KIGALI – This year, they have come out of the woodwork early - and announced their season of genocide denial in, of all places, the French Senate Chambers. Days before the official period of commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi begins, they are already at it. Genocide deniers are so predictable. So unimaginative. Clearly, they can only kill but find it is impossible to be creative. They peddle the same old plate of nonsense. They say: “the genocide against the Tutsi did not occur – and if it did, it was a double genocide and by the way, that genocide that did not occur, it was the Tutsi who brought it upon themselves” -Jesus wept! The genocide deniers, revisionists and their enablers have refused to accept the defeat of their odious political philosophy. Hate eats their insides. The reality of their failed macabre project gives them sleepless nights. Light blinds them. They do not like its disinfectant. So, they plot in the dark. They obfuscate. They confuse. They struggle with history. When they buried us alive, they did not know that we were seeds. When they drowned us in Akanyaru, Nyabarongo and Akagera rivers, they did not realize they were conferring immortality to us. And so, -during the season of remembrance, they gnash their teeth in frustrated pain. We remember our lost ones, we celebrate life, and they mourn the end of death. We celebrate the rebirth of humanity, they struggle with being human. With being humane. And yet, the truth could set them free, if they so choose. During the genocide, we hit the abyss – and decided that the only way out was up – towards the light, towards national unity, national reconciliation and prosperity. The deniers and revisionists choose to dig even more. They do not see that their choice will only lead them to the fiery magma at the centre of our planet. For decades, we call upon them to come to the light – many have heeded the call – yet others continue to dig – condemning their progeny to the backbreaking labour of hate. What a tragedy! The global networks that patiently constructed the superstructure of hate which led to the apocalypse of 1994 have been reactivated. Their macabre construction was demolished by Patriotic Rwandans. They now hang onto the scaffolding of their hate. They use their intellect, their resources, to negate, to deny, to revise. They were defeated in 1994, they will be defeated today because you see, we celebrate our humanity, with all its imperfections. We see no saving graces in its destruction at the altar of hate, conformity and unbridled arrogance. This is the lesson they are too blind to see. They will revise, they will negate, they will deny. We shall create, we shall build, we shall commemorate, we shall celebrate life and we shall defeat them – Again. The author is Rwanda’s former Minister for Foreign Affairs. The views expressed in this article are of the author.
