Idang Alibi
22 April 2004
opinion
Why my seeming obsession with Rwanda, that tiny east African country that cannot be easily located on the map of Africa? Only last week, this column dwelt on an aspect of what has come to be known as the Rwandan tragedy, focusing on the suspicion that President Paul Kagame may have wittingly or unwittingly triggered off the genocide by ordering the killing of the two Hutu Presidents.
Why then that this week, we have again returned to Rwanda? Does this column have any special interest in the tragedy of that small country? Or have we been paid by any of the parties to canvas a particular view point?
I have deliberately asked the last question because many Nigerians are very cynical: they always behave the worst about fellow human beings. They do not ever think that any Nigeria can act from pure motive on any issue.
Well, my seemingly undue concern about Rwanda is motivated by humanitarian consideration. I am compelled to write again on Rwanda this week because I have noticed that while the world is busy lamenting about the 800,000 people that were killed in 1994, very little attention is being paid to the fundamental problem that led to the tragedy in the first place.
To be sure, the death of about a million human beings deserves weeping, wailing and accusatory finger-pointing. But to my mind, rather mourn endlessly for those who have perished in the carnage, the more positive thing to do is to engage in what we Nigerians call "sober reflection."
This is because no amount of mourning or recrimination about who paid what and who failed to do what to save the situation will bring back to life those who were killed.
The time has therefore come for the whole world to begin to ask the right questions with a view to preventing a recurrence. One of the most salient questions to ask is: what led to that tragedy?
To answer to this poser lies in what has come to be known in modern political parlance as the national question. In the particular case of Rwanda, the tragedy arose because the Hutus who constitute more than 80 per cent of the population are aggrieved that the minority Tutsis have dominated, and do want to continue to dominate political power in that country.
I agreed that no political grievance is good enough to warrant the killing of nearly a million of God's children. But the reality is that this grievance exists. And while the world has joined millions of Rwandans in activities to commemorate the 1994 genocide, no body seems to see the need to address this century-old grievance of the Hutus.
Is it right for a minority to use whatever excuse to dominate a majority which is four times its size? This type of question is not posed to, in any way, justify the slaughter of the Tustis and a few moderate Hutus who were seen by their fellow tribesmen as collaborators with their hated oppressors.
I ask this question because I hate injustice or unfairness whether it is perpetrated by an oppressor or an oppressed; whether by a master or a servan; whether by a majority or a minority and whether by an overlord or an underdog.
Quite unfortunately, in our world today, there has developed what I call the underdog syndrome. In any conflict, many tend to be drawn automatically to sympathise with the party that looks like the weaker side, the underdog, when through guile or subterfuge he may have merely portrayed himself as the victimized when in fact he ought to be seen rightly as the oppressor.
The Hutus rose in one mad fury to murder hundreds of thousands of their Tutsi brothers and sisters and a few of their own because of resentment that had built up over the years. The level of anger expressed ought to have compelled the world to invest much intellectual capital in seeking to understand what gave rise to what happened rather than viewing the humanitarian tragedy from only the emotional angle that nothing whatsoever warrants the killing of a group of people on such a large scale.
Today, the world is ignoring the fact that over two million Hutus are refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They had run away from Rwanda because of fear that the Tutsi government of Paul Kagame will visit vengeance on them.
It is from the ranks of the Hutu refugees in the DCR that we have what is described as Hutu rebels, the young men who sometimes infiltrate their home country, Rwanda, to wage guerilla attacks.
In the eyes of the Kagame government, they are rebels. But from their own point of view, they are freedom fighters seeking to liberate the Hutu majority from political enslavement by a tiny minority.
It must not be forgotten that it is mainly on account of activities of these Hutu rebels that Rwanda, a few year's ago invaded the DCR and got embroiled in the DCR war. Any injustice that is not addressed will lead to the perpetuation of an even greater wrong.
The world does not seem to be interested in finding a lasting solution to the crisis in Rwanda or else it would be insisting that the underlying cause of the century-old tussle between the Hutus and the Tutsis be resolved. The root of the problem is political power-who has the right to dominate the Rwandan environment: is it the Hutus who have numerical strength or the Tutsis which claim to have superior intellect and organisational ability?
In a world, the solution to the Rwanda problem is a national conference. The world must help that poor, small and unhappy country to work out a generally acceptable power-sharing formula.
If at a national conference, the Hutu majority freely agree that they be governed by a Tutsi minority or the Tutsis agree that it is wrong for them to lord it over the majority and voluntarily surrender power to the Hutus, it is then and only then that there will be a guarantee of lasting peace.
The present arrangement whereby the Tutsis are hanging on to power by force of military conquest will neither guarantee peace nor stability. It will only be a question of time before the Hutus build up a sufficient force to mount a bold assault on Rwanda in order to gain national power.
When that happens, the world may be called again to shed tears about genocide. The seed of that future genocide is being sown today. It started being sown when the Hutus had to flee for their dear lives when the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front captured power soon after the 1994 genocide.
Genocides do not just happen. They flow from years of bitter resentment against certain people. Today, millions of Hutus are in exile. That unhappy circumstance will breed up a generation of dreamy-eyed Hutu youths who will have deep longing for their homeland. As the days go by, they will take up arms to fight against the forces that impede their return home.
When such bitter youths become a significant force, they could invade Rwanda and in a bid to gain control, may kill thousands. It is then the so-called international community will wake up to the reality that it has genocide on its hand. Will we today allow Rwanda to be condemned to such a fate?
Is Rwanda cursed to witness cyclical nightmare? Yesterday, it was the Tutsis who ran away into exile, regrouped, gathered strength and came back to win power. Tomorrow, will it be the turn of the Hutus to do the same?
The answer to this question depends on what the rest of us decide to do today about what is happening in Rwanda.
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