Author: Wycliffe Nyamasege

The Heads of State began arriving in the country on the evening of Saturday, August 10, 2024, while others jetted in on Sunday morning to witness the momentous occasion.

The leaders were accorded a guard of honour by the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) and a warm welcome by senior government officials at the Kigali International Airport.

And on Sunday afternoon, the presidents were escorted to the state-of-the-art Amahoro Stadium, where they joined thousands of ecstatic citizens gathered at the newly refurbished facility to witness the swearing-in of their Head of State.

It was a spectacular scene at the stadium as the leaders were welcomed to the venue with traditional songs, dances, and cheers from the crowd.

The Presidents who attended the event included Andry Rajoelina of Madagascar, João Lourenco (Angola), William Ruto (Kenya), Samia Suluhu (Tanzania), Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (Somalia), Sahle-Work Zewde (Ethiopia), Emmerson Mnangagwa (Malawi), Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé (Togo), Faustin-Archange Touadéra (Central Africa Republic), Denis Sassou Nguesso (Republic of the Congo) and Ismail Omar Guelleh (Djibouti).

Others were Nana Akufo-Addo (Ghana), Wavel Ramkalawan (Seychelles), Mamady Doumbouya (Interim President of Guinea), Mokgweetsi Masisi (Botswana), Emmerson Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe), Umaro Sissoco Embaló (Guinea-Bissau), Salva Kiir (South Sudan) and Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique.

King Mswati III of the Kingdom of Eswatini, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council of Sudan, and Brice Oligui Nguema, President of the Transition of the Gabonese Republic, also attended the ceremony.

Malawi, Ivory Coast, and Uganda were represented at the inauguration by Vice Presidents Dr. Michael Usi, Tiemoko Meyliet Koné, and Jessica Alupo, respectively.

The event was also graced by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Boughali, the Assembly President of Algeria, and Patrice Trovoada, the Prime Minister of São Tomé and Príncipe.

Ousmane Sonko, the leader of Senegal’s opposition, and Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s Army Chief, also attended, underscoring the broad international representation at this momentous occasion.

Kagame, the flagbearer of the RPF-Inkotanyi, secured 99.18% of the votes cast in the elections conducted in July. His challengers, Dr. Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, came in second with 44,479 votes (0.50%), while Philippe Mpayimana finished third with 28,466 votes (0.32%).

The UAE Foreign Ministry has issued information on the volume of aid provided to the Gaza Strip.

Tebogo won Botswana’s first-ever Olympic gold medal by finishing first in the men’s 200-meter race on Thursday night. The 21-year-old also made history as the first African to win the 200-meter sprint at the Olympics.

“President of the Republic of Botswana, hereby declares to the nation, that he has found it a fitting tribute to Mr. Letsile Tebogo, “Botswana’s Sensation”, to grant Batswana and residents an afternoon day-off, on this very day, Friday the 9th August, 2024,” a statement from the Office of the President reads in part.

The Botswana Head of State noted that Tebogo’s impressive performance deserves a special pause to recognize his triumph in a unique way.

“The President underscores, recognises and acknowledges Letsile’s performance and achievement as markedly outstanding, and deserving of the nation to pause and celebrate him in a most unique, appropriate and responsible manner, that will be etched in the annals of the history of the Republic,” the statement adds.

Tebogo delivered a stunning performance at the Paris Olympics despite being deeply affected by the death of his mother, his number one fan, in May.

President Masisi applauded Tebogo for the great victory and extended a special tribute to the athlete’s late mother.

“His Excellency President Masisi, wishes to state that, on behalf of all of the citizenry, he applauds Letsile and gives thanks unceasingly to his late mother.”

Tebogo’s victory sent the world into a frenzy as he finished ahead of a talented field, including Americans Kenny Bednarek, Noah Lyles, and Erriyon Knighton.

Tebogo led from start to finish, winning in 19.46 seconds — the fourth-fastest time in history, but 0.15 seconds slower than Lyles’ top time.

Tebogo dedicated his victory to his late mother. After the race, he held up his spikes to the cameras, revealing a message that displayed her date of birth, and dedicated his win to her.

“It’s basically me carrying her through every stride that I take inside the field,” Tebogo told journalists.

“To take her with me, it gives me a lot of motivation. She’s watching up there, and she’s really, really happy.”

Walz was recently unveiled as the running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris, who is seeking to succeed President Joe Biden in the elections slated for November 4, 2024.

While Walz’s nomination for the second-highest office in U.S. politics caught many by surprise, he stated on Tuesday that his transition from the classroom to politics was well thought out.

Walz explained that after many years as a teacher, his high school students encouraged him to run for elective office.

“It was my students; they encouraged me to run for office,” Walz said, adding, “Don’t ever underestimate teachers.”

The phrase “Don’t underestimate teachers” is profound given Walz’s accomplishments in the classroom.

Notably, Walz led a project analyzing the genocide of European Jews during World War II, guiding his students to use data to predict regions at risk of such atrocities.

Using cutting-edge mapping data from 1993, Walz’s students accurately predicted the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, which claimed the lives of over a million people the following year.

In a past interview with Times, Walz recalled developing an interest in studying the Holocaust more deeply while teaching geography at Alliance High School in Nebraska. He assigned his class a project to investigate the conditions leading to mass murder.

Walz said his goal was to ensure that historical events were more than just memorized facts.

“The Holocaust is often taught purely as a historical event, an anomaly, a moment in time,” he said.

“Students understood what had happened, that it was terrible, and that the people who did this were monsters.”

In a separate interview with NPR in 2008, Walz recounted how his class correctly predicted the Genocide against the Tutsi due to the growing ethnic tensions in Rwanda at the time.

“One of the things that stood out to [the students] was the long-standing division along ethnic lines, with one group receiving favoritism during colonial times, and the resulting tension in a struggling economy,” he revealed.

The Genocide against the Tutsi was perpetrated by the Hutu-led regime of Juvénal Habyarimana years after ethnic tensions that were fueled by Belgian colonial power, which was believed to have favored the Tutsis.

Travis Hoffman, a former student who participated in the project, described the study as “different and unusual.”

“The biggest part was just the freedom to explore things. No matter how abnormal or far-fetched an idea might sound, you could form an opinion,” Hoffman told Times 15 years after the project.

Lanae Merwin, another former student, found the report about the genocide happening in Rwanda “terribly chilling,” but not entirely surprising.

“We’d discussed it in class, and it was happening. Though you don’t want a prediction like that to come true,” Merwin said.

In 2008, Walz criticized the international community’s failure to act and stop the killings in Rwanda.

“If we understood this was a possibility, surely someone else did too,” Walz said. “The need to act was stronger afterward when people realized it had happened.”

He also criticized his former congressional colleagues for their lack of knowledge about global geography.

“You have to understand what causes genocide to prevent it from happening again,” Walz said, adding that he received “blank stares” from House Armed Services Committee members when he mentioned the Durand Line, the disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Former President Bill Clinton, who was in office during the Genocide against the Tutsi, admitted in his first visit to Rwanda four years later that the international community bore responsibility for the tragedy.

“The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy as well. We did not act quickly enough after the killing began.

“We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become a safe haven for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We cannot change the past, but we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope,” Clinton said at Kigali International Airport in 1998.