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Rwanda: Post Independence Period Wasted - Kagame
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Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
4 July 2008
Posted to the web 4 July 2008
Kigali
President Paul Kagame said on Friday that post independence governments were taking orders from the former colonizers - that is why they were not helpful to Rwanda.
"Officials became agents of the colonizers instead of providing leadership to Rwandans", Mr. Kagame told his audience on Liberation Day July 04 in the Southern Province. ".they continued taking orders from their former colonial masters".
"The essence of Liberation now is that we will never be puppets to anybody but Rwandans."
The Belgian administrative posts in Rwanda ended on July 1 1962 along with Burundi. However, since 1994, vocal critics have maintained that this the post independence period ushered in an orchestrated campaign to exterminated Tutsis by extremist elements in government.
The subsequent years followed on with the expulsion of Tutsis at different times culminating into the 1994 Genocide. In fact, there has not been any Independence Day festivities for some years now - but are organized on July 04.
On this day in 1994, Kigali fell to control of the then Rwanda patriotic front rebels - who later formed the transitional government.
"Somebody may ask why Liberation when you got independence 46 years ago - because independence is supposed to bring liberation", Mr. Kagame said.
"It is evident that the independence was misused by Rwandans."
He added: "That is why after 32 years (19962-1994) of independence, Liberation had to follow".
However this liberation has to be "forever" - marked by a development path that puts Rwandans at the heart of their destiny "such that there will be no need for another liberation after 32 years", Kagame said.
In a repeat of his usual anti west stance, Mr. Kagame said amid thunderous applause that "We will never be puppets to anybody else but Rwandans."
Following the 1973 coup the brought former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana to power, he became a close confidant of the French political establishment. The Presidential Plane in which he died was a gift from French leader François Mitterrand.
According to available information, when the RPF rebels waged a guerilla war in October 1990, Mitterrand secretly financed the Habyarimana war machine.
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As the Genocide raged on from April 1994, French commandos established the infamous humanitarian cordon in western Rwanda through which it is alleged they aided the defeated government forces and militias to flee to Zaire - now DR Congo. (End)
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