“Are you Hutu or Tutsi?”, I asked the cab man who offered to take me round Kigali metropolis on a sightseeing mission for an agreed amount. I was in the East African country recently as one of the Nigerian delegates for a three day media engagement and training organised by the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF). I was determined to have a first hand feel of the country, especially a possible offshoot of the horrible but historic genocide that hit the country exactly 25 years ago.
As I popped the question, I didn’t know what to expect from the driver as I’ve heard my colleagues say the country is now one and prohibits attempts to divide it on ethnic grounds based on the harrowing experience of the genocide.
However, the driver, who Iater identified himself to me as Habimana politely told me: “My friend, Rwanda is one. No Hutu, No Tutsi. No tribes. We are a country that had to learn painfully from our ethnic errors and we have done so and moved on. It costs us close to a million innocent lives. We are not ready to tow that horrible part again. Rwanda is one!”
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His words hit me down the spine and I couldn’t help but applaud their utmost determination despite the massive killings targeted at a particular tribe during the genocide. People still deal with the aftermaths of the brutal history. The post genocide re-integration means that victims and perpetrators now live as neighbors, and even work together. I am baffled by their ability to put the hatred and sadness to one side and focus on simply getting the work done. I also discovered during my stay in the beautiful city that Rwandans do not only say it, they act it. They are truly one!
At the mention of the country Rwanda, what easily comes to mind is the 1994 genocide that led to the gruesome murder of close to a million Rwandans, majority of whom were of the Tutsi tribe.
For hundred days non stop, starting precisely from April 7, 1994 to July 4, Rwandans were subjected to the most horrific, terrific and tragic experience any human could possibly witness. While it is true that the nation had witnessed some other ethnic clashes, none of it come close to the 1994 episode. It is not an experience many Rwandans wished to be reminded of, but in reality that dark moment formed the basis for the positive turn around that the country seemed to enjoy today.
Kigali, the nation’s capital radiates a fascinating mix of tranquility and raw energy and it is difficult not to immediately fall in love with the place.
Kigali is a city dressed to impress. It bustles with life and commerce and proudly boosts infrastructure similar to a European or American city. It can easily pass for one of the safest and most organised places available to a tourist from anywhere around the world. It’s just a total deviation from the typical African setting.
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Never seen a country with so clean, disciplined and contented populace…#Rwanda
It is evident that the country today focuses on building economic and intellectual power to ensure that history will never repeat itself. Remembering the past is still very much part of the daily life here. The mass graves, now beautiful memorial sites, are scattered across the whole country and all Rwandans get a week off work every year to be with their families to mourn and reflect.
During my stay for the programme, we visited the Kigali Memorial Centre where our tour guide, Bonheur Pacifique took us round the facility and lectured us on how the genocide started and eventually ended. The centre is burial site to over 250,000 people who lost their lives during the genocide. Other burial sites are also strategically located around town.
Rwanda’s major ethnic group; Hutus and Tutsis
We are told that the Twa and Hutu people were the first to settle in Rwanda in the 14th century. They were later joined by the Tutsi who migrated from southern Ethiopian highlands and settled as cattle rearers. Soon afterwards, those who owned the greater number of cattle became known as the “Tutsi” and everyone else was called “Hutu.” At this time, anybody could easily change classification from Hutu to Tutsi through marriage or cattle acquisition. The terms were applied somewhat flexibly. But when Germany colonised Rwanda in 1894, the terms Tutsi and Hutu; took on racial dispensation. The Germans looked at the Rwandan people and convinced themselves the Tutsi had characteristics that made them look more like Europeans, such as being light skinned and tall. And on that account they put the Tutsi in positions of social authority.
Genesis of acrimony between Hutu and Tutsi
The Belgians took over Rwanda when the Germans lost their colonies after the First World War and in 1933, they consolidated the categorisation of the terms “Tutsi” and “Hutu” by making it mandatory for every citizen to possess an identification card that must label him or her as Tutsi, Hutu or Twa. Although the Tutsi constituted only about 15% of Rwanda’s population and the Hutu nearly 85%, the Belgians, like their German counterparts left all the leadership positions in the hands of the Tutsi. The Hutu did not find that funny.
As a result, Belgium faced an uprising that was masterminded by the Hutu during Rwanda’s struggle for independence. The Belgians quickly swapped the status of the two groups and allowed the Hutu who constituted about 85% of Rwanda’s population to be in charge of the new government. The Tutsi did not take lightly to the new deal. And so, the acrimony between the two groups began to hatch. Their hatred for each other ran into decades.
