President Paul Kagame has thanked Rwandans who demonstrated exceptional courage in building post-genocide Rwanda and urged all citizens to keep working together for the country’s positive transformation.

The Head of State delivered the message on Friday while speaking in Kigali at an event to recognise seventeen people who performed outstanding acts of humanity in helping some Rwandans to either survive the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi or promoting unity among all citizens.

Selected from across the country and locally referred to as Abarinzi b’igihango (protectors of friendship pact), the seventeen people received ‘Unity Awards’ from the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission and the Unity Club, an organisation of current and former senior government leaders and their spouses.

President Kagame said that had it not been the acts of people who were convinced about the unity of Rwandans, the country would still be in shambles today.

"This country was destroyed by the unimaginable and it will be rebuilt by the unconventional. I would like to thank all Rwandans in general because there is a lot that has been done in an extraordinary way in building our country,” he said.

He emphasised that Rwandans must be driven by the desire for the well being of every Rwandan, not personal interests, if Rwanda is to remain on the path to positive transformation.

"Protecting one’s interest begins with protecting common interest. This is where unity becomes the key to rebuilding our nation. To move forward, we need to look beyond our own interest. It means putting the collective above yourself,” he said.

Those who received the Unity Awards on Friday are Rwandans or foreigners who have shown unmatched deeds in promoting national unity and reconciliation at the climax of Rwanda’s dark periods starting from the 1990 liberation struggle, the multiparty period, Genocide and post-genocide, resurgence war and during Gacaca courts.

President Kagame was the first recipient of Unity Club's inaugural "Unity Award” in 2010 for his contribution in promoting unity among Rwandans.

But talking to the seventeen recipients of the same awards on Friday, he said that what they did is actually harder than what he did as a commander of an army that stopped the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

"People may call us heroes but your sacrifice is greater than any of ours. You watched your family being killed and you had the strength to live on and care for those around you. Your courage is incomparable,” he said following the testimony of one Unity Award recipient, Josephine Murebwayire, who lost her husband and six children in the Genocide.

Though she is today called "Incike”, a Kinyarwanda word that means an elderly person without any single person of their own blood left alive, Murebwayire has gathered fellow Incike widows and sensitised them through workshops about the courage of living. She also provides them with counselling and reconciliation talks and she works as a mediator of perpetrators and victims of the Genocide.

President Kagame referred to the challenges of post-genocide Rwanda to explain the type of governance that Rwanda has today, explaining that it is based on tolerance among Rwandans rather than silencing dissenters.

He wondered how a nation that tolerated those who committed genocide can be the same nation accused of not tolerating dissent.

"How can you tolerate someone who exterminated your people and fail to tolerate someone who simply doesn’t agree with you? Saying that we in Rwanda are not tolerant to dissenters is an insult,” he said.

He added: "to those who claim to speak against a government working for unity and development, the question is: what do they stand for?”

Speaking about the on-going reforms of the country’s Constitution, the President said that they are about the will of Rwandans to define the type of leadership they want.

He supported a recent decision by legislators in the lower chamber of Parliament to reject words that "God is able and above everything” that had been suggested in the Draft Constitution’s preamble.

He explained that not mentioning religious matters in the country’s Constitution doesn’t mean that the Government wants to portray itself as being above God.

"The government has never been above God. One of government’s obligations is actually to protect all citizens equally and ensure that no one is above God,” he said.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw