Rwanda on July 4 celebrated Liberation Day. This is a time to pause and reflect on what the heroes of Rwanda sacrificed in order to secure a home for all Rwandans. As a Rwandan youth today, I can only imagine what it must have been like to be in their shoes— at times, it sounds unreal, a fiction.

As young Rwandans, most of them much younger than myself today, they limped on rotten blisters inside their badly worn-out rubber boots, but never for once did they give up on the mission, liberating a nation.

They were shot at and crawled on broken limbs but abandoning the vision was never an option. Determined they were, each day was a sacrifice towards freeing Rwanda.

I remember that morning in 1990, when two of my uncles left to join the struggle. The morning fog was still hanging low in the lush valleys of Ngungu in Masisi in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Like hundreds of other parents, my grandmother saw her sons go with no assurance of their return but never did she at any time let the motherly sentiments get the best of her, she only said for them a prayer and let them go. The same can be said to probably thousands of parents.

Mind you, these mothers were not short of such sentiments but the cause superseded all these, having a place to call home and the quest to end the treatment of some nationals within the country as second class citizens.

On went these gallant sons and daughters after giving up the little they had in the discomfort of refuge; they gave up family warmth and traded their education, and went to form a new family.

The quest for liberation started decades prior to the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi. Since 1959, the country was blighted by regimes that promoted divisionism on basis of ethnicity. It was the same year hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were forced into exile in neighbouring countries, hundreds were killed, houses torched.

In their countries of refuge, they were always reminded of having overstayed their welcome. Mothers and fathers were mistreated for not belonging there and at school; their children were segregated against at every opportunity.

This was motivation enough for parents to let their children go.

Our liberators fought on empty stomachs but never complained. They sacrificed everything and above all life. They clung on their guts and guns even after their bones had been fractured, but continued the fight.

They were taught to tear their already torn uniforms and wrap around shredded stomachs to hold back intestines, but never gave up on the struggle. Death was a daily companion and survival, the motivation to go on.

These heroes gave all they had. They bled and ran on thirsty cracking throats but never lost hope of seeing a country they call home. To those who survived and live to bear witness, whether as a casualty of war or living with shards of bullets in your body, Rwanda owes you all the support you deserve.

To those who could not fight but counsel, Rwanda owes you honour and respect. The mothers who picked lice from bush-like hair of soldiers, to people who transported troops, and those whose households became sickbay for wounded soldiers to those who financed the struggle in any way they could, your contributions have forever secured a country for generations to come.

The scars of the liberation have thickened. The heroes sang Instinzi to a country that had been buried in the ashes of the genocide—we sang along. They sang victory on last breath for every Rwandan alive, we sang along.

They sang instinzi for survivors vowing never to let the genocide happen, we sang along. We sing victory today to celebrate the reconciliation and unity of Rwandans, they sing along. 

To the youth, time is now to take over the baton and elevate the country to the next step. Twenty years have passed; the foundation has been laid deep and solid. Our victory will be one that will move Rwanda through the political entanglements of globalisation. Our tasks will fuel the engines of Rwanda’s development in the swirling winds of global economy.

We are educated and live in the era of information explosion. I want to conclude my article with the words of President Paul Kagame; "The next frontier of liberation is mindset change. But it is obvious to me that you are as intelligent, creative and resourceful as your peers around the world. Faced with certain situations, you can fight, flee or give up.” 

Twitter: Lgakumba