Rwandan wisdom says “rubanda ntiruheranwa” = the people are indomitable. Thirty years ago, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi), the former rebel movement that invaded Rwanda from Uganda on October 1st, 1990, reigned over the land of a thousand hills like a lion in the savannah. The RPF-Inkotanyi regime, which has long enjoyed the support of the international system, has now succeeded in extending its methods of domination throughout the sub-region. As a result, twelve million people have died in Africa’s Great Lakes region since Paul Kagame’s Rwanda invaded Patrice Lumumba’s country in the summer of 1996.
It’s time for the international community to get to know now the methods used by RPF-Inkotanyi to subjugate and durably muzzle the Rwandans; methods which have ensured impunity, omnipotence, active complicity and even the sympathy of a certain international opinion towards RPF-Inkotanyi.
As a democratic opposition political player determined to bring about the change so longed for by the sovereign Rwandan people, the Movement for the Republic and Democracy (MRD) wishes to denounce and combat the following pillars used by the system of RPF-Inkotanyi, in order to unite together the battered Rwandans to bring about a fairer, freer and safer Rwandan society.
Let’s take a look at the three pillars of the RPF-Inkotanyi regime in Rwanda: lies as a state method(A), divisionism(B) and terrorism(C).
A. LIES AS A STATE METHOD
In the mind and mentality of Paul Kagame, the dictator in power in Rwanda since 1994, there are three types of truth: the official truth, constantly hammered into the heads of the people; the truth for “umuzungu” the white people, or the truth brandished to political and economic decision-makers on the international stage; and the “real” truth, or the truth as it is known, held only by the clique around the leader. The first two forms of truth – the official one and the one for “umuzungu” the whites – are, in truth, a ruse and are, quite simply, state lies supported by a number of shameless strategies, including:
- The “Itekinika”: In Kinyarwanda, “itekinika” means lying and manipulation through false reports or deliberately distorted statistics. In April 2007, for example, the ruling junta set up the Mutsinzi Commission to investigate the attack, in an attempt to counter the report by French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière. And after more than two years of investigations, the Mutsinzi Commission concluded that President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane had been shot down by his relatives, and that Paul Kagame was the worthy national hero who had stopped the genocide!
Similarly, the government set up the Mucyo Commission on France’s role in the genocide in Rwanda. Unsurprisingly, this Commission produced a report that falsely incriminated France. In fact, France is the only country which, with the authorization of the UN Security Council, came to the aid of the Rwandan people with Operation Turquoise, creating a neutral humanitarian zone where thousands of Tutsi and Hutu survivors took refuge.
Finally, the Kagame regime claims to have developed Rwanda, which is now enjoying double-digit growth, using itekinika and falsified figures and statistics – an unparalleled cynicism, given that the people of Rwanda are prey to poverty, hunger and disease.
- The rewriting of history: A vain exercise in role reversal, presenting criminals as heroes and victims as executioners. Given the brutal repression of all contradiction and terror, Rwandans prefer to keep quiet and carry out orders. The authorities are thus able to formulate and reformulate theses that whitewash the victors of the Rwandan war and blacken the Hutus and Tutsis who coexisted harmoniously under President Juvénal Habyarimana. Commissions of scholars have been set up to produce reports and revise curricula and textbooks that give a truncated version of Rwanda’s history. Thus, the children of Rwanda learn that the 1959 Social Revolution, which led to Rwanda’s transition from feudalism to Republic, and from inequality and injustice to equal opportunities for all Rwandans, was nothing more than a bloody adventure by Hutu genocidaires supported by the Catholic Church and Belgian colonial authorities.
Similarly, and this is scarcely to be believed, the ruling junta, through vigorous bludgeoning on the international scene, has managed to impose its official version on States and international organizations. What a scandal it was to see the UNHCR and the United Nations validate in 2004 the grotesque lie that Rwanda, barely ten years after the genocide, had become a “safe country” whose refugee nationals should be stripped of their refugee status!
Another example of the institutionalized practice of “itekinika-lies” through false reports and false data lies in the process of financing and implementing projects. In order to convince donors, the government or one of its branches launches targeted feasibility studies, the answers to which are already written in advance. Once the donor has been convinced and the funds have been released, they are used in ways other than those specified in the operating account. It’s worth pointing out that a large proportion of all donor funding for development projects is diverted to private interests.
