Thirty years ago, day after day, I saw the beautiful land of a thousand hills become a mass grave of innocents. Thirty years ago, day after day, I saw people drunk with hatred and alcohol slaughtering their neighbours with machetes or studded clubs, burying them or burning them alive for the simple fact that they were what they had not chosen to be: Tutsis.

Thirty years ago, I saw the streams and rivers of Rwanda carrying to the lakes the mutilated bodies of men, women, young people, children, babies, old people and old ladies who had been massacred for being born Tutsi!

Thirty years ago, I saw enraged soldiers and furious militiamen throwing grenades at fugitives crammed into schools, churches, communal offices and hospitals.

Thirty years ago, my whole country was on fire because of the murderous madness of people who wanted to make Rwanda their exclusive property. Thirty years ago, I saw my country sink into the darkness of barbarism.

Thirty years ago, I saw Rwanda disappear under its own rubble. The beautiful land of a thousand hills was being drained of its lifeblood day by day. For a moment, I thought that all life was going to be wiped out from this land that our forefathers called ‘Rwanda Rugari Rwa Gasabo’.

For a moment, I thought my beloved country was going to be wiped off the world map, and I wept. Yes, I cried. I cried so hard that the tears dried up in my eyes and my distraught gaze was lost in the immensity of nothingness. And my heart, which had once been tender, had become like a rock. I felt nothing. I was totally stunned by the cruelty of the genocidal forces.

For the first time, I saw the famous Latin saying ‘Homo homini lupus est’ (Man is a wolf to man) illustrated by atrocities beyond all imagination. I was ashamed. Yes, ashamed to belong to this land of Africa, because everywhere I went, people were saying that Africans were savages, barbarians.

They had forgotten, incidentally, the barbarity of the Nazis and the Einsatzgruppen under the Third Reich! I was ashamed. Yes, I was ashamed to belong to a country that made so many people shudder to think of it.

I was ashamed of being Rwandan and I changed my name. I didn't want to bear that name any more, because it sounded like I was Rwandan. So I buried it. Yes, I buried it deep in my subconscious and with it my country and my people, in short my identity.

I created another identity for myself. I invented another homeland, another origin. But deep down, when I was alone or when I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt that I was false, that I was lying, that I was cheating. And I felt an unease that disturbed my whole being. And an inner voice kept telling me:

"Take responsibility for your story, however horrible and painful it may be! Assume your identity!” So I decided to accept my country, my people, my origins. In other words, I decided to accept myself as I was. So I stoically accepted the labels of cruel, barbaric and savage that were attached to my name, my country and my people. To those who asked me where I was from, I answered without any shame and looking them in the eye: ‘I'm from Rwanda.

Yes, from Rwanda! People's eyes would widen and they'd immediately ask me: ‘How did you get here? And I'd start explaining the inexplicable. And some of the people I talked to were more or less convinced. Others were not at all. And for good reason: the atrocities committed in my country were beyond explanation.

But for thirty years, patriots have been trying to heal the physical and moral wounds of my people. For thirty years, the country has been stubbornly getting back on track towards progress and peaceful coexistence. The smile has returned to my lips and now I am no longer ashamed to say that I am Rwandan, that I come from Rwanda.

Because this beautiful little country is now the pride of many of its children. In the throes of the past, the people of Rwanda drew the energy they needed to build a better tomorrow.

Patriots have sworn to do everything in their power to ensure that their beautiful country never again sinks into the darkness of barbarism. And all the children of Gihanga, who are concerned about a radiant future for their country, have decided to join hands to ensure that the country is no longer bled dry, so that "Never again” is not a dead letter. "Far be it from Rwanda for those who sow discord and fish in troubled waters!”

This is the motto engraved in gold letters in the hearts of patriots. My great little Rwanda, which the whole world thought was dead, has risen like the phoenix from the ashes!

The patriot

This text, which I extracted from one of my writings on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis came to mind in the light of the events currently unfolding in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo; events that should be understood upstream and not downstream.

The socio-political crisis shaking the regime of President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi is the result of the essentially anti-Tutsi racist ideology exported to his country by the Rwandan genocidal forces (Interahamwe militiamen of the MRND, Impuzamugambi of the CDR and the former Rwandan Armed Forces) after their defeat by the Rwandan Patriotic Front in July 1994.

And the victims are the Rwandophone Tutsi populations who became Congolese after the Berlin Conference of 15 November 1884 to 26 February 1885 but who have lived for centuries and centuries on the land that became the Congo after the said conference.

And when the international community tells their sons who have taken up arms in legitimate self-defence to withdraw, one has to wonder where it wants them to withdraw to.

‘To Rwanda’, it says! But they are not Rwandans, they are Congolese who speak Kinyarwanda! But successive regimes in power in Congo have always discriminated against these Rwandan-speaking Congolese, mistaking them for Rwandans.

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, former President of Tanzania, asked: ‘Should I turn back the Massai from Tanzania to Kenya because there are Massai in Kenya? Similarly, should Kenya tell the Massai in Kenya to go and live with the Massai in Tanzania because there are Massai in Tanzania? "Absolutely not !” he said.

The Massai of Kenya are Kenyan because they are on the land of their forefathers. The Massai of Tanzania are Tanzanians because they are also on the land of their forefathers.

It was the Berlin Conference that caused part of the Massai to become Kenyan and another part to become Tanzanian. Because of the artificial borders drawn by the Berlin Conference, there is not a single country in Africa that does not experience this phenomenon of populations living in two distinct countries but sharing a common language and culture.

One wonders whether those who stubbornly want to assign a Rwandan identity to the Rwandophone Congolese population are doing so out of ignorance of history or in bad faith?

Whatever the case, it is clear that in the face of the multifaceted setbacks experienced by the regime in Kinshasa, there has to be a scapegoat. And Rwanda, in many respects, plays this role very well! !

I now have two questions for these giants of the world who are showing exasperating indifference to the tragic fate of these Rwandophone Congolese populations threatened with extermination and who are determined to pillory my little country Rwanda for its firm determination to defend itself against any murderous attack: "

Should we review the borders resulting from the Berlin Conference so that the Banyamulenge citizens and other Rwandophone populations ostracised in the country of their forefathers stop being persecuted or killed?

Would you really be proud of yourselves if Rwanda went through what it went through in 1994? Don't answer me, I already know the answer. Just leave my phoenix alone!

Jean-Marie Vianney Rurangwa is a Rwandan - Canadian writer