The national event to commemorate the 30 years that have passed since the commencement of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi left me with a myriad of emotions. Overwhelming sadness engulfed me as I listened to the testimony of Louise Ayinkamiye, a beautiful mother of five who, as an 11-year-old, survived death on countless occasions. ALSO READ: Killing many in a short period; how civilians were prepared for the Genocide Defiance surged within me as I listened to President Kagame deliver his keynote speech, promising that “we shall not be left for dead again. And my pride swelled as I watched young, talented Rwandans, the vast majority too young to have even witnessed the Genocide, use music and dance to narrate the story of our darkest days and our brightest triumphs. ALSO READ: Speech by President Kagame at Kwibuka 30 However, my emotions shifted to disgust and anger—not at anything that happened at the Sunday ceremony at BK Arena, but at the manner in which our national tragedy was being hijacked by the so-called ‘powers that be’. Despite the beauty and edification of the national commemoration ceremony, with its majestic ‘tree of life’, my Twitter timeline was awash with all the ugliness of the world. As expected, the usual genocide deniers, the Jambo ASBL and Michaela Wrong’s of the world, spewed their poison. But what disappointed me wasn’t the violence from those who hated us, but rather the heartlessness from those who call us their ‘friends’. ALSO READ: Genocide cannot be mentioned in isolation, without adding the targeted group The United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, echoed American national policy and refused to call the genocide by its name, as he did in the past years. Secretary Blinken, whose grandparents were Hungarian Jews, knowingly chose language that gives succour to all the genocide deniers living within and outside Rwanda. And for what end? I have no idea. Even Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US Ambassador to the UN, chose to use the same terminology, despite the fact that she was in Rwanda during the Genocide and was almost killed at an Interahamwe roadblock because they thought she was Tutsi. Only her American passport saved her from their machetes. The less said about Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, and his Twitter activity during and after the commemoration event, the better. His timeline was less about commemorating the over one million Rwandans who were massacred and was more about buttressing Israel’s controversial military decisions in Gaza. The Belgian delegation to Kwibuka30 was led by Hadja Lahbib, its foreign minister. A day after visiting Gisozi Genocide Memorial on April 7, she first paid homage to the 10 Belgian ‘blue helmets’ who were murdered at Camp Kigali and then met with Dr Vincent Biruta, her Rwandan counterpart. In a language that would have made King Leopold II’s chest swell with colonial racist pride, she tweeted her ‘demands’. “The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC must be respected”, she said. “Rwanda must end its support to the M23 and withdraw from the DRC.” Never mind the fact that Belgium, a third-tier European nation with very little going for it other than the fact that it's today home to the European Union and once laid claim to vast territories called Congo-Belge and Ruanda-Urundi, is in no position to make demands when it comes to Rwanda’s national security and our right to exist. One, because if bombs launched by the FARDC-FDLR-Wazalendo-European mercenary coalition killed Rwandans, Belgians would not come to our aid. Secondly, because the genocide ideology, which is the root cause of majority of the conflicts in the Great Lakes region, was introduced by, and made, state policy by the Belgian State. Scratch below the surface, whether in Rwanda’s tragedy, or DR Congo’s, and you will find a Belgian hand behind it. The shamelessness on display over the last couple of days has been galling. But as President Kagame said, in 2021, if they “have no shame, why should we have any fear?” Although he was talking about genocide deniers in that particular statement, I think that his words hold true during this time of commemoration. We must meet shamelessness head-on. We must not let any instance of genocide denial go without response. We must not let the desecration of our loved ones go without comment. We must call out those who think their power allows them to open our wounds. We are not impotent. We have a voice. We have a country. And we have a will that is fueled by the cries of our dead. We shall never let what happened to us in 1994 occur again. Not on our watch. The author is a socio-political commentator