From the beginning of 1993, President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, presided over an autocratic government in Rwanda which prohibited the Tutsi from participating in governance. But the restriction was to change on August 3, 1993, when Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accord which loosened the Hutu stronghold on Rwanda and allowed the Tutsi to participate in governance. Again, this new turn of events greatly worried Hutu extremists.
The Horrible Genocide (April 7 – July 4, 1994)
On Wednesday, April 6, 1994, Hutu extremists began a mission of killing the Tutsi. As the brutal killings continued unabated, an unconcerned world stood by and just watched the massive killings of innocent men, women and children in Rwanda. At 8:30 p.m. on that fateful day, President Habyarimana of Rwanda and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira were returning from a summit in Tanzania. A surface-to-air missile shot their plane over Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city. Everyone on board was killed in the crash.
Although it was never determined who was actually responsible for the assassination, Hutu extremists took advantage of Habyarimana’s death. Within 24 hours of the crash, Hutu extremists took over the government, blamed the Tutsi for the assassination and began to slaughter them. Spanning over 100 days, the Rwandan genocide left an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu sympathisers dead.
The killings began in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. An anti-Tutsi youth organisation mobilised by Hutu extremists set up roadblocks on the streets of Kigali. They checked identification cards and killed everyone who was Tutsi. Most of the killing was done with machetes, clubs or knives. Over the next few weeks, roadblocks were set up in many parts of Rwanda. On 7 April, Hutu extremists began to purge the government of political opponents. It meant that both Tutsi and Hutu moderates had to be killed. The prime minister was among them. And when ten Belgian United Nations peacekeepers tried to protect the prime minister, they were killed also.
Belgium began to withdraw its troops from Rwanda as a result of the murder of its citizens.
Over the weeks, the violence spread. Since the government had the names and addresses of nearly every Tutsi living in Rwanda after all citizens had acquired identification cards that labelled them Tutsi, Hutu or Twa, the killers went from door to door, killing the Tutsi. Men, women and children were murdered, most of them with machetes or clubs. Many were painfully tortured before they were killed.
Thousands of Tutsi women were raped. Some were raped and then killed. Others were kept as sex slaves. Some Tutsi women and girls were tortured before they were killed. Some had their breasts cut off or sharp objects driven up their vagina. Thousands of Tutsi tried to escape the slaughter by hiding in churches, hospitals, schools and government offices.
Unfortunately, these places which have been historically designated places of refuge were turned into places of mass murder during the Rwandan genocide.
According to Jennifer Rosenberg, a historian and freelance writer who researched on the Rwandan genocide, one of the most horrible of the massacres took place on April 15 and 16, 1994, at the Nyarubuye Roman Catholic Church, about 60 miles east of Kigali. The mayor of the town, a Hutu, had encouraged the Tutsi to seek refuge inside the church. He had assured them they would be safe there. Then the mayor betrayed them to Hutu extremists.
The killing began with grenades and gunshots and then changed to machetes and clubs.
The killers took shifts to kill. It took two days to kill the thousands of Tutsi who had hidden inside the church.
Similar massacres took place in many parts of Rwanda, with many of the worst ones happening between April 11 and the beginning of May 1994. To further demonise the Tutsi, Hutu extremists did not allow their dead bodies to be buried. They made sure their bodies were left where they were slaughtered to rot, exposed to the elements, eaten by rats and vultures. Many Tutsi bodies were thrown into rivers, lakes and streams apparently to “send the Tutsi back to Ethiopia”, a reference to the fact or fiction, that the Tutsi were foreigners who migrated from Ethiopia.
End of the genocide
The genocide ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took over the country. The RPF was a well-trained military organisation of the Tutsi who had been exiled years before, many of who lived in Uganda. The RPF was able to enter Rwanda and slowly take over the country. By mid-July 1994, when the RPF had taken full control of governance, the genocide was finally stopped. But the pains of remembering the atrocities might have to persist, if only to deter a future recurrence of foreign powers manipulating Africans to eat up themselves.
Sunday April 7, marked the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in which at least 800,000 mainly Tutsi people were clubbed and macheted to death in a hundred days of brutal killings. Kagame, then 36, was a rebel general when he led the mainly Tutsi RPF into Kigali on July 4 and drove Hutu extremists out of the country. A quarter of a century on, Rwanda has now recovered economically but the trauma of the genocide which cast a long and dark shadow over the country is not yet lost on the people.
