By Darius Sunray Murinzi
As Kagame tries so hard to stretch his long skinny arms to pull satellites out of the skies, so the BBC is never, ever, ever heard again in the Land of Thousand Hills or should I say: Land of a million lies; rallying crowds of youths to march down the streets of Kigali, chanting down the main cheerleader (the BBC), that accompanied Kagame and his RPF, during their devilish triumphant march into Kigali twenty years ago; and while some Rwandan opposition figures are taking off their clothes, running around the streets, praising the BBC for telling truths that every straight thinking individual has known for the last twenty four years; I figured it was my duty to pour some cold water on this whole madness, as I have grown allergic to this kind of hype, which makes me an expert in the art of “raining on our crazy naive, easily manipulated people’s parades.” So, I decided I should tell a few truths of my own, since the moment seems so perfect for such a mental exercise.
Meeting in RPF
In the late 1980’s a group individuals got together, and they set in motion events that have claimed the lives of more than 10 million people to this day and counting. Now days, some of these individuals are seen as heroes, while others are still running the kind of schemes that continue to take millions of lives. Whether this is done for money, political power or outright criminal behavior, these are not your run of the mill crooks or street gangs. These are men highly placed in International institutions and powerful governments. They carry on their criminal insanity lawfully, and with the full backing of the international media system, which they manipulate to act as their publicists, instead of agents of the truth.
But those who think this way fail to notice that since 1990, Africans in the Great Lakes Region haven’t stopped from dying “en masse.” They only talk about Rwanda, because the press made sure they paid attention to what was happening back then. Right now the process has been reversed, the press makes sure to justify every atrocity that takes place in the Great Lakes Region by the simple fact that Genocide took place, and therefore those who have been dying since then had it coming, because they are presumed responsible for what happened 20 years ago.
Even in the case of the Congolese who paid the heaviest price of this whole ordeal, I actually heard someone blaming Mobutu for having allowed refugees to cross into Congo, as if it would be an acceptable practice to refuse refuge to people who are running away from danger. I arrived in North America towards the end of 1994.
At the time I got to talk to several individuals who wanted to see what a guy who just came out a refugee camp looks like. I was very confused and very emotionally drained, so I indulge a lot of people. Most people seem to think that they knew what had happened better than I did. At times I got irritated and argued a little, some other time I just let everyone say what they wanted to say, because it quickly became clear to me that my story had already been written before I even lived it.
Amidst all these countless talks with various people, especially in Boston, I got to chat with a few individuals with all kinds of crazy ideas, some that made sense and others that seemed pretty out there. But in all of this chaos, two things stuck with me, and time has proven that I was not crazy to think of these things, even though everyone tried to make me believe I was totally insane. First thing, more Hutus died during the Rwanda catastrophe, than Tutsis as has now been evidenced by thorough research by very well respected academics, and various reports by Human rights organizations.
“…there seems to be a vicious plan to reduce the population of the Great Lakes Region of Africa to make space for parks and business conglomerates.“
Professors Christian Davenport and Allan Stam will go down in history as the two guys that told the invisible Emperor behind this horrific piece of theater that he has no clothes on. Second, there seems to be a vicious plan to reduce the population of the Great Lakes Region of Africa to make space for parks and business conglomerates. You may think that I am exaggerating, but the numbers do not lie. When I left Africa we were talking of the loss of 800 thousand people. Right now that number has far exceeded 10 million. You go figure.
Those who believe this is just about Hutus and Tutsis, should consider the fact that at the present time, the largest number of the people who died are not Rwandans, they are Congolese and the Hutus (because Hutus do exist in Congo too), and other Bantu related peoples paid the heaviest price in all of this insanity. The crazy racist theory on which this mysterious and macabre plan is based considers the Bantus and the pygmies to be the lowest of the low, and they are believed to be the most drain on the Economy, and therefore they must be kept under control.
