Rwandan WWII heroes lie silently in Nairobi cemetery

On February 1, Rwandans commemorated the National Heroes’ Day which was an opportunity to remember the sons and daughters of the land who sacrificed their lives to protect lives of others or to enable future generations to have good life. It is not easy for the present generation to pay the appropriate price for the sacrifice of our national heroes except to keep remembering them and inculcating the culture of heroism into the young generation. Joseph Campbell, an author on comparative mythology describes a hero as, “someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself”. It is through this kind of sacrifice by our forefathers, that today we are happy to have our homes in a geographical location called Rwanda. Many thanks to the national organising committee for the awareness activities held in the run-up to the commemoration of the Rwandan Heroes. Recently, I gathered some historic information in Kenya which suggests the presence of Rwandans who fought in the Second World War alongside commonwealth forces, whose graves are found in the Second World War cemetery along Ngong Road on the outskirts of Nairobi city! However, they remain some of the unsung heroes, whose history should be traced and their acts of heroism recorded and they too, be celebrated among our national heroes. The Nairobi Second World War (WW II) cemetery was opened in 1941. It contains more than two thousand graves of people who lost their lives fighting alongside the British forces. The cemetery also doubles as the East African Memorial which commemorates men and women from East African countries who lost their lives during the WW II, either in line of duty or in the battles fought especially in Somaliland, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. The East African Cemetery also commemorates soldiers, servicemen and women who served in the 301 Field Regiment, East African Artillery who died on 12 February 1944, when a troopship known as “Khedive Ismail” from Mombasa to Colombo in Ceylon was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine ‘I-27’ under the command of Lt-Cdr Toshiaki Fukumura. The attack on the troop ship after one week on the sea was reported as the third largest loss of life from allied shipping in WW II, and the largest loss of service women in the history of the Commonwealth of Nations. Out of the 1,511 passengers on board, only 208 men and 6 women survived the sinking and the battle that followed; the rest is history. When I recently visited the WW II Cemetery, my reading on the grave stones revealed some known names from east African countries like Ugandan and Kenyan whose names I am particularly familiar with but with a surprise, I came across some traditionally Rwandan names among the East African WW II victims! Names like Petero Habimana, Mudaheranwa, Agustin Kalengera, Yowana Ndikomana (Ndikumana, likely to have been misspelt) and many others which are unmistakably names of Rwandan origin. Historically, speaking, it is not surprising that Rwandans fought along commonwealth forces because from the 1920s, Rwandans started migrating to the East African region and beyond running away from forced labour of the Belgian colonialists. By the time the WWII broke out, a number of Rwandans had settled in parts of Uganda while many others settled and provided labour in the present day Kericho tea plantations in Kenya. This is how Rwandans ended up being recruited in the Commonwealth African forces when Rwanda was not a commonwealth country at the time. Mzee Bartazar Nzabimana a Rwandan WW II veteran who is now 83 years old and living in Gisagara District - Southern Province, vividly recounts how he was recruited from Uganda and taken to Nairobi for military training where he remembers meeting four other Rwandans in the training camp. His picture as a young man donning a commonwealth military outfit and a helmet hangs in his living room, and when recounting the WWII battles he fought; he looks at the picture with a broad smile of assuring satisfaction. He is proud for the sacrifice he made to defend the East African region. The comrades he found at the Nairobi training camp could be the ones buried in the WW II cemetery a history unknown to their kinfolk and countrymen. Whereas Rwanda officially joined the Commonwealth in November 2009, there was no prior public knowledge that her people had more than 65 years earlier served as members of the commonwealth in obscurity. Had these facts been available, probably Rwanda would have automatically qualified to become a Commonwealth member without going through formalities. As the East African Community has made progress towards political, economic and social integration, it is equally important to salvage our uniting history or else, as a people we risk forgetting in the near future. We have the East African WW II memorial in Nairobi for our heroes who lost their lives defending their region, but we lack the East African spirit to remember them. May I ask if the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) can initiate the process and propose to EAC member states to put in place a common Heroes Day to remember these patriotic sons and daughters of East Africa? When we fail to remember our own heroes who died in line of duty defending our people and the territorial integrity of our nations, then we betray their cause and selfless sacrifice and the result is that we lose the spirit of patriotism and heroism which should be our legacy to the young generation of East Africans for a better future. We should forever feel indebted to give our living and dead heroes the honors they deserve. The writer is a Pan-Africanist and a journalist based in Rwanda

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Rwandan WWII heroes lie silently in Nairobi cemetery