By Erasme Rugemintwaza
A Rwandan maxim says: remaining on the cow skin while its meat is already eaten. This means the fact of people who clinging on to things that are no longer in order so that he may even fight for that policy and uselessly die for it. Most of Rwandans, due to not forecasting the future to find out the very truth are still supporting RPF .The present analysis intends to prove to those Rwandans who go on queuing behind RPF that this organization is dead and identify who ended it up.
under the second republic governed by the unique party MRND under which all Rwandans were born partisan and was considered as a ship whose captain was Juvenal Habyarimana then conducting it to cross the ocean of poverty. Weakened by the pluralism hurricane blowing from La Baule in France and winds and tides of invasion from Uganda, instead of seeking strong supports, he replied boasting of being an invincible warrior and he was finally tamed falling from the sky on his courtyard like a stone thrown while he was a renowned parachutist and until now his corpse remains untraceable so that it is dignifiedly buried and thus lift the curse that the country suffers; and those who those who burned it with the plane are triggered by a curse that does not leave them.
So was overthrown the regime of Habyarimana who was adored by Rwandans, a Hutu regime while prophets like Magayane and scholars like Gasimba Francois Xavier had detected in his governance corruption and nepotism and spoliation of public funds.
Then RPF replaced MRND; It is no longer a ship but a huge train which takes away all on its path; the conductor General Kagame Paul sees nothing and does not hear cries of his passengers and even pedestrians of places where he passes. the passengers he was carrying have already left him and are resting from the pressure with which he carried them. Where is it going? who are still its partisans?
when RPF invaded Rwanda, it declared intending to address problems the country was suffering from and their existence was real and this speech was convincing. When it took the management of the country; progress is just a mirage for diplomatic lobbying while poverty rages and has worsened.RPF is like a bull slaughtered, cooked and served to a small number of selected people while Rwandans are hungry and have nothing to feed them.
A wise analyst may realize that RPF posed many problems than what it intended to address. First it is the origin of all murders committed in the country regardless of its qualification either genocide or crimes against humanity: getting the people off the boat after having killed its captain and putting them back on a train where they afford people greeting by good morning while they were accustomed with bonjour
let conduct an assessment of achievements held up by RPF by just considering it nine pillars
These achievements were based on the implementation the RPF-INKOTANYI 9-point political program:
1. Restoration of the unity and reconciliation of Rwandans;
2. Defending the sovereignty of the state and ensuring the security of the people and their property;
3. Promotion of good governance hinged on democracy;
4. Promotion of the country’s economy by harnessing its natural resources;
5. Combating corruption, favoritism, misuse of national resources and all other related fraudulent practices;
6. Improvement of citizens’ social welfare;
7. Elimination of all causes of exile and facilitating repatriation of all Rwandan refugees;
8. Promotion of good international relations between Rwanda and other nations based on mutual respect, co-operation and trade;
9. Fighting genocide and its ideology.
From those enticing goals; which one was really achieved?
When we consider the picture of 27 years in power, we notice some mirages of progress that are brandished by the RPF to deceive less informed people, but really it achieved very few from what it promised to the extent that one may wonder whether it deliberately failed or it modified its initial objectives and vision or whether itself changed in another organisation. One may consequently deduct why many of its founders and liberation fighters left it but it continued to fool the population by offering him insignificant helps to keep them under his influence.
Economic development
RPF declares having contributed to economic growth, the basis of which is the nature and resources of the country, especially the people. But this differs from the reality because the investments in tourism; hotels; transport; energy; communication; import and export are in the sole hands of foreign traders doing business with Kagame so that the country was practically sold and Rwandan farmers who live off agriculture have been deprived of their lands whereby they must pay taxes to be allowed to exploit them. Some lands are offered to friends of Kagame: Bugesera airport to Turkish and 1700 hectares offered to the businessman buffet personal close friend of Kagame. On one side, 30% of Rwandans i.e. 4 millions are below the poverty line and 38% of their children suffer from stunting and how then RPF justifies a development based on the Rwandan citizen who is starving and whose children are stunted?
on the other side, in Kigali city and other secondary towns are erected skyscrapers and modern apartments. But Rwandans and partisans of RPF, do you know to whom belong all those skyscrapers and modern apartments? Kagame, Cyomoro; Jeannette; Ange; Kabarebe; Ibingira; Dodo and…Tri-Star Ventures. After all this, you are ordered to pay contributions to RPF and you urgently unlock all the sums you possess for fear of being called enemies. finally, can you confirm that RPF initial objective of banning dictatorship of Kinani is really update? RPF which deprives you from your land; raising up taxes to deter poor traders; taxing unproductive land and still proclaiming that the country progress is based on you? aren’t you comparable to those dung beetles that remain to suck the blood of the skin of a cow already dead or are you cuddling a cow that fled the cattle farm and returned in the forest becoming a wild buffalo?
