Rwanda is lucky in having its own David Ben-Gurion at a critical time in
its history. We were lucky in having the original, back then when our state was
established. What we need now is to have our own Paul Kagame! (DAVID KIMCHE in
the JERUSALEM POST)
Lessons from Rwanda, the 'Israel of Africa'
By DAVID KIMCHE
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'Where were you when the killing began?" I asked my driver. "I was here. I
managed to hide," he answered. "And what happened to your family? Were they
able to hide, too?" "No," he replied. "My mother, my father, my brothers and
sisters were all massacred. I am the only member of our family who stayed
alive." No, we were not talking about the killing fields of Nazi-dominated
Europe. Our conversation took place in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda where,
during 100 days in 1994, nearly one million people were butchered. Two
different peoples, nine million inhabitants in a country the size of Israel,
have lived side-by-side in uneasy coexistence. Violence was never far below the
surface. Tens of thousands of Tutsis and Hutus were killed during the years
that led up to the genocide of 1994. The scars of that genocide are still
there, everywhere. On a hill overlooking the capital, the Rwandan "Yad Vashem"
serves as a constant reminder of those terrible hundred days.
The Memorial recounts the massacres in harrowing pictures. It relives the
horror and the bestiality as children, women and men were hacked to death in a
frenzy of killing. It gives the story of the Hutu leaders who planned the
genocide; of the discussions at the cabinet level and of how one minister
declared that all Tutsis should be eliminated; of how the media - radio and
television - whipped up their listeners to fever pitch, exhorting them to kill,
kill, kill. The Memorial also reminds visitors of the passivity of the world;
how the UN forces in Rwanda were instructed by the secretary-general not to
intervene and to limit their activities to evacuating foreign nationals; how
the US refused help and only reluctantly admitted that a genocide was occurring
after more than half a million people had been cut down. The French are
singled out as having played a sinister, suspect role; after it was all over,
the president of Rwanda gave the French ambassador 24 hours to
close down the embassy and leave the country with all French members of his
staff. "If you are not out in 24 hours we will bus all of you to the frontier
and leave you there," he told the ambassador. When UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan asked to come to Rwanda to apologize, the president told him: "You can
come as far as the airport" - and, indeed, he received the apology at the foot
of Annan's plane, and did not allow the secretary-general to come into Kigali.
The massacres came to a halt when Paul Kagame, who today is president of
Rwanda, led a force of Tutsi soldiers from neighboring Uganda and succeeded in
overthrowing the Hutu government. Nearly two million Hutu refugees fled the
country, mainly to Congo. Most of the leading perpetrators of the genocide have
since been tried and sentenced; field trials are still taking place. The
amazing thing about Rwanda today, however, is that Tutsis and Hutus are living
together in peace, despite the terrible events of 12
years ago. Under President Kagame's dynamic leadership, the economy has grown
at an annual rate of 8.7 percent, one of the highest in the world (and double
that of Israel). The president stunned his population by appointing a Hutu as
prime minister and by abolishing the identity cards in which inhabitants were
classed as "Tutsi" or "Hutu," something that the Belgian colonizers had
installed. "From now on we are all Rwandan," he declared. Reconciliation
became the dominant policy of the president: Today Tutsis and Hutus work side
by side, at peace with each other, the slaughter of 12 years ago by no means
forgotten, but put aside for the common good. Continued
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Sharangabo Rufagari
Montreal
http://www.rpfinkotanyi.org/?page=indirimbo
RWANDA RAVE REVIEWS
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