This morning, a young Rwandan who lives in self-imposed exile in Europe wrote:
“Rwanda is now surrounded by three openly hostile neighbors (Burundi, DRC, Tanzania), one ambivalent one (Uganda), and a distant, impatient Angola. Rwanda’s Ministry of Defence’s sanctions don’t just hit the military; they accelerate an isolation that Kagame’s regime built for itself. OFAC sanctions on the RDF mean that any entity 50%+ owned by MoD is cut off from USD transactions and SWIFT.” -Here is the tweet: https://x.com/SamuelBaker_B/status/2037993102552506523?s=20
First of all, the Rwandan army is only one branch of the Ministry of Defence, which was not sanctioned. In business terms, Rwanda’s Ministry of Defence Inc. is a holding, which owns many limited liability companies, including RDF Ltd. Every risk averse investor knows that one of his companies can be sued, with zero impact on the holding.
That is why our troops operating in peacekeeping missions across Africa are still being paid in US Dollars. Since we know that a company that is owned 50%+ by the RDF can be sanctioned, why would we structure our companies that way?
Two: No Rwandan senior officer owns Tesla and Nvidia stocks, not even an apartment in the US. If he did, he would put them in his relatives’ names…
Three: The sanctions were performative, only to empower the Washington mediators and bring the Congo-Kinshasa back to the negotiating table, where they are now expected to disarm the militia led by those who committed the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda (The Kinshasa-backed FDLR), and declare AFC/M23 and the Kivu region as an autonomous federal state within the big Democratic Republic of Congo – as is the letter of the Washington Accords. If they don’t, they will lose it altogether and potentially disintegrate their country (I will come back to this in a later story).
The Rapport de Force.
There are many Rwandans abroad, and other opportunists drumming up sanctions against Rwanda and prophesying its future downfall. They have been at it for 32 years, since Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front stopped the genocide and took power.
That young man in particular isn’t Rwandan (his father looked like a foreigner in a photo; I could be wrong). Either way, his father didn’t teach him Rwandan history. I will do his father’s job! He should know that thriving in hostility: that’s what we do. It has always been the case for 1,000 years. The reason? We are a nation; they are not!
All those countries he mentioned have tasted the Rwandan Army’s might and didn’t like it. We have established the “rapport de force!”
Whenever you become our friend, we help you thrive. If you become our enemy, we stand aside and watch you fail and use us as a scapegoat; we are used to it.
Burundi’s Ndayishimiye’s African Union blunder yesterday is an example; Burundi’s slow pauperization is another. This goes for Mobutu, the Kabilas, and Tshisekedi.
None of them can defeat us alone, in coalition, with mercenaries, or with tribal militias, they always have those…
So they have to do like him: go be house negroes, pledge servitude, offer our region’s resources to superpowers: “Please help us get rid of Musinga, of Rudahigwa, of Kagame, of Inkotanyi. In exchange, you can take us and our countries in bondage.”
In fact, all those countries sold their people into slavery; we never did, we never will.
In this photo, the young man’s predecessors are seen brandishing a poster saying: “We do not need independence. Just help us get rid of the Tutsi”. The photo was taken in 1959, in Gitarama.
Sixty years later, the Congolese President, Felix Tshisekedi went to the Americans and told them the exact same thing: “Come and take all my country’s minerals, just get rid of the Congolese Tutsi”!
That subservient mentality of theirs worked a few times before; King Ndahiro II Cyamatare was defeated in 1510, while King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa was defeated in 1959, sent into exile with our grandparents. We have studied why we were defeated and have since fixed that. It will take another 1,000 years before our next defeat.
“Defeat is the only bad news.” -King Yuhi V Musinga (1896–1931)
But the young man should always remember: he can come back, and we’ll forgive him and forget his deeds.
No president killed more Rwandophone officers than Kabila Jr.; that, after we carried his father and himself on our backs and sat them in power in Kinshasa. Today we offer him protection, as we did many others.
We have forgiven even those who committed the genocide against the Tutsi. We offered them power, opportunities, and scholarships for their children. Like any nation, we have black sheep in our Rwandan family; we have enemies, but we never hold grudges.
Whenever we are betrayed, defeated, or massacred, we have agahinda (sorrow). But whenever we inevitably prevail, we don’t have inzika (grudge).
