When the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) launched the liberation struggle on October 1, 1990, they had reached a point of no return. It was a one-way ticket to triumph or to sacrifice. Thousands did not survive the four-year campaign that was wrought will all kinds of dangers. But RPF’s victory was a very sour one as it was accompanied by one of the most sordid crimes of the century; the Genocide against the Tutsi that claimed over a million lives. The Genocide vindicated the RPF’s struggle; it had taken arms against the vilest empire that had not only shut its doors to its own people for decades, but its well-planned apartheid system meant that every Tutsi was marked. So, in April 1994, all it needed was pressing a button and all the pieces fell into place, the Genocide was a well-oiled machine, lethal and effective. Revenge attacks would have been the natural outcomes as many young soldiers lost family members to the marauding Interahamwe militia and members of the government army, but the RPF leadership did all it could to hold them back; revenge would have been the beginning of a vicious cycle. Instead, refugees were encouraged to return with the assurance that the little resources at the country’s disposal were for all to share. Henceforth, Rwanda would be a safe haven for the downtrodden; it would be a land to rekindle hope for the hopeless. Congolese and Burundian refugees can attest to the above; they are not treated any different from nationals. Now the refugees and asylum-seekers evacuated from Libya can experience the same, the fruits of a dream decades old; to leave no stone unturned in building an equitable nation.