As it has become the tradition every April 7 being the day the genocide began, President Paul Kagame in company of other world leaders lit a remembrance flame in the capital at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims were buried. It usually mark the beginning of a week of commemoration activities and a hundred days of national mourning.
Kegame while speaking on Sunday at Kigali Convention Centre, a dome-shaped auditorium in the centre of the capital, a modern building emblematic of the regeneration of Rwanda expressed optimism that his country will embrace love and together confront whatever maybe remaining of their challenges together.
“In 1994, there was no hope, only darkness. Today, light radiates from this place … How did it happen? Rwanda became a family once again,” Kagame said.
“The arms of our people, intertwined, constitute the pillars of our nation. We hold each other up. Our bodies and minds bear amputations and scars, but none of us is alone. Together, we have woven the tattered threads of our unity into a new tapestry,” he said.
“Our people have carried an immense weight with little or no complaint. This has made us better and more united than ever before.”
“The fighting spirit is alive in us. What happened here will never happen again,” the president said.
Pardon our ‘helplessness’ – World leaders beg Rwanda
The genocide of the Tutsi is an internationally recognised crime. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda described it in 2006 s a fact of public notoriety. The UN General Assembly thereafter devoted 7 April each year as an international day of reflection on the genocide perpetrated against Tutsi in Rwanda.
On 25 March 1998, US President Bill Clinton deplored his Government’s inaction on the genocide.
In 2000, Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt apologised on behalf of his country.
In 2004, UN Secretary General Koffi Annan apologised on behalf of his organisation.
On February 25, 2010, French President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged “grave errors of appreciation” and a” form of blindness” of France during the genocide”.
On March, 2017, Pope Francis apologised for the involvement of Church members in the genocide.
A new dawn in Rwanda under Kagame
Kagame became President of Rwanda in April 2000. Following the adoption of the new constitution in May 2003, the first elections were held and he was officially elected president on September 12, 2003, after winning Rwanda’s first multiparty election. He was reelected in 2010. He was re-elected for a third term with 98.79% of the votes on August 18, 2017.
Kagame has been credited with being responsible for the rapid economic development in Rwanda after the genocide. Little wonder he was picked as the 2018 Forbes 2018 African man of the year.
In the December/January issue of the Forbes Africa magazine shared on December 4, 2018, the President and immeiate past Chairperson of the African Union is described as a visionary.
Apart from gracing this cover, he is also the winner of the African of the Year Award by the All Africa Business Leaders Award.
Every country has grand development plans. Every country makes promises. But Rwanda, almost uniquely in Africa, routinely delivers on its promises. It gets things done.
Take as an example improvements in healthcare, which is a cornerstone of Rwanda’s development model. The improvements for the country’s 12million-strong population are almost unbelievable. According to the country’s health ministry statistics, life expectancy is up to 64.5 years from just 49 in 2000 when Kegame took over realms of leadership. Child mortality is down more than two-thirds. Maternal mortality is down nearly 80%. HIV/Aids prevalence is down to 3% from 13%. There is now one doctor for every 10 555 people, compared to one doctor for every 66 000 people in 2000.
Dr Olushayo Olu, the Rwandan World Health Organization (WHO) director said the extraordinary statistics are supported by the WHO’s own research and explained how Rwanda achieved the rare feat. “The main ingredient is visionary leadership. It’s about having a target, saying we want to be there in the future and understanding obstacles in the way.”
Key to getting there is accountability and a performance-based system where each layer of society must answer to the layer above. “Mayors and top officials sign performance agreements with the president himself,” Olu said.
Aside health, the Rwandan economy has grown at a staggeringly high 8 percent rate since 2008, making it, by one assessment, the most desirable African country to invest in.
For human resources purposes, the United Nations ranks Kigali alongside New York in terms of ease of living. The restaurants are great, there are several world-class hotels and you can walk wherever you want at any time of day or night without fear of mugging or assault.
Rwanda has been called Africa’s “biggest success story” and is, despite its history, at the forefront of developing new models for foreign aid designed to help recipients in becoming self-reliant entrepreneurs. Rwanda is probably one of the most inspiring and fascinating acts of rebirth in modern history.
How did Rwanda achieve so much in 25 years of post genocide experience?
Speaking with me in an exclusive interview at Kigali on the giant strides taken so far by the Kegame led government, Aimable Kayigi Habiyambere, Commissioner for Domestic Taxes at the Rwanda Revenue Authority said the government grouped its citizens into four bands to be able to cater appropriately for their distinctive needs.