Welfare of citizens
denigrating a hare does not prevent him from at least being able to run! under RPF we have many paved roads; increased number of hospitals and schools more than under Habyarimana regime but this is not astonishing because before 1994 Rwanda was a leading economy in the region. As a joking example, rwandan refugees of 1994 surprised the hosting neighbors of DRC; Tanzania and Burundi because they all had mattresses in their luggage; Ugandans children schooling in primary and secondary levels believed that Rwandan schoolchildren are paid scholarships because they were clean. Those infrastructures were also there before 1994 and they are just increased; better still Rwanda was a good manager of financial aids granted by the institutions of Bretton Woods while the present regime risks being accountable of the disappearance of the huge funds advanced to it. Surely, hospitals and schools were increased and it is encourageable; moreover the insurance of mutuelle is good gesture and it is not specific to Rwanda because other countries practice it and it was needed for Hutu because Tutsi have FARG which benefits from 5% of the national budget and guarantees all expenses from health service; accommodation; scholarships; and so on but regarding health service there is deplored service offered by doctors and nurses who bought degrees in DRC and Uganda; education for all whose graduates cannot afford job tests and those who get such jobs thanks to corruption, nepotism or sexual service resort to consultancy company because even their employers already know their intellectual weakness. What preferable between quality and quantity? concerning housing, Tutsi enjoy sumptuous buildings while Hutu received only 10 sheets to cover their cabins.Ubudehe as social stratification programme depending on income among household benefitted to Hutu because they are the poorest while Tutsi receive all advantages without being forced to the chore of charting the roads. In general the misery is overtly faced by Hutu while their colleagues Tutsi benefit from all the national wealth.
Good governance
basing on what was told above on the equal partition of the national cake between all citizens, it is obvious that Hutu have nothing to claim or receive the crumbs as they are vanquished. therefore none may allege that there is a good governance in Rwanda. indeed, the whole power is in the hands of Tutsi and a Hutu who is appointed therein in categorised as a good Hutu and has no power to make decisions and walking on eggshells for fear that he/she awakens the devils of ethnism. Specifically, there are public institutions which pay huge salaries like Rwanda Revenue Authority; RSSB (social security fund);RDB; Rwandair which are exclusively reserved to Tutsi and any Hutu cannot dare applying for a job. In the local government, the 30 districts are headed by 4 leaders respectively but among their total number of 120, Hutu do not exceed 40.In 416 sectors, Hutu executive secretaries do not exceed 100 and if they reached this ceiling any they infringed the acceptable limits. in the eastern districts like Nyagatare and Gatsibo, Hutu who are appointed there prefer to resign from such a post while Tutsi working there feel fulfilled in their country they conquered from Hutu. Rare unconscious Hutu who dare request any right undergo arrogant replies that their time is off; Right of expression is banned in Rwanda; right to private property is inexistent as former land owners were forced to share with returning Tutsi for free while they had bought such plots of land and what to say about the location of the whole lands whereby any land owner pays taxes and failing to pay is sanctioned by selling them at auction.
as far as claimed unity and reconciliation is concerned, RPF reports that it was reached at 94 % but even if ethnicities were removed in identity cards; but it still mention one ethnic in its constitution and there is wondered where other ethnicities live in Rwanda. Of course, they are all assimilated with genocide authors; all were bruised by the 1994 killings but the state discriminated against them granting to ones the attribute of genocide survivors; and rejecting others. When there is discovered remains in Shyorongi in Rulindo District or Cyanika in Burera, authorities are hurried to identify the ethnic of their victims; when victims are tutsi, houses are demolished to access them to arrange worthy burial but when it is matter of Hutu remains any authority even a cell executive secretary cannot dare appearing there. Understandably, such a state which discriminates dead who only need a peaceful rest easily discriminate people who seek jobs; it in this context, corruption is generalised in public markets and recruitment of civil servants; and the reason why the initial objectives of RPF were all betrayed and we are taken away in its huge train nolens volens given that none can survive if not adherent of the platform. I do not talk about the issue of refugees because Kigali regime chased Tutsi who were parts of liberation fighters such as Kayumba Nyamwasa; Sebarenzi and David Himbara fled refusing to be parts of the bloody state and are still threatened in their hideouts; Hutu who politically supported them in their opposition against Habyarimana regime like Twagiramungu Faustin;Gasana Anastase and Nkuriyingoma Jean Baptiste and others are exiled and none know when they will be removed from the list of undesired persons and be back in their native land. What about their offspring? They will no longer return as long as Kabarebe is calling upon the Tutsi youth to hate them so that being a Hutu is taken as being a criminal and this became an origin sin. This sufficiently proves that the unity and reconciliation proclaimed by the State is a lie given that meanwhile higher officials including general Kabarebe and CNLG authorities sensitize young people to hate their colleagues living in exile in Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and elsewhere while people who killed their parents on both side occupy functions in the same state.
