Dear Editor,

I write in response to an article titled, "‘Lead experts’ on Rwanda and their parallel universe,” published in The New Times, November 13.

It’s such a pity that Rwandans always have to be in a position of endlessly defending the right things they are achieving against deliberate efforts of detractors from the remotest corners of the world. One wonders why all the foreign missions and the NGOs in the country that live with the Rwandan reality always decide to keep mum each time such baseless attacks on Rwanda are hurled.

But I think it is quite easy to understand why all this keeps on happening unceasingly. By the way, any country that would take the stand of which Rwanda has taken, similar attacks will go toward them too.

At the moment Rwanda seems to be in the minority in Africa that are wishing to change the trajectory of their lives, the courage to stand up against the model that has been dictated on Africa for its survival—the "aid” model.

This model can only make sense in temporary terms if dispensed in good faith. Otherwise it is a false premise to any beneficiary. The aid model is a type of LSS (Life Support System), with those in charge never intending that the patients should ever recover and live on their own.

So the emancipation is a choice that Africans must dare make, designing a process of breaking free from perpetually surviving on the LSS—struggling to survive in a humble estate with the hope of a real life for tomorrow, otherwise for the LSS one might not die completely, depending on the decision of the custodian, but obviously he can’t call that life at all.

I am glad that we, Rwandans, have chosen the process of "living off the LSS” someday, and we shall get there.

It is better to seem to die today with hope of real life tomorrow than to seem to live today when you’re dead forever.

The problem is that some countries under these deliberate false support system conditions are not making an effort to break free. If most Africans stood up against this camouflaged servitude, such contrary forces would be weakened.

History has shown that countries which dared to take the path of emancipation emerged much stronger, for example, Singapore, China, Japan, among others.

Donart