“The standard of living in Rwanda is fair. The government is seriously working on alleviating the sufferings of the less privileged in the society through a number of relief programmes being put in place for their benefits. We have a system of doing things in Rwanda. For instance we group people into different categories and such categories determine where they fall in terms of enjoying benefits from the government. We have got four bands. The first band is where all the poor people fall into. These people are allowed to access a number of services completely free of charge by the government. They are entitled to free health facilities, access to education even those in advance age and no longer receiving pensions; they get monthly cash allowance being paid by the government which ranges from 30,000 Rwanda franc (RWF). There is second band for basically those who are not poor but also not categorised as rich. For those ones, they can afford for themselves a number of services but there are other services that are provided for them by the government. However, there is a general insurance for every Rwandan in the second band. They pay about 3,000 Rwanda francs on annual basis. That gives them access to all health facilities. So if you go there you are treated and you have to show your card. So they do access a number of services. The third band is the middle income earners. For those ones, they are the ones considered to be earning some income like those doing business as employees of private or government establishments. So they do pay for their own insurance. The fourth category now is the rich people. These ones are charged a lot. They do contribute even to support the poor. They pay about 15-25 per cent of their earnings.
He noted further that to encourage productivity, equity and gender balance, the government reserves certain quota of their employment quota to women and the youths.
“You’re right. As per our constitution, it is very clear in Rwanda that in each and every organ of government, the women have to be represented. There are many government institutions where the women are highly represented. We fought the genocide crisis. I actually attribute the successes we have had in my understanding to two factors. Good leadership is something that played a very big role because this country has at the highest level a leader that is really a visionary, President Paul Kagame. He did a lot for this country. Secondly, I also believe that even Rwandans themselves played a very big role by virtue of the kind of leadership they have had over the years since the genocide. They knew also that they went through a very bad history, they were the ones that suffered and they are the ones to suffer consequences of the genocide. It was a very strong lesson that they got in their lives they believed that they had to work very hard and listen to their leadership in order to overcome the number of challenges the country was facing and is still facing. So I would attribute as I said the successes thus far to the leadership and the resolve of our people”.
From the foregoing, it is evident that Paul Kagame has a very ambitious vision for his country. Rwanda’s goal is to focus on three key factors: growth, opportunities for the poorest and governance. It seems to work.
By 2020 Rwanda aim to generate sufficient income from agriculture and other businesses to no longer be reliant on any foreign aid. There is zero-tolerance on corruption and as a tourist you are not allowed to give any money or gifts to street children, as this encourages undesirable behaviors such a reliance on others and lack of responsibility. Everyone is involved in bringing Rwanda forward.
‘Umuganda’ and the culture of cleanliness in Rwanda
The Umuganda was institutionalized to promote peace, unity, and prosperity throughout the nation.
Umuganda can be translated as “coming together in common purpose to achieve an outcome,” a practice that has long existed in Rwandan culture but only recently became mandatory.
Accountability is an art form perfected by the Rwandan government. Provinces are divided into districts, which are then divided into sectors, then cells and finally villages.
The village, or umudugudu, is the primary organising block of Rwandan society, and it is key to Kagame’s control. Every Rwandan belongs to a village, even Kagame – the presidency is called Urugwiro Village. There are more than 14 000 such villages in Rwanda, including dozens in Kigali, each with an average of 250 people.
Every month, on the last Saturday from 8am to 11am, businesses close and traffic halts as citizens across the country take to their neighborhoods, shovels and hoes in hand, and together participate in Umuganda, a nationwide community service day aimed at making the country a little bit cleaner than they it was the month before.
Projects range from digging drainage ditches to street sweeping. All able-bodied citizens between the ages of 18 and 65 are expected to participate and dodging the civic duty can result in a fine or even arrest. It’s a steep penalty, but President Paul Kagame sees the practice as an important opportunity to improve both Rwanda’s social and physical landscapes.
Afterwards, villages will meet to discuss community issues, often in the form of directives handed down by the national government, and take decisions. People who don’t toe the line – who have not signed up for mandatory health insurance, for example, or who haven’t delivered on personal behaviour pledges – may be reprimanded or, on occasion, kicked out of the community.
While some projects focus more on infrastructural developments like building schools and housing for those in need, a significant percentage of Umuganda efforts center on environmental protections and public cleanup. According to the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB), “Generally, people participate in cleaning streets, cutting grass, trimming bushes alongside the roads, planting trees, and repairing public buildings.”