- Brainwashing: A vast strategy which consists of summoning young Rwandans, enrolling them in barracks and subjecting them to a rigid process of indoctrination, racist socialization and robotization, under the pretext of providing them with what they call “uburere mboneragihugu” = civic education. In reality, the young and not-so-young who are forced to take part in these ingando come out of them totally dumbfounded, knowing only the ideology of the RPF-Inkotanyi and its so-called prowess, which in reality is no more than a succession of sacrileges. It is these indoctrinated, hardened youngsters who serve as the breeding ground for the death squads that are sent all over the world to spy on refugees, setting various traps for them and even giving them poison.
B. DIVISIONISM
The RPF system has mastered the diabolical art of creating divisions and tensions in order to exploit them, on the ancient model of “divide to reign.” As you will recall, in the run-up to the attack on October 1, 1990, and throughout the war, RPF ideologues waged a vigorous campaign claiming that Rwanda’s Tutsis were disenfranchised and oppressed. They repeated the same stratagem with the creation of the M23, which justified its war in eastern DR Congo by allegedly helping the Congolese Tutsis.
In the tragedy of the populations of Eastern Congo, all armed confrontations have been fabricated in the laboratories of Kigali. We recall the deadly conflict between the Hema and the Lendu since 1999; the intractable clashes between different Mai-Mai groups and between them and other communities. We recall the massacres perpetrated by the Maï-Maï-Nduma, a Maï-Maï sub-group instrumentalized by Kigali in 2010-2012. Similarly, the Conseil National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP) of Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi officer and former RPF fighter, used the pretext of helping the Rwandophone populations of eastern Congo. Lastly, in Burundi, Paul Kagame and his agents lurking in the shadows have done everything in their power, since the late President Pierre Nkurunziza came to power, to stir up inter-ethnic tensions and provoke the Somalization of Burundi. Thus, targeted assassinations of both Hutu and Tutsi cadres and notables were skillfully implemented to destroy peace initiatives in Burundi.
In Rwanda, in particular, the RPF-Inkotanyi system reigns supreme, institutionalizing divisions within the national community. The instrumentalization of differences and misfortunes, with the unavowed aim of rendering inextinguishable the fires that have marked our troubled past, is a diabolical strategy for maintaining power. In this way, as a hyper-active and cunning firefighter-pyromaniac, Paul Kagame has managed to make himself indispensable in the eyes of part of the population and in the eyes of some in international community. Without being exhaustive, here are the main strategies used by the RPF-IDM system, fatal traps that the MRD has set itself the task of defusing:
– Theories on the genesis, incubation and perpetration of the genocide. The greatest ideologue of the RPF, Tito Rutaremara, recently made inflammatory remarks to the effect that in the education provided to Hutu children, hatred against Tutsis had a primordial place. Such a statement is false, definitively false and fundamentally dangerous. Fortunately, voices were immediately raised, both in the Hutu community and in the Tutsi community, to fight words that are so toxic to national cohesion. But Paul Kagame himself, in a speech to a group of about one thousand youth (~19 years old), on June 30, 2013, said that “Hutu children must ask for forgiveness for the genocide that was committed on their behalf by their parents.” It’s clear, then, that the RPF-Inkotanyi ideology only sows the seeds of hatred which, unfortunately, will lead to further bloodshed in Rwandan society. In reality, those in power have institutionalized a kind of dualistic globalization that divides Rwandan society into two diametrically opposed camps: on the one hand, the GOOD-Tutsis-and, on the other, the BAD-Hutus. This does not augur well for peaceful cohabitation, since in such a logic being Hutu is, in itself, a problem. There is much to fear for social peace in Rwanda.
– Tutsi supremacism, which has become the golden rule of Rwandan society. The most credible observers agree that all the levers of political, economic and social power are in the hands of members of the Tutsi ethnic group. Even if the government was quick to abolish the mention of ethnicity on the national identity card, it is generally agreed that all positions, promotions and social sanctions are conditioned by ethnicity. A meticulous study of the devolution of positions of responsibility within the army, the police, diplomacy and public and semi-public companies shows that the country is truly in the hands of the Tutsis, especially those from Uganda, and that the Hutus are, to say the least, second-class citizens.
C. TERRORISM
The cement of the RPF-Inkotanyi system is the fear it has succeeded in sowing in the hearts and minds of Rwandans. In other countries, there are strikes, demonstrations and other forms of discontent, mutinies, coups d’état and so on. This seems impossible in Paul Kagame’s Rwanda. Indeed, even simple criticism is punishable by death, disappearance or imprisonment. In such circumstances, Rwandans prefer to keep quiet and follow sheepishly. This explains the flat silence that reigns over the hills of Rwanda. In reality, this extreme resilience risks giving way to a new explosion of violence.
