan people. The RPF has massacred people and committed assassinations in Rwanda and exported its violence to Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Darfur and is engaged in transnational terrorism. The RPF for over thirty years has been providing military training to people from Burundi, Tanzania, and the DRC and sending them back to launch armed rebellions in these countries.
“The Israel of Africa” is an analogy that is as racist as the Hamitic hypothesis.
5
The Commemoration of the Genocide the Against Tutsi: Memorials all Over Rwanda
Even though the analogy is inappropriate, the RPF has imitated the commemoration of the
Jewish Holocaust by foolishly disseminating memorials all over Rwanda to honor Tutsi victims only. But the purpose of these memorials consists of covering RPF war crimes and crimes against humanity. Consider the following examples:
Before 06 April 1994, the RPF kidnapped people, shelled the camps of the IDPs, massacred
people in the city of Ruhengeri, in Mutura, Kirambo, Kinihira, and Ngarama to just mention a few. It assassinated famous political leaders such as Emanuel Gapyisi, President of the
Republican Democratic Movement (MDR); Felicien Gatabazi, Executive Secretary of the Social Democratic Party (PSD); and Martin Bucyana, the President of the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR).
After 06 April 1994, the RPF massacred innocent civilians it had called to attend public meetings or to receive food and burned their bodies to suppress evidence. Nick Gordon of the Sunday Times documented this practice of public diplomacy. Embedded journalists who rushed to Rwanda to cover the genocide and were escorted by RPF handlers never saw anything — or didn’t say what they knew or saw — and presented the RPF as a liberator.
In 1994 people took shelter at a mosque in Kabuga near Kigali. After the RPF took control of the location, it killed all the people who had taken shelter there, then called reporters to see what — the RPF claimed — the Interahamwe had done to Tutsis. In Nyarubuye, Interahamwe killed Tutsis at a parish in a building where Tutsis had sought shelter. This building served as a classroom for religious education. When the RPF arrived with the Interahamwe it had rounded up in commune Murambi, it took them to the local Catholic Church, executed them and left their bodies there. Then RPF soldiers killed civilians in and around Nyarubuye and brought the bodies to the church. After its victory and to show the world what had happened in Rwanda, the RPF dug up bodies and placed them on stilts outside of churches. But all the people — actually killed by the RPF — were blamed on Hutus. Today, the church of Nyarubuye is a memorial where skeletons supposedly belonging to Tutsi only are on display. In Rwandan culture that is not how we honor our relatives who passed away. When a relative dies he or she is honored by giving them a decent burial and going through a week of kwirabura (mourning) and kwera (purification). The public display suggests that those who passed away do not have any connection with the living; the skeletons are on display for the gaze of western tourists or politicians to legitimize the RPF on one hand and to frighten Hutu, so they keep quiet despite
the ongoing oppression by the RPF.
The Choice of 06 April 1994 not 07 April 1994
Let’s consider the dates of 06 April 1994 and 07 April 1994. The RPF regime chose the date of 07 April 1994 of each year to commemorate the genocide against the Tutsi even though it is established that after the shooting down of President Habyarimana’s plane in the evening of 06 April 1994, the RPF battalion in Kigali sent to protect its leaders and RPF soldiers infiltrated across Rwanda who had been on alert that day and the troops who were at Mulindi, the RPF headquarters, resumed military hostilities immediately after the plane was confirmed successfully hit. The choice of the date once again is designed to allow the RPF to portray itself as the victim while being the initiator of the hostilities and to prevent Hutu from remembering their dead. While doing so, the RPF disassociates itself from the shootng down of the presidential plane and the assassination of two presidents, their staff and their flight crew.
Fake Anger and Pain
Then there is the elaborate ritual that takes place on 07 April 1994 during which Kagame invites western politicians to attend. He then delivers a speech full of fake anger and pain accusing them of having facilitated the genocide against the Tutsi and where he gloats about his accomplishments. Those who are familiar with Rwandan culture know that the ritual is just a show. Kagame does not care about those who died in 1994 and in the aftermath. What he cares about is political and economic power.
Conclusion
In closing, I invite you to remember all Rwandans —Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa — who died from 1959 to today. Using the commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi to criminalize one ethnic group and to maintain a Tutsi military oligarchy will lead to greater violence in the future. It is time for Hutu, Tutsi and Twa elite to come together and propose to the Rwandan people a social contract and to debate it publicly to raise awareness about the current predicament of the Rwandan people.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union will always issue press releases with their empty promises and slogans about democracy and human rights, and they will continue to provide Kagame financial assistance and protection. Before the industrial revolution, these countries thrived on the slave trade of Africans thereby destroying the economic development Africa had achieved. The industrial revolution took the colonizers to Africa to open markets and exploit raw materials and in the process some of them committed genocide against Congolese in the Belgian Congo and Herero in Southwest Africa or Namibia.
The uranium extracted from Congo allowed the United States to build atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the digital revolution and the green economy have western countries scrambling to extract from the DRC the minerals needed to build spaceships, missiles, computers, smartphones, electric cars, etc. These countries will develop alliances with dictators and sleep in the same bed with them even when the latter are infected with leprosy.
President Paul Kagame can be the leader of the Commonwealth while being today’s Tippu Tip and Rumaliza — Africans who sold Africans into the Arab slave trade — at the same time. Just look at how the United Kingdom has stated over and over that Rwanda has an impeccable record of human rights and therefore unwanted migrants can be safe there. Look at their statements when they shower Rwanda with money directly or indirectly through neocolonial institutions under the pretenses of supporting its delivery of social services. Where does the money go? It funds the RDF (and Uganda) and its proxies to oppress the Rwandan people and to destabilize eastern DRC. On this 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, challenge the genocide against the Tutsi narrative and reject its racist underpinnings.
Stop another Rwandan catastrophe in the making by showing the RPF and General Paul Kagame to the door.
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Uwiyita Marie Marie Kuri Space z’Ibifobagane Atuka Ubwoko bw’Abahutu ni Muntu Ki?! Bing Videos: