Frank Kagabo
21 September 2008
opinion
Kigali — In mid September, the cabinet sat and after official deliberations, a celebration of sorts commenced.
One thing was being commemorated. It was five years ago since the country's leader, Paul Kagame was inaugurated as a popular elected President.
Less than a week later after the commemoration, millions of Rwandans went to the polls to elect members of the lower house of parliament, known as the chamber of deputies. The ruling Rwandese Patriotic Front (FPR-Inkotanyi) that is chaired by President Kagame swept the polls.
The coalition of political parties led by the front that liberated Rwanda from the chains of genocidal forces, won forty two seats of the fifty three directly elected representatives to the lower chamber of the house.
These two events, which fell in less than a week of each other, represent something that has come to characterize our nation since the forces led by Paul Kagame, liberated Rwanda in July 1994.
A new political dispensation has emerged from the ashes of 1994. This is a distinct paradigm shift in the way state affairs are run in Rwanda. Why do we assert thus?
This column will argue that post colonial Rwanda up to 1994, was devoid of any democratic practices and principles. The successive dictatorships that were propped up by the neo-colonial agents of the west, sought to sow ethnic divisions where they had hitherto been non existent.
The machinations of the imperial neo-colonialists, played into the hands of local political/military demagogues- wakina- Gregoire Kayibanda and Juvenal Habyarimana respectively.
They took advantage of this and through ideologies such as Hutu power, sought to establish an oligarchy that pilfered state resources for private ends. And in doing this, they tried to enlist the participation of the many in the population and this was done through divisionism.
Rwandans, who had for centuries lived in unity, were divided into ethnic groups taking cue from the divisionism that was occasioned by the Belgian colonialists.
Thus, during the Kayibanda regime and later on after 1973, when Habyarimana dispatched his like minded dictator into the dustbin of political history by way of a coup, Rwanda was an undemocratic tyrannical ruled country where basic human rights were unheard of.
But of course the ruling clique in the AKAZU had unlimited access to state resource for private benefit. They could constantly in what came to be a kind of grand corruption shared by their Zairian buddy Mobutu, dip their fingers into the national till (read treasury) to indulge their unquenchable appetites for the pleasures of this world.
To do this endlessly, they sought to insure their power. This, they did through different means. Foremost, they enlisted the support of France under Mitterrand. His son Jean Christophe became his daddy's point man with the Akazu of Habyarimana.
But more sinister tricks were developed and put in practice. They claimed and brainwashed many people into believing that what was in power, was in fact the people's government.
They claimed to represent "Rubanda Nyamwinshi" saying that since them, who characterized themselves as Hutus formed the clique in power; they represented the majority "Hutu".
They thus claimed that since power was in the hands of the members of the "Hutu' majority", then that was equivalent to the rule by the majority and hence democracy was at play in their twisted minds.
Thus to them, according to some students of Rwanda's recent political history, theirs was a 'democratic" government occasioned by a demographic 'majority". That is how they viewed their hold on to power.
By doing this, not only did they engage in intellectual dishonesty of the highest order, they also planted the seeds for genocide.
And as day followed night they did implement the genocide in 1994. And evidence on the ground shows that they are still bent of this futile journey. Maybe, it's the final leg of their journey to hell, where they belong.
We realise that in the Rwanda of today, such twisted ideas and view points as regards power and politics, have no place. That was expressed by the people in 2003, when they freely choose the leadership they truly desired and love.
Again on September 15 and thereafter, the Rwandan people at home and abroad thronged polling stations in their millions to make one simple statement.
We have moved on. Change has come and it is change for the better;a revolution. This has been possible because of the dedication of the mass organization that RPF is and the sheer determination, and resilience, and tenacity and courage of President Paul Kagame the leader and the ideals he stands for.
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