President Kagame said that Rwandans and Africans should reject the idea of other people deciding their fate, at the 31st Commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

On the 31st commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, President Paul Kagame says Rwanda will not give in to the machinations of the same powers that orchestrated and watched on as the country went through its darkest moments in history, thirty one years ago, in a defiant message directed to the international community.

The Head of State, who together with the First Lady, Jeannette Kagame, President Kagame, joined Rwandans and invited guests at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where they laid a wreath and lit the flame of remembrance to mark the start of the commemoration week, said that Rwanda has learnt from its past and will not accept to be derailed by the same forces which were at play when the genocide happened.

President Kagame, reflecting on the speech by Dr. Jean Damascene Bizimana, Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, who gave a detailed account of Belgium’s role in influencing the events that shaped Rwanda’s history over the past 109 years, said that today, Rwandans cannot be shaken by threats, such as sanctions, by the same countries which had a role in what happened in Rwanda 31 years ago, and even before.

He also referenced an earlier testimony by Freddy Mutanguha, a genocide survivor, who expressed hope that what happened in Rwanda will never happen again, thanks to the good leadership the country has had over the past three decades, emphasising that the genocide will never happen in Rwanda again, not because those who orchestrated and oversaw it, in the first place, will not try to do so again, but because Rwandans will never allow it to happen again.

President Kagame, First Lady Jeannette Kagame and invited guests, observe a moment of silence at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

As a matter of fact, he said Rwandans have figured out how to reconcile their dark past and cruel present and are willing to fight for it, but the same people who were behind the ethnic divisions that led to the genocide have not relented and they remain keen on promoting the same divisions and ideology, as it is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), currently.

He however warned that Rwandans cannot accept to be led back into that dark past by the same external forces, which up until now, still believe that they have the power to decide the fate of Rwandans and Africans at large, in a message seemingly directed at countries that have fronted sanctions against Rwanda, over the ongoing conflict in Eastern DRC.

President Kagame said that everyone has the right to fight for their own existence and should proudly do so, emphasizing that Rwandans and Africans owe their lives to nobody, regardless of how powerful those people think they are. He called on the people to reject that kind of patronage.

“Rwandans, don’t owe your life to anybody else. Have the courage to deal with the situation and moment as it is, don’t offend anybody, but always fight for what is yours. Don’t allow anybody to dictate to you how you should live your life because the moment you accept it, that is the day you have lost your life,” President Kagame said.

The Head of State and the First Lady lit the flame of remembrance, which will burn for the next 100 days, in which the Genocide against the Tutsi was carried out in 1994.

As a result of Rwanda’s determination to stand on the truth and hold those accountable for its dark past, President Kagame said the country has been unfairly targeted, but that is not enough to shake the resolve which people have, to fight for themselves and for what is right.

He encouraged Dr. Bizimana to continue sharing the facts and even put them into publications to be shared with those people, who are always made uncomfortable by the truth he shares, on how certain countries had a direct role in the build up and implementation of the genocide.

President Kagame said that those facts are often bypassed and many would wish to have them swept under the rug, but Rwandans, who are the victims of that dark history, have the right to continuously fight against the force responsible, striking a difficult balance between their dark past and cruel present.

“The truth is no longer respected. One day, a friend of mine asked me a question. He said, ‘But you, as a person, how do you live?’ Some of what he said was in a foreign language, and I’ll say it the same way:

He asked me: ‘How do you live, carrying both the dark past and the cruel present? How do you manage that?’

But the way I understood it, he wasn’t just asking me as an individual, he was asking about Rwanda. He was asking: ‘How does Rwanda survive with such a dark past and such a cruel present?’

What I told him was this: From the beginning, we were never under any illusion that the two – our dark past and our cruel present – are separate. They are siblings. And we have to deal with them as such,” President Kagame said.

He said that the only option on the table is to fight those forces, an option he said is better than just laying back and accepting to have your fate decided by others.

“We must face the cruel present knowing fully well that it is deeply connected to our dark past. They cannot be separated. So, for us, there is a choice to make: Either we are crushed between the two and cease to exist, or we stand up and fight,” President Kagame said.

Edmund Kagire