There is a saying in Kinyarwanda that goes: "Urusha nyina w’umwana imbabazi, aba ashaka kumurya.” Literally translated: "The aim of he/she who feels more compassion for a child than its mother is to eat it.”
A literal impossibility, except among cannibals, but a literarily likely hazard in the sense that it may be an ill-intentioned show of compassion.
This adage comes to mind when, with amusement, you observe that Human Rights Watch (HRW) "irarira ayo kwarika”, again a Kinyarwanda expression. Literally put, HRW is "shedding enough tears to make ugali.” It’s said of somebody "sobbing heavily”.
Don’t ask me what "ugali” means because, interestingly, today you can check it up in the English dictionary, just as you can, "bodaboda” and other African words. Hopefully, soon Kinyarwanda unique words like "Gacaca”, "Umushyikirano”, will find their way there too.
But that’s a by-the-way. As we were saying before the English dictionary interrupted, you should feel for our HRW. It’s seriously convulsed in sobs. Over what, you may ask.
Well, you see, compassionate HRW, which seemingly cares for Rwandan children more than Rwandans themselves, is in agony: Rwandan street children are being abused.
Has it visited any street child to see them being abused? No, sir/madam, but it has asked around, even if it cannot put a finger on any exact street child it has asked.
That notwithstanding, it knows and states with authority that Rwandan street children are being "arrested”, "beaten”, "locked up in detentions where conditions are inhuman and degrading”, etc. In short, our children are being subjected to unspeakably merciless acts.
The word "abuse” says it all. Remember, that word that we used to know as meaning "an insult” or "to insult” has come to mean a whole load of terrible things. It can mean to "kill”, "rape”, "starve”, "torture”, "burn alive” and any number of other grisly stuff.
Which is why sighting this HRW report can stop the heart of even the most heartless of Rwandans.
This government that has lifted this country from its deathbed and placed her onto the pedestal of civilization, ‘burya’ it’s capable of "eating its children”?
Of course, as Rwandans we know better than be fooled by HRW.
Decision-making on government matters are in the hands of the lowest citizen. Education and healthcare (the exceptional mutuelles de santé) have been extended to all.
Clean water and electricity are within easy reach. The vulnerable (elderly and infirm) citizens receive a monthly stipend, making Rwanda perhaps the only welfare state in the region.
Citizens in dangerous ‘nyakatsi’ habitation have been placed into decent housing. "Abunzi’ are there as guardians of justice for the smallest wrong done to the smallest citizen. We could go on.
And some busybody says Rwanda is abusing her children? The eradication of delinquency and rehabilitation of street children effort is a cover for abusing them?
A cover so as not to displease who? The contemptible HRW or the West? Fiddlesticks!
The Justice Minister and the Gender and Family Promotion Minister have given HRW a carte blanche to visit any transit and rehabilitation centre and then report on what it sees with its own eyes, instead of quoting reports from sources it dare not even name.
But of course it won’t. Its interest is its survival.
That’s why it’d not cover its shame in ‘rights-watching’ the homeless on the streets of the many cities of its home country, USA. That wouldn’t put bread on its table.
Mr. Lewis Mudge, if you must do the bidding of your employer, HRW, why don’t you beg it to remove Rwanda from the list of African countries you are asked to ‘watch’?
Because on Rwanda, HRW is asking you to follow their old script that has never held relevance, yet which it keeps recycling year in, year out. But you know, as we do, that repeating a fraud will never miraculously turn it into a genuine, whatever number of times it’s repeated.
Of course, with or without you, HRW will continue its wasted effort, in the hope that the West will continue to have gullible citizens and leaderships. An insult to their people and institutions, but that in their land is what’s called democracy.
Anyway, we know that an independent-minded African leadership, like that of Rwanda, is anathema to the West. So, sticking the littlest mud on it is lucrative business and ensures continued funding from it.
Now that other HRW-abused programmes have betrayed it and not lived up to script, by proving to be capable of catapulting Rwandans from poverty and division, it has lost interest in them. Its black-sheep programmes were: Gacaca, Nyakatsi, Ndumunyarwanda, on and on.
Those are no longer the in-thing. They have shown HRW up for what it is.
But it must persist because it has to survive. Even if it means cannibalising on Rwandan children. Alas, on this one, too, it has drawn a blank. It’d be better advised to try some other countries, if not some other honourable trade.
For, indeed, this may be the eureka where its eyes open to the dishonour of being a cabal of cannibals.
The views expressed in this article are of the author.