Regarding democracy does not exist in Rwandan governance; better still Kagame himself puts it aside; this was proved by the mobilization deployed to push people to request for the article of the constitution which was refraining him to run the presidency after expiry of the two terms of 14 years; Kagame declared thereon that there is a Rwandan democracy different from that occidental world; nothing remains, he finally risks to transform his governance to a pure monarchy. This speech contradicts the initial objectives of RPF proclaimed in 1990 which attracted many Rwandan elites including even colonel Kanyarengwe who hated Tutsi; but current practice has betrayed all these noble principles; all this to conclude that the RPF democracy was just meaning to overthrow Habyarimana regime and Hutu power in general. if democracy involves people based power and alternation through election which were by the way included in its initial objective is now rejected by RPF; what difference between its governance and monarchy. Worse, the terror is high and extended so that any neighbor whose door is knocked is frightened fearing that the sbyres of the regime come to steal their property. Furthermore, Kagame looks to starve rwandans; indeed, by closing Ugandan borders, he refrains livelihoods of the border population such people of Burera; Nyagatare and Gicumbi.Burundians were about forgetting assassinations he committed against their presidents Ndadaye Melchior and Ntaryamira Cyprian but he is accommodating in Kigali hotels their suspects who plotted to overthrow their regime. Conflicts with Tanzania are still latent despite the late Magufuri had adopted tolerance policy; with DRC there is a pretext of insuring its security by infiltrating on its territory to chase FDLR which is no longer operating there as they state themselves while really the aim is to easily access its natural resources; if not how Rwanda enlisted among outstanding exporters of coltan, diamonds and gold while its soil does not contain any of these minerals. this sufficiently establishes that RPF remains that in papers; if not partisans of RPF how do you mind being like prisoners of your Chairman in your own country not allowed to get plantains of Gisoro and Kabale; instead do you then prefer flying in his private jets to shop at Tel-Aviv and Dubai those desert lands?
Concerning security, Rwanda defence forces are surely strong but they are illegally in Congo and are massed at the border with the Burundi! what is laudable is its intervention in Central Africa and anywhere else but they risk to be one day accused of complicity with one or another party as they accuse France of this in the horrors of1994 since their conflicts opposing them are ethnic. In Rwanda, there is security meaning absence of war but their a specific insecurity whereby any time people are killed, disappear. People cannot freely express themselves and they live under fear of being any time arrested so that they are appalled and do not believe in the future. Is this kind of security promised during their liberation war?
Justice
justice is quite inexistent. The country is charged of abducting wanted people disregarding rules governing extradition and judicial cooperation. The recent case of Rusesabagina Paul confirms that inexistence of justice in Rwanda. Injustice is practiced countrywide where local government authorities fear the eventual internal trips of Kagame Paul because people report to him injustices they daily encounter from their local leaders; rampant corruption in public tenders; in recruitments of civil servants; sex based corruption in appointment of females to higher positions so that those women and girls are fed up by being forced to have sex with the RPF highest-ranking officials as their concubines to get promotion. In judicial field, they adopted laws which are overtly unfair on national and international levels; for instance the law punishing genocide ideology to threaten Hutu who dare express their opinion against the regime is either killed or disappears or groundlessly jailed.
What is the current status of RPF
When we analyze the initial objectives of RPF and its achievements, two findings are possible: either it was mistaken in their implementation but weaknesses can be contained and rectified or the RPF was just a facade policy for ancient tutsi refugees to motivate their return and taking the power which is now outdated so that their real goal is similar to that of RANU and UNAR of 1959 which intended to restore monarchy in accordance with the content of the poem of Nyakayonga son of Musare entitled ukwibyara gutera ababyeyi neza meaning that the son must respect the legacy of his parents; are you aware that the “ inkotanyi “was the name of the arc of Rwabugiri? isn’t it the trend of RPF so that there may occurs what we generally politically disapprove whereby the power is detained by a click progressively reduced towards a family to the extent that not astonishingly people will raise up and request that Paul Kagame be replaced by his daughter as in a dynasty proper to the kingdom regime. I may support this monarchy system instead of remaining in a an ambiguous political system with no visible way out.
actually, when you note how KAGAME and his close associates take over the public treasury and seek friends for their family and not for the country while meantime the countryside is underdeveloped; education quality worsened; deepened unemployment for the youth who allegedly benefitted from a diluted education; health services dysfunction; absence of a tangible policy to assist vulnerable social group without discrimination some enjoying buildings costing millions; the others retreating into ten-plate shacks; in a nutshell, there is no political program to end up differences between Rwandan citizens so that they may cohabit without any complex.
in any case, I won’t trust in none pretending that RPF still exist facing the misery of more than 30% of Rwandans and the childhood stunting; paradoxically brandishing private jets and skyscrapers of Kagame; uncountable wealth of Kabarebe; apartments of Cyomoro son of Kagame; multiple buses of Dodo; numerous buildings of Ibingira erected throughout Rwandan towns; tri-star ventures, all but a few. As long as no Rwandan citizen can travel outside without strict scrutiny; laws enacted to threaten one social group for allegedly committing genocide ideology; intellectuals and regime elites loudly proclaiming disparaging Hutu on radio and TV, spreading hatred among citizens. I will always consider RPF as overthrown in a blink by those cupid authorities who plundered the public funds besides people dying of hunger and children stunting.
