“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” ROSA PARK
Claire Nadine Kasinge, Spokesperson of the 2017 presidential candidate of the political party ISHEMA led by Father Thomas Nahimana, sleeping in transit at Kenyatta International Airport. She is with her baby KEJO Skyler (only seven months old), and stranded there with other members of the delegation since Wednesday 23/11/16. This only because the Rwandan president Paul Kagame doesn’t want his opposition back home.
It has been a while since the Rwandan political party ISHEMA announced that it planned to go back to Rwanda to exercise its political activities on the ground. What the current standoff in Nairobi clearly demonstrates is that Kagame and his regime have been living and spreading only lies about democracy. If the Rwandan president can gather 93% of the 2010’s votes or is so much loved by his compatriots, what does he fear from a delegation of three adults and a baby?
President Kagame is presently spending a significant amount of resources and energy through parts of the former royal Rwandan family of late king Kigeli Ndahindurwa who died in exile recently, to get his body back home. This is happening though, while he was still alive, Kagame didn’t want him near. But dead, the body of the monarch appears very valuable politically.
In addition, the Rwandan government is somehow spending a lot lobbying foreign governments to get extradited many so called suspects of the Rwandan genocide, innocent or guilty, knowing well that its judiciary system is considering every hutu who does not bow to its policies as a genocidaire and treated as such. The genocidaire ideology that Kigali is pursuing is aimed at excluding other components of the Rwandan society, particularly the hutu majority, from exercising all their human rights.
Money is as well being spent every year in what Kigali calls “Rwanda Day,” also nicknamed “Kagame Day,” where the Rwandan president visits his Rwandan fanbase abroad across many western countries, including Canada, US, UK, Belgium and Holland, expecting it to continue cheering and praising him for what he does for the country. He doesn’t tolerate any dissent voice in those gatherings, and anyone suspected of having different views from his, foreign or Rwandan, is not allowed. But should this continue unchallenged?
Nadine Claire Kasinge believes that every Rwandan has a right to suggest solutions to what is not working in their country. Some attentive observers of the current political saga surrounding the standoff between Kigali and ISHEMA are comparing the 36 years old woman politician (in the picture and her 7 months old baby) to the legendary Afro-American civil rights activist ROSA PARK who spurred a nationwide movement to end segregation of public facilities, by refusing her seat to a white passenger, on December 1st, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. She is hailed as the mother of the freedom movement in America.
The current standoff should be the last waking up call for Rwandans seeking peaceful change. When Victoire Ingabire landed in Rwanda and thereafter got imprisoned, it took some years before the rest of the opposition sees her as one of them and associates herself to her struggle. Claire Nadine Kasinge once explained that she takes example from Ingabire. The more time Kagame’s opponents take to declare officially where they stand on this issue, the more they reduce their credibility as politicians. They might not like the person representing ISHEMA for any particular reason, but the problem Rwandans are faced with through this case, is far bigger that Father Thomas Nahimana and has significant consequences on the future of the country.
It’s time for Rwandans not to wait to be put in coffins, when they can afford one, or handcuffed, for them to get back home. As one can see, that’s what Kagame and his regime are only working on to achieve. If they succeed in doing so, people should stop complaining about Kigali’s oppression, injustices, hunger killing compatriots, dispossession of land, high levels of youth unemployment, and many more unwanted societal occurrences.
