The Rwandan Hero who united all Rwandans for the noble cause of returning home in dignity is fading. It is therefore not surprising that Fred Rwigema’s name is hardly heard in the Rwanda of Kagame; even his traces in the Rwandan society are no more. Kagame has tried all he can to make the name of the Rwandan Hero disappear from the memory of many Rwandans.  Just recently I  suggested to a friend of mine, why  can’t we tell our President  to erect a monument in the center of the City, in the round about or any  public place not only as a remembrance  but also to honor his contributions in the liberation struggle  he started and  eventually paid even his own blood.

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I was warned to be careful even mentioning it in public, as it will not only land me in jail but might end my life.  Kagame has been telling everybody to be patriotic without encouraging the young generation to study the roots of the RPF struggle and the Philosophy of the original founders. It is absurd that old people  like Tito Rutaremara have decided to keep quite even in  circumstances that  need them most on advising  Kagame that distorting  RPF’s history is not only suicidal but  also a road to self destruction like others parties in Africa  which are now extinct.

The oldest party on the continent in the struggle for Independence is of Kwame Nkurumah of Ghana the Convention People’s Party (CPP), which does not have even a member of parliament in the Ghanaian Parliament, the UNIP in Zambia of the former Zambian President Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, KANU of Kenya of the former Presidents, Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi respectively, they are all dead and extinct.  Make no mistake, RPF is not popular at all, it’s a Party built on lies, fear, intimidation, harassment , killings,  kidnap, talk any ugly act, u will talk of RPF in what they call democratic  dispensation of  the wishes of Rwandans.

President Kagame using the taxpayers money, is now busy crisscrossing all the country preaching to the youth patriotism and love to their country without mentioning the correct line of the RPF ideology. Indeed, some political commentators have argued that Kagame’s Gospel is   no different from that of his predecessor who told the youth to love their country by arming them to fight what they called at the time Inyenzi nibyitso zabyo (killing the enemy and their sympathizers). It is this tragedy that befell to our country in which almost one million innocent people were butchered in the Rwandan Holocaust of the 21 Century. Kagame should be told to get off our youth, he is busy poisoning them with our money and indoctrination in what they call Urugerero headed by the founding father of the RTLM Radio that was instrumental in the Rwandan genocide.

RPF correct line was equality, good governance but above all mutual respect by all its members from the top to the bottom, indeed, this was the policy of Fred who loved and worked for the dignity of all Rwandans irrespective of any background. This is what in public Kagame preaches but in private he does the opposite.   The president of  IMANZI PARTY Mr. Deo Mushayid is now rotting in jail in the Maximum Prison of Mpanga, when he raised these issues even when he was a member of RPF, they called him names until he left the party to form his own, he was unfortunately  stopped before  his dream became a reality. When he asked why the original definition of the genocide in Rwanda (Itsembabwoko nitsembatsemba) was changed without any consultation he was labeled a genocide denier, negationist and sympathizer, despite that all most his entire family was butchered in the genocide. This was actually the correct descrption of what happened in our country.  It is unfortunate that all the Hutus who tried to protect their countrymen (Tutsis) were butchered as well all as Tutsis. There is no doubt that  genocide  was intended to wipe all the Tutsis unfortunately the Hutus were killed because they looked like Tutsi  or  rather wanted to protect them, the question that is not answered by RPF is why did they change the original description of this tragedy?   This is what RPF calls a genocide denier to anybody who tells them about this hypocrisy and a betrayal of those who lost their lives to defend others. It is a shame that Kagame has manipulated even the RPF elders who cannot advise him that his policies are not only catastrophic but also unsustainable.

Apparently,   there is a project of intimidating all the potential political opponents despite the false claims that Rwanda is a development story in the region.  It is well established fact that most of the development projects  or call them mega projects  are  owned by Kagame  business empires or its chain of  subsidiaries, this makes  it difficult  for the outsiders   to know the real  picture of the country leave out the country side where  people are forced to  tell that their well fare is good when in fact the  facts on the ground or their household are different.

Kagame and RPF should go back to the ethics  of the Fred Rwigema  if it wants to  live for the next decades,  the elders should come out and frankly tell the president that his policies are not only destructive but also divisive, Rwandans have lived together  right from its creation by GIHANGA.It’s the president who said that the reason why they resorted to the use of force was because all the options or gates of peace where closed, it is this history that is most likely to repeat itself if  Kagame keeps all the doors of democracy closed. We should learn to live together or together we perish.

 

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.