An impact assessment conducted by the RGB cites the economic value of the community work day projects from 2007 to 2016 as $127 million based on activities like reforestation and road maintenance. When asked about Umuganda’s impact, more than half the population noted the positive effect on neighborhood cleanliness, and 16.3 percent recognized the effect on air quality and overall improvement in the environment.
It’s rare to see much litter in Rwanda, even in capital city Kigali, which is frequently called the cleanest city in Africa. Visitors are often surprised by how spotless the streets are, but anyone in town for Umuganda can begin to understand why the nation looks so tidy.
Of course, it helps that plastic bags have been banned in Rwanda for more than a decade. In a pioneering environmental move, the government made using, selling, and bringing non-biodegradable polythene bags into the country illegal in the 2000s.
Travelers have had their luggage searched and plastic confiscated at the Kigali airport. Smugglers face more serious consequences. Much like the penalty for shirking Umuganda responsibilities, ignoring the plastic bag ban can even result in jail time.
Lessons for Nigeria and the rest of Africa
Kegame’s success in transforming Rwanda from a self-pitying genocide torn country to one of the most visited countries in Africa has earned him the status of a model leader. The lessons inherent in his administrative policy that pushed Rwanda to the enviable position it is amongst comity of prosperous nations now cannot be overemphasized.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo in a statement signed and released by his media aide to mark the 25th anniversary of the genocide which he attended with other world leaders in Kigali highlighted some of these lessons while extolling Kegame’s rare, firm and incorruptible stance at fixing his country after the devastating experience.
Obasanjo, in his speech titled: “From Recovery To Reform: Rwanda’s Marathon With No Finishing Line” delivered at the 25th Anniversary of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda few hours ago, commended the efforts of the country’s leadership and citizens alike, for the remarkable achievement and progress made 25 years after the genocide.
“Today, Rwanda is a country easily accessible to foreigners. It is one where it is increasingly easy to do business. It is one of clean and safe streets with traffic police that do not seek bribes but polite and helpful and, where the Rwanda Development Board actively and efficiently woos investors. To the Rwanda authority, investor is a king and he or she must be so treated. The country is a standard-bearer for women, who make up the majority in parliament. It is a country where cabinet ministers are effectively held accountable for targets, where data drives policy, which is an example of how to roll out basic health insurance.”
He further emphasized that, “a quarter of a century after its terrible trauma, Rwanda is cited as an exceptional African story, in terms of its economic development and growth rates enabling its 12 million citizens to lift themselves out of dire socio-economic and political circumstances in the early 1990s.
“Behind much of this success is Rwanda’s leadership, which has an enviable record in driving the country’s transition, and with minimal resources. It is a leadership which is both impatient and focused. It is one that seems to believe through its actions that development is a marathon that must be run at a sprint. Yes, it is leadership that eschew corruption and work substantially on the basis of meritocracy.
“This leadership has also managed to garner external support fairly successfully. And this has been achieved not on the basis of its hollow promises, but rather on the basis of its concrete delivery record.
“Certainly Rwanda has managed to overcome formidable odds: a traumatic social history of frequent pogroms culminating in the genocide, its landlocked geography, its status as continental Africa’s most densely populated country (at 440 per km2, compared to the sub-Saharan average of ten times less, and a world average of 57 km2). Despite all these obstacles, Rwanda has achieved spectacular economic progress. For example, between 2005 and 2016 the income per capita grew at an annual rate of 5.2%, second in Africa only to Ethiopia. Literacy has increased from 60% in 1994 to 70% two decades later, while child mortality was halved and primary school attendance has trebled. Poverty fell from 56% of the population to 39% between 2005 and 2013.
“I salute Rwandans, the leadership and citizens alike, for this remarkable achievement and progress,” Obasanjo stated.
He advised that the lessons of the tragedy of Rwanda “must not be lost on Rwanda, on Africa and indeed on the world as a whole. Let the blood of the victims and the stench in the country twenty-five years ago continue to water and invigorate unity, development, growth and progress in Rwanda and remain an object lesson for Africa and the rest of the world.
“Let us continue to use the lesson of the evil perpetrated on the dead a quarter of a century ago for the good of the living today. Let us all go with the theme of this conference, preserving memory without bitterness and without amnesia and championing humanity with common security and shared prosperity,” Obasanjo posited.