“The crazy racist theory on which this mysterious and macabre plan is based considers the Bantus and the pygmies to be the lowest of the low…”
The Tutsis are somewhere in between the Bantus and the Arabs and the most extremists of the bunch tend to act out these stupid notions that were brought forth by some German colonialists at the turn of the 19 century, building upon the already existing Tutsi supremacy on which the monarchy was founded on. When General James Kabarebe called his Congolese colleagues “lumpen proletariat” he meant exactly that.
Just remember, when Gen James Kabarebe said that, he was serving as an Army Chief of Staff, in a country that wasn’t his, and he felt comfortable enough to tell Western educated Congolese elites that they were miscreants. Here, I do not mean to suggest that somehow General Kabarebe is responsible for this plan. He’s just a cog in a very large machine that I do not even believe to be controlled from the African Continent.
There is a large complex crime syndicate that is out to get our people, using some of us to do the dirty work. Unless we clean up our act and end the ongoing conflict by talking to each other, and protecting each other, we will not have a continent to call our Motherland, and we will keep losing countless numbers of our brothers and sisters to a vicious International system that runs on greed and blood. So, my question is: how come the BBC hasn’t reported on this mysterious organization or something as simple as the use of child soldiers in Kagame/Museveni’s wars? Just as an illustration here are my observations on the phenomenon of child soldiers or Kadogos as related to Rwanda.
The child soldiers
Since the scourge of child soldiers became something people talk about to express outrage after the fact, I know only of one Head of State who has expressed a favourable opinion on the practice of using child soldiers in combat. It is none other than President Paul Kagame who believes that it teaches them to become real men very early, and speeds up their maturity. And yes, he was very angry last year when the US decided that they care about the use child soldiers by their Rwandan friend, and so they sanctioned Kagame for doing something that he had done for twenty years, with the full knowledge and sometimes full support of the US Government.
Major Rwendeye and the Child soldiers
Major Rwendeye was a Western trained Battalion commander in the former Rwandan Armed Forces. [In October 1990] at the outset of the invasion of Rwanda by the Ugandan backed RPF, he was charged with the mission to stop the rebel advance in the Northern town of Kagitumba. There is a video on youtube showing Major Rwendeye talking to a Western reporter about what was happening on the front line at the time.
The Major goes on to show the Reporter a twelve year old boy who had been captured as part of a group of kids, his troops had just rescued from the the battlefield. Major Rwendeye, explains that the boy had told his captors, that Kagame’s soldiers had kidnapped him along with his brother, taught them how to handle a gun for three days, and then deployed them as the tip of the spear, to face the few tanks and heavy machine guns that the Rwandan Army had in its very small arsenal.
Towards the end of the video, Major Rwendeye laments the fact that everyone was talking to his side about Human rights, while his enemy had just sent little boys to war, and no one cared. Most people end the video right there. But the most shocking thing that most people miss on the video is how quickly the reporter brushed off the Human rights comment, and went on to ask the Major if he could take him deep into the National Park where some RPF soldiers were said to be hiding. This attitude of looking the other way about Kagame’s crimes has gone on for the last twenty years, and so far most of this stuff is still going on, which is why I am not taking off my clothes for the BBC just yet.
This attitude of looking the other way about Kagame’s crimes has gone on for the last twenty years,…
The RPF gave a beautiful rationale to start their war. They promised to end every type of injustice that had ever occurred in the Land of Thousand Hills since 1959, because according to the RPF, nothing bad ever happened in Rwanda prior to the popular uprising that put end to a brutal monarchy that had oppressed the Hutu majority for more than four hundred years. This was the first lie, and every lie told thereafter was meant to cement this erroneous belief about our country’s history.
The RPF put together a brilliant public relations strategy involving some very well placed media personalities, who managed to pick and choose what to report on, and according to these journalists, the RPF could do no wrong. They also got great help from the old tired regime of President Habyarimana. I have been told, and to this day I still can’t believe it true, that when the RPF attacked the country, Rwanda did not have an Embassy in London, and they had a bunch of non-English speaking bureaucrats in Washington. The Army did not have any kind of press relations, and the Foreign Affairs Ministry took a full week to come up with any kind of explanation as to what was taking place.
