As is depicted in every Hollywood film, factions of black people are killing each other and a White-man comes and saves the day – delivers democracy, money, biscuits, etc.
Now in the Rwandan story, the White-man comes and instigates the killings, participates in them, then, the killers, both white and black do not stop out of mercy, empathy or sudden epiphany; they are stopped. They are defeated and chased away by black heroes.
This story is true in Rwanda and in many other African societies where it has been distorted. But in Rwanda we have made sure that the whole world knows who the real killers are!
We indicted the White-man for what he did. In response he sided with those whom he has always sided with: the killers; those who obey him and do as he pleases; we never have, we never will.
So since we put an end to the genocide against Tutsi in 1994, we have been fighting two other wars; one of rehabilitating our victims, and another of defending the truth.
Killers received sanctuary in the west, their atrocious acts rationalized and their role in the genocide re-attributed. Their western accomplices have been attempting to rewrite history by whitewashing them as victims. The heroes who put an end to the genocide are being arrested and charged with the crimes that they stopped. One would think it is the whole world turned up side down, but no: that is how the world is and has always been; at least from where we stand, here in the south.
Why is this done? When a western countries wants to help you, they expect your full allegiance. There are things you are allowed to do, to say, and others you are not. You are not allowed to speak the truth, to claim your right. For that would mean freeing yourself from the masters – them, and they don’t want that
Some Africans have accepted that: For instance, West African presidents went to Paris to join their French counterpart in the mass protest following the killing of three (3) Charlie-Hebdo cartoonists and one (1) French policeman. But they failed to make even a joint statement following the drowning of thousands of their citizens in the Mediterranean: at the shores of the European Union.
To quote Robert Mugabe “[Black] South Africans will kick down a statue of dead white man but won’t even attempt to slap a live one.’ – the statement was made following the removal of a statute of John Cecil Rhodes from the leading African University; the University of Cape Town.
Who was Cecil Rhodes? The father of all racists that the world has ever seen. An English imperialist, who made his fortune, extracting minerals, colonizing and killing the peoples of Southern Africa. In fact, the two former ‘Rhodesia(s)’ (Zimbabwe and Zambia) were named after him. Rhodes was lionized by the west precisely for that.
Fortunately, there are two types of black people: there is Nelson Mandela who will start a foundation called ‘Rhodes – Mandela Foundation’, tell all black people in South Africa to forgive and forget the Apartheid and receive the Nobel Peace Price for it.
Then there is Sankara, Mugabe and Kagame; who will not accept that the history of racism be distorted or that what the French and the Belgians did in the Great Lakes Region and the Brits in Southern Africa be forgotten or forgiven. In other words, they would rather die, than start a ‘Miterrand – Kagame foundation’ or erect a Rhodes Statute at the University of Harare.
But for that they will be indicted with their comrades for the crimes – committed by Mitterrand and Rhodes, which they fought against and defeated!
This morning I went demonstrating against Racism, in front of the British High Commission. This time, the racism was shown in the arrest of Let. Gen. Karenzi Karake in the United Kingdom. Karenzi Karake, affectionately known here as ‘K.K.’ is a general in the Rwanda Defense Force; former Rwandan Patriotic Army. He was among the people who defeated the perpetrators of the genocide against the Tutsi and put an end to it.
KK was arrested on indictments and arrest warrants issued by a Spanish Judge, for, inter alia, allegations of killing three Spanish aid workers in 1997, in the aftermath of the genocide, and during the fighting between the then Rwandan Patriotic Army and the defeated genocidaires whom, paid and armed by the French government, would infiltrate Rwanda from their refugee camps in Eastern DRC and carry-on their genocide agenda.
Now the only survivor of the killings on that day is an American aid worker named Nitin Madhav, who was 28 at the time. He was shot in the leg by the killers, and then amputated as a result.
He clarified that the killers were militiamen. So if anyone must be indicted, it is the French who paid and armed them in their Mugunga refugee camp.
In the article on this link in The New York Times he explains how the Spaniards died. The article – which you should all read – goes on to quote a Western Diplomat saying: “The killings spurred most other expatriate aid workers in the Ruhengeri area to leave for the capital.
In addition to those allegations, the indictment describes the RPF as the terrorist movement that invaded Rwanda to install a Tutsi supremacy and massacre Hutus. It goes on to justify that Hutus had no choice but defend themselves – in other words, commit the genocide by killing One Million Tutsi.
Which brings me to the Racism that is behind the arrest of KK. Imagine a junior judge of say, Urukiko Rwibanze rwa Gasabo (Tribunal de Base de Gasabo) indicting a sitting Head of State of another country and 40 of his associates, and thereof rewrite history that has been decided upon by a UN tribunal.
Two days ago, I hosted the British Ambassador on the Gateteshow, and he told me that Rwanda and the United Kingdom have a ‘special relationship’ because of how the Rwandan government has managed to stop the genocide and transform the country. Now he wouldn’t say that he is passionate to work with this government, if he believed they committed atrocities.
Also, to quote The New Times, in leaked US cables dated April 2008, the US ambassador to Rwanda at the time, Michael R. Arietti, described the indictment as “outrageous and inaccurate.”
But most of all, Nitin Madhav is still alive and continues with aid work in Afghanistan and Pakistan; more about him here. He will be called upon to testify, if the case ever makes it to court; I doubt it will; that was not the point. The actual aim of the indictments and arrest of our K.K. was to humiliate a black man, and a country of black people who speak the truth; their favorite sport for the last 300 years.
For a junior Spanish judge to issue arrest warrants on 40 senior members of a government with no proof, is nothing less than racism; it is like a junior surgeon left to operate on a few black people before he finally makes his hand and operates on real human beings – the white.
Universal Jurisdiction is made a travesty, when a judge sits in Spain and allocates indictments to black Africans on a whim;
Now it becomes even worse, when the United Kingdom, a government which has been working with Rwanda for almost twenty years, and thus knows the truth about what happen, decides to side with a Junior Spanish judge, whom they know very well is wrong, only because they have the same skin color.
I am sure they will have a beautifully phrased explanation to their act, in their deceiving English language. But the truth remains that they are well aware of what happened to the three Spanish aid workers; That they know that the indictments are unjust; That they have knowingly chosen to commit complicity to racism.
These arrests are an insult,to the memory of the three Spanish aid workers whom, we consider here in Rwanda as victims of the Genocide against Tutsi..
Forgive me for mixing too many stories in one, for making this piece atypically long. You see when I talk about the systemic, intrinsic inherent racism that I was born to experience, I run out of breath and words. Sometimes I wonder what it is that we did to deserve this. Why do they hate and oppress us so much?
No matter now: there was a song of the Rwandan Patriotic Army during the liberation struggle that went: ‘Ata tugonde kama misumari, nywele zitutoke kicwani, hatuwezi kurudi nyuma’ – ‘we’ll grow skinny like nails, loose hair on our heads, but we’ll not be drawn back.’ – and that is a promise!
Posted 24th June