Of all the RPF’s crimes, the terrorist attack perpetrated on April 6, 1994 ranks as the most diabolical for the nation. This was at the end of a peace process that had been underway since the start of the war in October 1990, and the Rwandan people had just agreed, under the watchful eye of the entire international community, to an equitable and inclusive sharing of power with a view to a transition that would put the country back on track. But the RPF, which did not want power-sharing but rather all power at all costs, preferred to assassinate President Habyarimana, who was the head of the transitional institutions. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) experts André Guichaoua and Alison Desforges emphasized the disastrous nature of the attack of April 6, 1994. Sociopolitical scientist André Guichaoua told the ICTR that the attack “unleashed the most extremist forces on both sides, who were just waiting for a simple trigger to unleash their fury once and for all.”
Paul Kagame persists in denying responsibility for this attack, but the most disturbing fact is that those who accuse him of this apocalyptic act are exclusively his comrades-in-arms and privileged witnesses of the night of April 6, 1994: General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, Dr Théogène Rudasingwa, James Munyandinda, Aloys Ruyenzi and Abdul Ruzibiza, whose book “Rwanda, a secret history” was received as evidence by Chamber II of the ICTR. It was this attack that plunged the country into genocide.
Secondly, as soon as President Habyarimana’s plane was hit, Kagame’s forces set in motion what they called operation “punguza wajinga”= reduce these lesser men to nothing, i.e. the elimination of the Hutus, starting with the elite. Expert Gersonny established that in the first month alone after the RPF seized power, 30,000 people were summarily executed. This operation has continued, since in a solemn video, President Kagame boasts that he came close to eliminating the entire Faustin Twagiramungu government, solely because the Minister of the Interior, Seth Sendashonga, who was assassinated in 1998 in Nairobi, had raised the issue about the massacres of Hutu population by Kagame’s army. This operation punguza wajinga is, in truth, the ongoing Hutu genocide.
We also recall Kagame’s speech in Nyabihu, in which he said that all those who opposed him would be “shot in broad daylight. This speech sounded like a call and an encouragement to the forces of law and order to use unlimited brutality. Indeed, extrajudicial executions have taken on an unprecedented scale, as documented in reports by international human rights organizations such as Human Rights and Amnesty International.
We cannot forget the institutionalization of torture as a state method in the safe houses, which are veritable slaughterhouses, where many opponents, journalists and opinion leaders have been tortured and executed.
It has to be said that RPF-Inkotanyi terrorism is self-financing! By using terrorism as a state method, the RPF-Inkotanyi regime is able to amass funds and fill its coffers to finance its crimes both inside and outside the country. In fact, the RPF-Inkotanyi system’s funding comes from 3 sources:
– The plundering and depredation of the Rwandan population: laws and regulations are regularly passed demanding more and more money from Rwandan citizens. They have to pay money to the state even if they are hungry or ill. Taxes, fines, dues, “voluntary” contributions, etc., the Rwandan citizen simply has to pay the State, at the risk of suffering the most extreme brutality.
– The plundering of DR Congo’s raw materials: as detailed in UN expert reports corroborated by all serious experts, Kigali has managed to build a veritable financial empire thanks to the natural resources of its neighbor, DR Congo.The problem is that the plundering of the Congo is facilitated by the massacre of its people.Today, all chancelleries acknowledge that twelve million human lives have been exterminated as a result of the coveting of raw materials in Eastern Congo.
– Extorted development aid: Kigali has always demanded more and more funding from Western countries, threatening to accuse them of collaborating with the Habyarimana regime and doing nothing to stop the “Tutsi genocide.”
RECOMMENDATIONS :
1. To the youth of Rwanda: Rwanda is your country and the country of your Ancestors, no one can deprive you of it. Stand up as one to demand change.
2. To the Rwandan people: Don’t let yourselves be manipulated and martyred for the interests of a small group. Take your responsibilities, act against these manipulators and fight for your liberation.
3. To the Heads of State of the sub-region: The Rwandan people thank you infinitely for your initiatives to restore peace in the sub-region. Increase your efforts and initiatives tenfold to prevent Rwanda from becoming a deadly poison for all our brother peoples.
4. To the international mass media: State lies have long flourished. Redouble your vigilance and efforts to challenge the “official truth” that continues to mortgage the lives and future of the Rwandan people and the peoples of the sub-region.
5. To the decision-makers of the international system as a whole: The Rwandan people expect more compassion and active solidarity from you. Help and accompany the Rwandan people in their march for change.
Washington D.C
March 11, 2024
MRD Executive Committee
Leave a Reply