This was the first lie, and every lie told thereafter was meant to cement this erroneous belief about our country’s history.
In the meantime, the whole world got to hear from very articulate RPF activists about how the Hutus had been eating Tutsi babies for snacks, since the beginning of times, as Habyarimana’s public relations people did not seem to have anything to say about these outrageous charges other than the fact that the RPF was lying, without clarifying what the truth was, and with no strategy to counter the lies with some serious fact based narrative.
The RPF Tutsi clique set up an incredible public relations machine that managed to turn four hundred years, during which their ancestors ruled Hutus with the brutality that not even Rome could have conceived, into the ultimate Utopia that had been lost during the 1959 revolution. They made the world forget that prior to 1959, the symbol of the Tutsi monarchy was a drum called Kalinga, which was decorated with human body parts, such as male genitals, female breast, eye balls, etc.
The RPF started its war deploying child soldiers in front of the International media, and the media refused to see it. It is a known fact, that towards the end of the war, thousands and thousands of child soldiers were camped in several locations in Rwanda. Several countries had their diplomats and other representatives in Rwanda, they all saw these child soldiers, but these countries never bothered to ask a single question about it.
They made the world forget that prior to 1959, the symbol of the Tutsi monarchy was a drum called Kalinga, which was decorated with human body parts, such as male genitals, female breast, eye balls, etc.
The US Government went on to train the Rebel Army now turned into the National Army, without ever asking a single question about the child soldier issue, simply because at that time, there were more pressing things to do, such as making the Hutus pay for the killings that had taken place during the last months of the war, at the same time covering up the killings that were committed by the RPF, as the Gersony report later showed.
Masabo Nyangezi’s ride with the Kadogos
Masabo Nyangeze is one of the prominent musicians that Rwanda has ever produced. He is an incredible guitarist, songwriter, and I happen to know that he is also an incredible drummer, a fact that a lot of people don’t know about this amazing human being. On top of all of that, he is a highly educated man. As a matter of fact as human being, Masabo Nyangezi is the proverbial “guy that wouldn’t hurt a fly”.
Masabo Nyngezi, a Rwandan musician
First of all, I must apologize to the man, because I am going to use his story to illustrate something that has been referred to, by both Hutu and some Tutsi politicians, as the Hutu carelessness or naivety. In an interview with a Rwandan information group known as “Ikondera info”, Mr. Nyangezi recounts how he ended up riding with child soldiers (Kadogos), after ignoring the warning by the French military not to enter the RPF controlled zone, because the RPF was shooting on the spot, everyone with Masabo’s type of profile.
Again here, those who think that it was only the Anglo-Saxons that kept their mouths shut about the RPF crimes, should go back and look through the last twenty years of turmoil in the Great Lakes Region, and tell me how much real effort the French put into asking the RPF to account for its crimes. They will notice that, on a few occasions, the French may have released one or two unpleasant press releases about the Kigali Government, for which they then had to apologize, after Kigali threw two year old type of tantrums.
Now, Masabo Nyangezi story starts with him, deciding after the military defeat of the former government, that he was going to return to Kigali to work, because the Radio- (Yes!!!Rwandans and their radios)- said that all government employees should report back to work, as the new masters of the terrain were trying to get the country running to their own liking.
So, Masabo gets in his car drives towards the main highway, comes to an intersection, where he had two choices: one: head South West to Bukavu, Zaire (now called DRC) or two: head North East towards Kigali. So he comes to a full stop and he starts signaling North East. A French soldier approaches his car, and asks him where he was going. Masabo says: (- I can imagine his beautiful smile and clueless face as he says this-) “I am going back to work”.
