They are here, amongst us, and they remember. Rwandans who were born in large families and now remain as the sole, miraculous survivors of the most dreadful genocide of this age. They are here, to be haunted by the cruel memories of that past and the heartless mockers of this day that seem to have conspired to lock them in a life of unending anguish.
The oldest of them, survivors of what have been called 'practice genocides' and the final 1994 Genocide against Batutsi, have suffered that agony since 1959. They saw their 1959 surviving sons and daughters, and their children, perish in 1963, '67, '72, '91, '93 and in the culmination of 1994.
Unbelievable as it is, there are still survivors and Rwandans, to a man and a woman, are with them in this distress. All Rwandans are tormented by that past and by anyone who would wish them to revisit it.
The architects and authors who hatched up this plan of obliterating their compatriots and fine-tuned it into an ideology, together with the perpetrators, are still nursing ambitions of finally seeing it to its intended end. And they are freely roaming this same earth as we innocents.
They are sharpening their instruments of death in the jungles of DRC while their leaders and publicists plead their case in world cities. Today, they call themselves Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR).
"Democratic forces" ready to "liberate" Rwanda and so Rwandans should negotiate with them, somebody says! "Democratic" in exercising their freedom to exterminate and yet Rwandans should lend them ears. "Liberation" as in removing them from this earth and Rwandans should hold a dialogue with them.
What man on this earth is capable of hurling an insult of this magnitude to Rwandans? Who, in this universe, is capable of imagining Rwandans sitting across a table, face to face with maniacal murderers and rapists, with tools of trade dripping blood – and whatever else drips?
Whoever imagines this, what's on their mind?
I can imagine it: Rwandans are all the same; they are all killers. The villains in their society should not account for their heinous actions because victim and perpetrator are all villains.
You and I, in this country or in the Diaspora, playing our part in mending hearts and minds of compatriots, are miscreants. Sane Rwandans contributing their 'brick' in building this country to lift it out of poverty and ignorance are all savages. We are not different from génocidaires, so we should have a dialogue. Doesn't it gall your heart!
As everybody knows, FDL is a different cup of vile from these sane Rwandans. In this world of information technology, no one need explain what it stands for. Nor does anyone need to point out where on this earth the most horrific genocide that capped the 20th century took place.
Organisations and countries have denounced FDLR. The African Union has requested member states and their nationals to fight it. The UN has called on it to lay down arms and repatriate. USA has put a $5m bounty on the head of each of its many leaders.
FDLR is responsible for the Genocide in Rwanda. It is torturing, maiming, killing, raping and displacing innocent Congolese. It has killed Belgians, Americans. For that, world leaders have come out strongly to commit themselves to fighting it and its sympathisers.
You can therefore imagine the shock when Rwandans discover that a man they have always taken to be honourable is capable of expressing this anathema of sympathy. Sympathy with what the world has acknowledged is a terrorist group? It beggars belief!
President Jakaya Kikwete has been an honourable man. Rwandans have always treated him as such on the many occasions he has come visiting. And as an honourable man, a neighbour, a fellow East African, he has pledged to join Rwandans in fighting these génocidaires and their ideology. His signature is witness, etched in Gisozi Genocide Memorial Centre books, as it is.
Jaykay – as he is known to his many (?) fans – is a measured man; when he appends his signature to a cause, it's because he is committed to it. And so he was because, as Tanzanian foreign affairs minister, he was watching as the Genocide was being planned. He was there that day, in Dar es Salaam, when the Genocide chief architect, Théoneste Bagosora, publicly stated: "I'm going to launch the final apocalypse!"
But exactly because Jaykay is a measured man, Rwandans should have reason to worry. When he turns, he turns as a measured man.
Rumours of national kitty-funds diversion to Swiss banks. Kin working with kin to bedfellow down South (fellow Intervention Brigade contributor) on interests in DRC mines. Live animal sale to Asia. "Udini" and "uamsho" divisionism promotion at home, priest-killing, church-burning. Late Nyerere's unsavoury description of him. Plain bad will to a neighbour progressing. Is it true maybe, where there is smoke, there is fire?
There are many reasons why a measured man can act out of hand, at the risk of wrecking a noble East African integration effort and Great Lakes Region entente-cordiale.
Rwandans can only hope that Kikwete will act honourably and retract his statement.
Blog: butamire.wordpress.com
Twitter: @butamire
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