Editor,

RE: "Referendum: 98% say ‘yes’” (The New Times, December 19).

It is incredible how Rwandans vote in such large numbers, in a very festive-like atmosphere and yet go about the business of casting their vote so calmly and peacefully in a process that is itself so efficient across the country and even abroad among the Rwandan Diaspora. 

In many other countries, we would be hearing of so many dead and injured in election-related fighting, and western media would be hovering around like vultures craving for violence to feed audiences back home as graphic confirmation of the meme of atavistic African savagery they have long been fed on.

Meantime, Rwandans in their overwhelming numbers and almost in one voice have just resoundingly spoken – for themselves.

We, the people of Rwanda, have just stated very clearly that we recognize and want to settle a combination that works well for us. And we have no intention of allowing anybody else to interfere in a choice that concerns only ourselves.

Extremely hard experience has drummed into us the lesson that only we can know what is best for our own good, that nobody else can care that much for our own welfare. Never again will Rwandans allow others to determine our destiny, to be putty in the hands of sorcerers’ apprentices; for therein lies assured perdition.

I congratulate fellow Rwandans for showing the world – whether it wants to see or to be willfully blind – that we are a united people in recognizing the road we want to take; the direction that we know is best for us.

Whether others prefer to listen to the noisy detractors – a handful of Rwandan malcontents or génocidaires fellow travelers, nostalgic for the time their ilk drove our nation’s affairs (all the way over the cliff) – is their choice. But we Rwandans, wherever we are, know what we want. And we are united and determined to get it.

Even as we celebrate our well-considered choice, and the clarity of speaking with one voice, let us remember: the hard road of building a Rwanda we want remains ahead. What we have just done is to agree on the rules of the road; the destination is still in the distance over those steep Rwandan hills.

Let us pull up our sleeves and get on with the journey of developing our country for the benefit of all our people, wherever they may be.

Mwene Kalinda