"There is one great lesson I got from Wrong’s book, and that is my own culpability in her distorted Rwanda narrative: we African journalists do not write books about our countries. We leave it to Western academics and journalists seeking to purvey their prejudices about us, our leaders, and our governments,” Andrew Mwenda wrote in his review of "Do Not Disturb”, a book he correctly termed a "hatchet job”. Sadly, the lesson was forgotten the moment these words were written. Mwenda’s The Independent has lent its platform to one of these western academics seeking to project their prejudices about Rwandans and their leaders by distorting history.
André Gichaoua’s article "Rwanda’s genocide commemorations” –which was first published in The Conversation before it was reproduced by The Independent – is, quite frankly, another flimsy attempt to impose an alternative discourse around the genocide against the Tutsi.
While Gichaoua purports to bring academic rigor to its analysis of Rwanda’s commemoration history, it fails to meet the most basic requirements one would expect from a self-styled expert of Rwanda, as the author claims to be.
For instance, there is the recurrent whining – a form of genocide denial – about the use of the terminology "Genocide against the Tutsi” to refer to the attempted extermination of a particular group of Rwandans. For Gichaoua and other ill-intentioned actors, the "new name excludes victims from other ethnic groups.” But how does one become "expert” of post-genocide Rwanda if they are unable to comprehend the definition of genocide, a key event that has shaped almost every aspect of life in Rwanda since 1994.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide details the specific acts – committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group – that constitute the crime of genocide. As recalled by Rwanda’s Permanent Representative at the UN, Valentine Rugwabiza, in her letter to the Secretary-General, "On 16 June 2006, the Appeals Chamber of the Tribunal [ICTR] affirmed that a genocide against the Tutsi had indeed taken place in Rwanda”. Furthermore, Rwanda’s Ambassador rightly noted that "the position that ‘others’ were also killed during the genocide is not captured by genocide as a legal term”. Ambassador Rugwabiza added, "Rwanda would welcome a specific reference to ‘other groups’ – outside the group that was the target of extermination – that the United Nations has recognized in commemoration of ‘past genocides'. Otherwise, it would constitute an unwelcome exception for Rwanda.” In other words, The Independent is only providing a platform for a "scholar” to bully Rwanda because its editors should know these things that Ambassador Rugwabiza is reminding everyone.
Clearly, this exception (read distortion) – rooted in a historical and persistent contempt for African lives – is what Gichaoua and others are advocating for. They are bullying and advocating for the distortion of the Genocide Convention despite their inability to challenge substantively its application in Rwanda and the UN General Assembly Resolution 74/273 entitled "International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda”.
However, the fact that this advocacy for distortion is echoed and legitimized by Mwenda’s newspaper is the saddest part. For one thing, Mwenda himself has written about these western academics and journalists whose lives depend on distorting the reality in Africa.
Moreover, the framing and analysis of issues suggest that, in Guichaoua’s world, academic rigor is devoid of ethics and moral principles. For instance, Guichaoua claims that "in 2014 Rwanda entered the final phase of its genocide remembrance public policy”, whose "aim was to urge recognition and commemoration of the Rwandan (sic) genocide as an ethical obligation across the world.” Guichaoua is unable to understand that if Rwanda had to urge other "civilized” nations to do the right thing, then it should be an indictment to the world we live in, which attests to the aforementioned contempt for African lives.
Africans’ mimicry of this attitude towards their fellow brothers and sisters, as The Independent has done by platforming Guichaoua’s revisionist views, should not distract us from the fact that the attitude itself is rooted in racial prejudices that we (Africans) have internalised and are ready to perpetuate.
Further, it is profoundly disingenuous for a French "academic” to claim that Rwanda’s commemorations "are infused with political and diplomatic agendas” when, in fact, President Kagame’s speeches, which Guichaoua purports to analyse, put emphasis on genocide denial tactics from nations that failed Rwanda in 1994, especially those, like France, that provided diplomatic and military support to genocidaires.
Indeed, these tactics include the refusal to use the legal terminology "established beyond doubt and requiring no proof,” – as the Arusha Appeals Court ruled – and offering platforms to genocide deniers in major western newspapers and universities, the use of justice systems to achieve political ends. They all warrant Rwanda’s insistence on bringing clarity around the facts of the genocide against Tutsi as an antidote for genocide denial.
"Revisionism is not merely demeaning, but profoundly dangerous. The genocide did not begin on one specific day. It has a history. Why were refugees Rwanda’s biggest export, for decades? Why were the same people repeatedly targeted for persecution and massacre, from the late 1950s to the 1990s? Why were bodies dumped into rivers, to send them back up the Nile, where they supposedly came from? Why did some parents even kill their own children, who looked a certain way? None of that started with a plane crash. So where did it come from?” President Kagame said during the 25th ceremony of commemoration, referring to these denialist tactics.
If Guichaoua was an expert committed to academic rigor, he would not entertain ambiguity around which innocent people were targeted for extermination in 1994. Neither would he pretend to do an analysis of Rwanda’s commemorations while omitting the context in which each action is taken and each speech made, especially in response to the growing genocide denial movement, of which he is clearly part of, with the acquiescence of The Independent.
If Guichaoua had listened to President’s Kagame speech during the 25th commemoration, he would have noticed that – just like the 26th commemoration speech - "it didn’t specifically mention the "genocide against the Tutsi”. The reason is simple. Rwandans don’t suspect their President of alluding to another "imaginary genocide against Hutus.” This is where Guichaoua’s "analysis” betrays him. His claim that "such a transgression of the official wording drew such criticism from survivor organisations that Kagame eventually backtracked” is pure fabrication. Ironically, the fabrication suggests that dissent is allowed in Rwanda and that President Kagame is not the omnipotent and authoritarian figure usually portrayed by genocide denier movement. When lies keep piling up, even liars cannot keep up in order to maintain a semblance of consistency.
Lastly, someone committed to academic rigor would know that while there are similarities between the history of Burundi and that of Rwanda, these are not identical histories. Moreover, how each country addresses its challenges is a matter of sovereignty since neither is under the tutelage of the other. Although it is true that "the various massacres and genocides in 1959–61, 1965, 1969, 1972, 1988, 1973, 1993–94 and 2015 remain profoundly fixed in the memories of both Burundians and Rwandans” this framing serves no purpose other than entertaining confusion, which is Guichaoua’s mission, on the matter at hand: the 1994 genocide against Rwanda’s Tutsi.
Nobody denies that every Rwandan was affected by the genocide and the civil war. However, when it comes to genocide commemorations, it’s an incontrovertible fact that only one genocide took place in Rwanda. Attempts to downplay its significance, or to put it in the same basket as other crimes attributed to the RPF, expose Guichaoua’s political advocacy, despite attempts to conceal it behind the garb of academic discourse. Moreover, these transparent attempts to use "ethnic quotas of suffering” as a foundation for justifying the imposition of ethnic quotas in Rwanda’s internal politics are not lost to Rwandans.
If other Africans want to try the Reyntjens and Gichaoua’s school of thought on tribalism and ethnic quotas, it is their right. Rwandans have made a different choice. As for Mwenda, he might understand western academics and journalists in their hatchet-jobs, but it doesn’t stop him from actively participating in their distortion of Rwanda’s history.