It is our way of life: we don’t shoot at those who lay down weapons, or raise the white flag like the South Africans…
When King Cyirima I Rugwe (1345–1378) launched conquests to expand Rwanda, he defined our warfare doctrine:
“Dutangiye urugamba rwo kugwiza imbuto n’amaboko, si urugamba rwo kugwiza abanzi n’inzigo. Kirazira kwica uguteye umugongo ahunga kuko ari ikimenyetso ko yatsinzwe. Kirazira kandi kwica inka, abagore n’abana!”
“We are starting a struggle to expand resources and peoples, not a campaign to multiply enemies and tragedies. It is forbidden to kill someone who turns his back on you, running away, because it is a sign of his submission. It is also forbidden to kill cattle, women, and children!”
Paul Kagame, six centuries hence, addressing his troops of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) during the campaign to liberate Rwanda, in 1992, in Mukarange, Byumba:
In Kiswahili: “Ninacho taka kuwajulisha ni kwamba, kila mmoja ajuwe wazi wazi, kwamba jeshi letu hili, ndiye msinge wa chama. Ndilo litakuwa msinge wa mabadiliko ambayo atakuwepo kwa inci yetu hiyi. Na kwa hivyo, wazi wazi nimpaka kila moja wenu azingatiye jambo la siyasa, ambalo limetufanya sisi tukamate silaha tupigane. Na kwa hivyo, mana yake, ni mpaka sisi, vitendu vyetu, na mawazo yetu, kila wakati vitutafautishe nawale ambawo tunapigana nawo.”
“What I wanted to tell you is that every one of you should understand that this Army of ours will be the pillar of our movement. Our army will be the pillar of the change that will take place in this country of ours. What that means is that each one of you must grasp the philosophy that led us to take up arms and fight…”
He proceeds:
“If you are saying that you are fighting tribalism, but in the end, your actions show tribalism, then there is no difference between you and those you are waging war against. Or if you say that those you are fighting are thieves, if you are a thief too, then what is the difference?” -Video: https://youtu.be/k5PSkjttw10
Two years later, during the campaign to end the genocide, Paul Kagame’s Late Mother summoned him to Uganda, where she lived in exile. Upon arrival, she said to him: “I know you are encountering a difficult situation, where your people are being killed, but do not seek revenge, my son; it is not for us to do. If you do, you will not live, and our country will never know peace.”
The president revealed this at the church in Kabgayi, during the send-off mass, after his mother had passed away:
“I was rather busy, the President recalls, but she insisted she wanted to see me.” So he traveled through the night in a war zone to answer her call.
After the mass, Late Colonel, Dr. Joseph Karemera called me:
“Gate, uzanshake nkubwire ibyo President yavuze (Look for me to explain to you what the president said). So I went to see him, and he said to me:
“When HE came back from meeting his mother, he summoned all the seniors, and gave each one of us the task of following up on commanders on the battlefield and making sure they do not kill civilians. He put me in charge of Ibingira (Rtd. Four-Star General Fred Ibingira). So I told him: Afande yavuze ngo niwica abasivili nawe azakurasa. (Afande asked me to tell you that if you kill civilians, he will shoot you).
“I radioed Ibingira every hour:
- ‘Ibingira, where are you?
- I am at this place…
- You remember what we talked about?
- Yes sir.”
Afande called me every evening, Late Karemera recalls, to verify if I had followed up on Ibingira. He did the same with every senior cadre to report on it. He did so until the genocide was stopped!”
There are many edifying stories that Late Karemera told me, all always ending with laughter… -Here is his tribute: https://gateteviews.rw/joseph-karemera-the-lion-sleeps-tonight/
Paul Kagame obeyed his mother, and that is why he is still alive, and that is why we live in peace in Rwanda.
Rwanda is a millennial civilization, with an ancient philosophy, governing and warfare doctrines. That is why all those UN and NGO allegations are false; we cannot win wars, survive, and live in a peaceful country if we betray who we are. Our enemies have no doctrines, nor nations; they are no match for us.
Fear not!
In ending, let me leave the young people with a message: Fear not! Fear no sanctions, fear no wars. Stand firm in your beliefs, stay united, stay principled, stay defiant. Be magnanimous, be generous. We live in a hostile environment; we have enemies and traitors; we always will. But as long as you observe Rwanda’s philosophy, no enemy from far or near will ever defeat you; for a thousand years…