2024-04-07 17:01:41
Three decades following the genocide, Rwanda has rebuilt itself. But he doesn’t forget anything. During a commemoration ceremony, the Rwandan president pointed out the responsibility of the international community in the massacre of the Tutsis.
Thirty years later, the cries of the genocidaires and their victims have been silenced forever in Rwanda. But their memory returns in these days of Kwibuka“remember” in Kinyarwanda, the word used to evoke the seven-day period of commemoration of the genocide during which more than a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame opened on Sunday this week dedicated to memory by a speech, delivered in Kigali, in front of several thousand guests gathered in the ultra-modern BK Arena conference hall, during a ceremony lasting more than three hours, marked by the testimony of a survivor, songs and dances.
“The international community has let us down, whether out of contempt or cowardice,” denounced Paul Kagame. In the middle of the room, a gigantic white tree represented the spirit of the victims of the genocide now protecting, in the eyes of Rwandans, their country.
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“Victims of mass atrocities are always supposed to be silent, when they are not blamed for their suffering,” the president lamented, “we commemorate because these lives mattered,” he added. , recalling that genocidaires are still at large. He denounced their massive presence in eastern Congo, where they continue to maintain their ideology and armed militias.
“Genocide is populism in its purest form,” Kagame insisted, but “our people will never once more be left for dead.”
Respect and contemplation
Many African and Western leaders attended this opening ceremony, in an atmosphere of respect and contemplation. Former American presidents, Bill Clinton, and French presidents, Nicolas Sarkozy. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel (MR). Foreign Ministers Hadja Lahbib (MR) and Ludivine Dedonder (PS), who came at the head of a delegation of 140 people, represented Belgium.
“It is in this spirit that the Belgian government asked for forgiveness in 2000.”
“I know what my continent owes to yours. It is in this spirit that the Belgian government asked for forgiveness in 2000,” said Charles Michel, the only European leader to speak.
On April 7, 1994, the day following the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, Hutu militias, the “Interahamwe” (those who get along) began to eliminate the Tutsis, the minority ethnic group. The strongest went to look for entire families, to bring them to roadblocks or public buildings in front of their executioners who executed them with machetes, clubs, bullets or burned them alive.
On the first day of the genocide, ten Belgian paracommandos, responsible for protecting Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, were massacred by Hutu forces, without the UN mission, UNAMIR, intervening to protect them. A ceremony in their honor will take place on April 8 at Camp Kigali, on the very scene of the tragedy.
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International responsibility
The 2,500 UNAMIR peacekeepers present in Kigali, including 450 Belgians, were unable to stop the massacre. A few days following the death of the paratroopers, they were recalled to Belgium and the UNAMIR reduced to 270 people. Maintaining UNAMIR, with an expanded mandate, would have changed the situation.
The French military evacuated their nationals during Operation Amaryllis. A few weeks later, on June 22, 1994, they launched Operation Turquoise, which protected the Hutu regime by failing to stop the genocide.
“Belgium was not mentioned, which is a positive thing.”
French President Emmanuel Macron admitted this: France “might have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies”, but “did not have the will”he declared, a few days before this thirtieth anniversary.
“The fact that President Kagame mentioned France’s responsibility caused a sort of shame among the foreign ministers,” reacted Hadja Lahbib following the ceremony. “Belgium was not mentionedwhich is a positive thing,” she remarked.
Paul Kagame’s speech was “a lesson for us all, and how to get back up“, summarized Ludivine Dedonder.
A planned genocide
The genocide was long in the making. As early as 1990, several Western embassies reported genocidal massacres perpetrated once morest the Tutsis. The French ambassador, Georges Martres, was one of the first to use the word “genocide” in a telegram of October 15, 1990, when speaking of killings ordered by President Juvénal Habyarimana.
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Behind the ethnic conflict was also France’s desire to maintain its sphere of influence in the region, in the face of American interests. At that time, France and Belgium supported the Hutu regimewhile Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Tutsi refugees in Uganda supported by the United States, were preparing to march on Kigali.
The Arusha Accords, concluded in 1993, suggested peace. But the assassination of President Habyarimana, returning from the signing of the agreements, triggered the genocide and precipitated the arrival of Kagame’s troops. It took him three months to take the capital, a hundred days during which the country descended into a murderous madness.
The Congo, still led by the dictator Mobutu, opened its borders to the genocidaires, who established themselves in the east, where there are still today “Interahamwe” militias sowing death. Rwanda is also active in this region, through the M23, the “March 23 Movement”, whose militias confront the Congolese army and threaten to take the city of Goma.
Reconciliation
The law regulates reconciliation, prohibiting revisionism and negationism.
Thirty years later, the bodies of the victims are still exhumed, and Hutu genocidaires are still hiding around the world. But in Rwanda, time and the will to live took over.
In “the land of a thousand hills”, reconciliation, orchestrated by the regime, has united the population, more than two thirds of whom are under 30 years old. Life has resumed. Kigali, the capital, is a model of dynamism and security In the region.
The law regulates reconciliation, prohibiting revisionism and negationism. Rwandan justice did its job, notably through the “Gacaca”, popular courts which judged more than a million cases. Support groups allowed victims to express their suffering.
The Rwandan “miracle”
After experiencing the last human tragedy of the 20th century, Rwanda has rebuilt itself like a beacon on a scorched earth. The country, which is experiencing economic growth of 10%, is a model in Africa.
Paul Kagame wants, more than anything, to embody this “miracle”. Every year, the Rwandan president recalls the horror of the genocide, and how his country has recovered thanks to the reconciliation of ethnic groups.
Aged 66, the “strong man of Rwanda” should remain in power for ten more years. During the next presidential election, on July 15, he should be re-elected, as in every election, with a Stalinist score.. Since 2015, a referendum, which he won by 98%, authorizes him to run once more to govern until 2034.
Kagame rules his country with an iron fist, as an enlightened autocrat. The regime ruthlessly hunts down opponents, in Rwanda and abroad. Furthermore, economic growth and clean streets that would make many Western cities pale cannot hide the still real poverty and inequalities measured by the UN and the World Bank.
The country still has a long way to go. But he comes back from afar, and its resilience is a model in Africa and the world.
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