This article will focus on the strong man of Rwanda Paul Kagame and how he has managed to outsmart everyone regardless of his/her academic credentials. In fact the President has on a number of occasions blasted the elite club of his country when they start to question him on the direction of the country. He once said that, it is normal to be a fool when you have never seen many blackboards, but it is worse when you have seen many blackboards and yet remain a fool according to him.
What does the President mean by saying to be a fool when you are elite?
Before I proceed in analyzing what the President is trying to mean by those strong words, I will first apologize to the readers of the Untold Stories series for the spelling error in my previous article in which I mentioned that the Minister of Justice Tharcisse Karugarama is not only misleading Rwandans but also the international community. In that article my own name Jacqueline and by my base of reporting this article Brussels were misspelt respectively. I’m very sorry for any psychological inconvenience it might have caused to my beloved readers.
The president is aware that many elites in his country will always ask his academic credentials and his ability to lead a country with accountability. Right from the bush war our comrades (RPF Elite) have let down the Rwandan people. I asked one of the RPF veterans who is now incarcerated in the 1930 prison and this is what he told me “We created a monster ourselves we should not complain when it turns against us” he said. He further narrated to me that when he was in Switzerland during the RPF struggle in 1990s Kagame a rebel reader at the time visited Switzerland to solicit political and financial support and he was given a cup of tea and something to eat.
It seems that, the then a rebel leader had no appetite or as some people say his stomach had had an upset the day before. He didn’t finish the food and the cup of tea; it was here that the above RPF veteran jokingly asked him whether he will manage the war if he could not even finish that little food. The people who had accompanied Kagame started to look at each other in disbelief, because Kagame was a person who was never challenged let alone to be told to finish a cup of tea.
It is obvious that Kagame has grown in an environment of fear and terror, this has affected him fundamentally not only for taking proper judgments in what he is doing but also terrorizing his perceived political opponents. Therefore Kagame has already become a lion and realistically, it is not possible for a lion to transform itself into a sheep.
Some people believe in forming pressure groups or political parties to change the government peacefully in Rwanda , but it is just a wish that is unlikely to work in a country like Rwanda governed by a blood thirsty man who will do everything in his power to exterminate his opponents and comrades alike without mercy .With the weak political parties in the country and some bought with big monies looted inside and outside by RPF, it is unlikely that dictatorship will be changed with prayers or civil disobedience to enable a transition to democracy.
After the death of Gen. Fred Rwigema many RPF commanders who were even superior to Kagame in ranks, experience and seniority were slowly exterminated and those who survived Kagame tricks and intrigues until Kigali was captured have been either sidelined or killed or politically rendered impotent.RPF commanders, Sam Kaka first left, Pasteur Bizimungu in red coat, Col Alex Kanyarengwe wearing a suit and Col Ndugute with a red beret. The first RPF army Chief of Staff Sam Kaka has been reduced to almost nonexistent person. Where is he? What is he doing? Another RPF hero Steven Ndugute who died a poor and helpless man yet without him the RPF struggle after the sudden death of the RPF leader Gen. Fred Rwigema would have been unthinkable. I’m told even his only house which he built was auctioned by the Kagame regime. His families have not been catered for and are refugees in a country their relative and father helped to liberate.
But the 1990 bush war which brought Kagame and RPF regime to power was a result of, greed, nepotism, corruption and dictatorship. How come that the real people who contested injustice and said enough is enough are the same people who are denying every Rwandan who has different views that freedom that even cost dearly many Rwandans. Those who support the regime are doing it out of desperation and some are regime apologists. It has become a tradition in African politics that whoever wants change has to fight for it. Therefore those who are saying that Kagame is the only person capable of leading Rwanda and Rwanda cannot be led by another person are forgetting that the war that brought RPF to power did not come on a silver plate.
When the RPF and Kagame decided to fight the dictatorship of Habyarimana almost one million people were killed in genocide and massacre but unfortunately Habyarimana’s dictatorship has been replaced by a worse dictatorial regime of RPF and every one wonders how RPF is forgetting too quickly that the same reasons that made them to take arms have not been solved and there’re is no guarantee that other people who feel equally oppressed should not protest.
However, the mental slavery in which Kagame and RPF have kept in many Rwandans make it difficult for them to think of fighting for their own rights and people become slaves when they fear to risk fighting slavery.
Indeed some Rwandans are saying that the people should not come out to demand their rights because the criminals will crash them and it’s true many Rwandans who have lived in the genocide and RPF massacre in Byumba, Kibeho and other places, all these crimes are still fresh in their minds. But without unity of all Rwandans to remove the criminals, the democratic struggle that many Rwandans cherish and want to be realized will be very difficult with Kagame’s police and army that come out on the streets every evening without mentioning the night patrols by civilian commonly called (IRONDO).
Jacqueline Umurungi.
Brussels.