The Head of State delivered the message at the start of the 28th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi.
He explained that there are three systems of governance in the World including democracy, autocracy and another one that is more powerful.
“One is the so called democracy, the other is what they call autocracy, the third in between that is silent and powerful is that of hypocrisy. But for us, we have learned our lessons. We will carry the names anyone is going to give us. We have no problem with that.
But the lesson we have learned and the lesson of things we knew any way from the beginning, is that it doesn’t matter how far you go from here. Thousands or tens of thousands of kilometers, you are not going to find people that are more important or have more important lives than we are. There are no such more important lives than ours. Much as our lives were destroyed, wasted as the testimony given by a young man there tells us,” Kagame added.
As the President highlighted, the revelations are made for the benefit of young people that were born 28 years ago, who must have been taught the country’s history making them resilient to become brave men and women.
The President however revealed that he has a problem with the word hero and its definition in consideration of Rwanda’s context.
“When you are talking of heroes, you are talking of the situation that was so bad, that it had to have heroes for doing what they did, the right, good things to save themselves and others from what was going on. But then, I ask myself. May be the best thing is not to have heroes, it is not to have that situation that produces heroes,” he said.
Like Rwanda’s situation, Kagame said that it is hard to understand how someone can become a hero yet the country lost over one million people.
“More people were killed than could have been saved or that needed to be saved. So, that means being a hero , which we could not have it, we should not have that situation that has to produce heroes. We would be better off,” he stated.
The President disclosed that another issue with the situation is that heroes can be manufactured.
“And another thing, I have that is problematic with that word is that you can also manufacture heroes, you can decide to baptize someone hero especially when you are powerful. You can create it and if anybody raises an argument, they are made to shut up,” he noted.
“That is what I meant when I said the powerful are powerful, they are big but small on justice. They even talk about freedom, and yet as we know, they create false stories about people about Rwanda and Genocide. When you argue with facts and want to present facts that actually they also know; there is that power to tell everyone not to give you space to express your opinion, to answer back, to argue and yet they are the same people who will start accusing others of lack of freedom to express themselves,” Kagame added.
He went on to say that what he talked about is not an old story in terms of when it last happened because it still happens today.
“You will find a renowned newspaper in some powerful place falsifying some stories about us, about Rwandans , about Genocide and our history. When somebody wants to say, look, that is not correct, this is what it is, these are facts; you will find it is like they have agreed among themselves or they have channels through which you could have communicated or placed a reply not to listen to you,” Kagame revealed.
The Head of State emphasized that those people do it because they have what they are playing and want the only thing playing in everybody’s ears.
“But make no mistake, in this land, this land of ours. Small as it is, it has no small people like we did in the past guided by the truth, by what is right and did not use the means we had, the possibility we had to kill those who killed our people. You know you can imagine , people who even doubt our justice system, then you have Rwanda in our constitution in our set of laws having abolished death sentence and death penalty. Some of these powerful countries are still hanging people or electrocute them,” he said.
The President highlighted that the country abolished the penalty without anyone’s pressure yet it had so many people to justifiably hang.
“They do that, in fact for us to have even thought about abolishing these penalties at the time we had so many people to justifiably hang, and these people missed that point. They miss the point that we are actually a country of justice, a country of laws, we believe in the rule of law because if we didn’t why do we do all these things?
“There is no amount of pressure. Let no one tell you lies. We did this ourselves not because anybody influenced us, put pressure on us. Who would put pressure on us when they are doing the same thing in any case?” he wondered.
The Head of State also alluded to people who played role in the Genocide, handed sentence and pardoned but people tend to make them rights activists seeking to champion democracy ignoring their deeds.
“And then, we have forgiven people who are associated with this. That happened, what we heard from the testimony, people who were part of that continuing to be part of that even now and forget that we have actually forgiven them. So, they are forgiven, they have been tried by the courts and found guilty. In the middle of serving their sentence, we forgive them. Next, these are people supposed to bring to Rwanda democracy.
It is a joke. You are doing it in a wrong place that understands many things about us and our limitations, our power to defend this land, protect it and the people of this land. Those people who go around talking nonsense every day, we should take a moment and remember, a situation like this that we are talking about today. In actual fact, also remember that it has produced different people in this land,” he stressed.
Kagame said that the current and future generation including children and grandchildren should know the truth about the history of their nation so that the country can be able to confront such destructive acts.
“Well but we also know many things, including our limitations. We have no power to stop it or to prevent it but we have the power to confront it. It happens every day but this gives some of us a good opportunity to remind people of all this,” he noted.
Kagame also thanked leaders, citizens and young people who still find it in themselves to be normal human beings despite the bitter history they went through and warned people who continue to falsify facts about Rwanda.
“But the most important thing is these very hard, bad lessons should never be wasted. In the last 28 years, every year that passes makes us stronger and better people. And for being who we want to be, we shall be the ones to decide not anybody deciding for us what and how to be. For those who keep running their false stories and imagine people could not even, to be fair, the majority the people in this world recognize what happened here and give it the names it should be called, but there are others who say […] no, it is not only Tutsi who died, there are others who died.
First of all, what you are saying is obvious, but if you were talking about something else, you know everybody knows here. And those who want to know, they were people who were called cockroaches, the name was reserved for a specific group of people. And when they were killing, they were killing cockroaches; this is what they were saying. They were saying it publically; so to say it was genocide targeting Tutsis. How can it be wrong, how can it be questioned, how can it be argued about, unless you have something else, another problem.”
The Head of State highlighted that this gives room to all other genocidaires to start talking about championing democracy seeming to be new breed of people who are democratic, who want to bring democracy to Rwanda which they claim that lacks democracy, freedom of speech and everything normal and humane.
Kagame advised young people to do what they need to do for themselves, be what they want to be highlighting that the rest is a struggle which shall be fought effectively.
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