At this point the French soldier tells him well, “You better know what you’re doing, because we have information indicating that people with your kind of profile are getting killed on the spot.” So, this is where for a normal Hutu, who had just lived through what the whole world witnessed, would have said: “Ok, Zaire it is.” But Masabo is not, any kind of Hutu, he is a not only a Hutu, he is a musician, and an intellectual, which means he is three times screwed in the true sense of the word. So Masabo makes the fateful decision to enter the RPF zone trusting that his innocent nature in this whole thing would protect him.
But Masabo is not, any kind of Hutu, he is a not only a Hutu, he is a musician, and an intellectual, which means he is three times screwed in the true sense of the word.
Oh boy, was he so wrong! From this point on, during the interview, Masabo, recounts in details how he got bounced around from one place to another by RPF cadres, until they actually handed him and his entire family to a couple of guys whose job was to hack to death people like him all day long, in the infamous RPF killing fields at Kabutare, in the former Butare prefecture. There is a Rwandan saying that states that ” The God that watches over dogs, does not sleep.”
My mother actually always replaced the part where they say dogs by saying Hutus; so her saying went something like this: ”The God that watches over the Hutus, does not sleep.” So for Masabo, I believe we can replace Hutus by musicians, because according to his story, he was saved by the fact that he had his guitar with him, and one of the henchman recognized him, and he fortunately decided he did not want to be the guy that stopped the music from playing.
The God that watches over dogs, does not sleep.” or “The God that watches over the Hutus, does not sleep.”
Masabo, goes on to describe his ride back into the city where he was given two child soldiers to escort him to his final destination. He describes in great detail how these Kadogos menacingly sat on both sides in the back seat of small car, his car, squeezing him in the middle in what he called a very rude behavior by the Kadogos. He ended up spending years in jail, for simply being Masabo Nyangezi, an educated Hutu, indifferent to politics to the point of missing the ultimate signs.
The fact that child soldiers were assigned to escort high profile targets such as Masabo, suggest that they were incorporated in all facets of the RPF operations, that there is no way in hell, the American trainers who flooded Rwanda, as well as United Nations blue helmets did not know they were there. Yet up to this day, I have not heard any one going back and ask why, they allowed a man who started a war using child soldiers to roam around the continent doing the same thing for twenty years.
Are we to believe that in this modern world we live in, the BBC and Radio France International missed the fact that Kagame had been using child soldiers, from the very beginning, and that the term Kadogo was not known in regular Rwandan parlance, until the RPF decided to start a war, in 1990? I wonder what kind of discussion takes place between Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Rick Warren, when the topic of child soldiers comes up?
…they allowed a man who started a war using child soldiers to roam around the continent doing the same thing for twenty years.
Or maybe it never comes up, or Bill, Rick and Tony believe that African children should be taught to use an AK47 before they learn how to use a pen, since they need to mature quickly. I wonder how this speech would go at the Democratic National Convention, especially for Bill Clinton who is still believed by some, to be the first African-American President. When it comes to Tony Blair I don’t really have much to say, ever since I found out that Rwandan pro Kagame newspapers refer to him as Kagame’s aid.
To me this means he lost a bet, or Kagame has some tape somewhere that shows the former premier engaged in despicable acts that could take down the crown of England. Otherwise, I really do not understand for the life of me, how a man goes from being a successor to the Great Winston Churchill, to carrying the water for a modern day Idi Amin. Yes, Kagame is the new Idi Amin except skinnier. About Rick Warren! What can I say?
…or Kagame has some tape somewhere that shows the former premier engaged in despicable acts that could take down the crown of England.
He seems to think that just because Kagame says he’s a descendant of King Solomon himself, it must be true. Yet again, Rick does not believe in evolution, so what can I say really! I hope and pray that someday someone will ask these questions and actually get answers, because unless this house of lies is brought down, our people will keep dying as if their lives don’t matter. It is up to us to decide if this must go on, and to deal with it, we must start by telling the Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the Truth!
