Rwanda RPA

I must beg your forgiveness, because I had sworn to myself never to contribute in turning your intellectually stimulating website into a forum of mudslinging from Rwandans, but you should not be abandoned in your effort to counter Hiram Gahima's shallow assertions, and those of his ilk. I will be very brief in my contribution.

The 1994 genocide devastated the whole of Rwanda and inflicted indescribable damage to all Rwandans, but God knows what country Rwanda would be today if it had not been stopped. The RPA stopped the genocide when it disarmed the genocidaires it could get, and sent others and their French accomplices packing. In their Congolese jungles where they tried to raise their head for a comeback, they were neutralised, and let's hope RPA will continue to neutralise those who are still trying.

RPA could not in any way be the Red Cross: RPA had to brave the bullets and shoot its way through the many ex-FAR/Interahamwe fronts and roadblocks in order to reach and save the maniacal murderers' victims. It was not a matter of raising the flag and taking relief to the hunted, hounded and wounded. In the process, RPA lost some of its finest fighters, what with about 16,000 of them pitted against hundreds of thousands of ex-FAR/Interahamwe backed up by millions of peasant men, women and children that they had mobilised.

To say that Paul Kagame was driven by hunger for power is the height of naivety. It would be as ridiculous as saying our late hero, Fred Rwigema, was driven by hunger for power! Otherwise all the other steps that RPF led us through during the transition period, including the years that Gahima quotes until 2003, were marked by innovative steps that ensured a slow but sure return to the rule of law, and all Rwandans and their friends are the happier for it. If our budding lawyer, Hiram Gahima, especially as a survivor, has learnt nothing from the history of Rwanda, he is beyond redemption and let him forever be neutral!!

We can't call on people to say "Never Again!" and in the same breath pray them to be neutral. I think it was in "The Quiet American" novel that I read: "You must wager; it's not optional: you are embarked."

Please don't ever hesitate to write with as much verbosity as is required - especially when defending against misinformation about Rwanda.

Thank you for addressing the points raised in Hiram's chronology of political events and explaining - in a very precise, unverbose manner - how the transition required innovative steps to ensure a return to the rule of law.

Delivering Rwanda from evil - to its present-day state of peace and increasing prosperity - required the talents of a keen strategist, something Paul Kagame is famous for possessing and the Rwandan Patriotic Front for implementing. It's not for nothing Kagame is nicknamed "the Napoleon of Africa".

It amazes me that any person in the world - let alone a Rwandan - would deny that General Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Army stopped the genocide. That is universally recognized as an indisputable fact.

But something that is not universally known is how close the RPA came to NOT stopping the genocide - so outnumbered and outgunned were they. I read somewhere where General Kagame said that if the Forces Army Rwandan and the Interahamwe hadn't been so busy killing civilians - and had concentrated just on fighting the RPA - the FAR probably would have won the war.

Then, after winning the war, the genocidal regime would have had no opposition as it went about implementing its ultimate goal of killing all the Tutsis in Rwanda.

The reality of the stopping of the genocide being such a close-call is powerfully described in a book I finished reading yesterday entitled INTO THE QUICK OF LIFE. It's comprised of interviews of fourteen survivors, each of whom describe how the "inkotanyi" - the "invincible" RPA - came to their rescue - sometimes just in the nick of time. I've compiled some excerpts to share with "Orwell Today" readers:

PS - I notice in today's news that the ex-FAR/Interahamwe are "raising their head for a comeback" in the Congo once again.

I especially wanted him to remember (because he knows) how RPA soldiers used to risk their lives going behind the lines of FAR to pluck people out of their hiding, especially in Kigali (Ste Famille, St Paul, in banana plantations, etc.).

Yes, and the RPA also staged a daring rescue at the Amahoro Stadium one time. In all cases, if I recall, the rescues were done under cover of darkness and right under the noses of the genocidal maniacs themselves but so expertly were they arranged, that it was as though they had all just disappeared into thin air. I recall hearing that in one of the rescues it required the hundreds of Tutsi refugees who were being rescued to follow in complete silence and they did.

Knowing these stories makes visiting the places where they occurred so much more meaningful. That is why I was thrilled when I went to visit GENOCIDAL SAINT FAMILLE when in Rwanda last July.

No doubt there are hundreds of stories to be told about the trials and tribulations of the RPF "inkotanyi" and I think people would love to hear them, and should hear them.

Kagame seeks co-operation on rebels. Reuters, May 7, 2007
Authorities in Kigali are keen to work with their counterparts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to solve the insurgency crisis that has persisted since 1994 rather than attempt to disarm the rebels themselves, even as the DRC army pursues a military operation to oust the Rwandan rebels. The rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, known by its French acronym, FDLR, comprises the remnants of the former Rwandan army and ethnic Hutu militias blamed for the 1994 genocide. It has been active mostly in the North Kivu region of the DRC, where fighting with the DRC army in the first week of May left more than 40 rebels dead, according to the army....Kagame, who had in the past threatened to send troops into the DRC to deal with the threat to national security posed by the rebels, said an incursion into the DRC was currently not necessary. "This is not the only way we have to handle this problem of genocidal militias," said Kagame. "At the moment we seek other peaceful ways to solve the problem definitively. I know that the current Congolese authorities seek the possibility of making it possible to collaborate with us to find solutions to neutralise negative forces operating in this part of eastern DR Congo...For the Rwandan government, it is a priority, because we must reassure ourselves that there is safety in the whole country and neighbouring countries," the Rwandan leader said.

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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