In April we will be marking Kwibuka30. January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Nearly 30 years after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, in Rwanda, it would be comforting to believe the world has learned lessons.
The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 is the ‘Fragility of Freedom’. I understand very well how fragile freedom is. Thirty years ago, I was 13 years old – in 1994 – as the Genocide against the Tutsi began. I was living with my uncle in Kigali when our home was attacked by genocidal militia, known as the Interahamwe. The whole family was murdered while I escaped through the back door. I spent the next three months evading death as more than a million Tutsi were slaughtered. I am only alive, today, thanks to the courage of a Muslim man, Yahaya Nsengiyumva, who passed away last year.
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Mass murder doesn’t happen by chance. Over 100 years ago anthropologists were obsessed with ideas about race. They said that Jews were descendants of Shem, a son of Noah. They called them Semites, to stress that they were racially different. Like Black and Slavic people, Jews were considered racially inferior to white Europeans. From that racist idea, the term anti-Semitism came about to describe anti-Jewish hatred, which built on ancient religious hostility from the Church toward Judaism. A belief grew across Europe that Jews don’t belong, that they are controlling and are a threat. This fear of Jews led to the Holocaust of six million Jews.
While I was on the run in Kigali, in 1994, my mother was hiding in our home in Rural Kigali. She was betrayed. Acting on the call of politicians to send the Tutsi on a ‘short cut home’ she was dragged down the hill, murdered and thrown into the river.
What did the génocidaires mean by ‘short cut home?’ The same European racial theorists 100 years ago said that the Tutsi were descendants of Ham, another son of Noah. They called the Tutsi Hamites. This grew into the Hamite colonial myth - that the Tutsi originated from Ethiopia, migrating to Central Africa centuries ago.
African leaders adopted the colonial racist ideas, not only in Rwanda but in other countries where the Tutsi lived. It became the basis of the genocidal ideology. The radio spewed this hate every day, creating fear and hate of the Tutsi, emphasizing that we should be sent back to where they believe our home is.
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That’s how my mother’s body came to be thrown into River Nyabarongo which flows first into Lake Victoria, then into the River Nile back to toward Ethiopia, where the racists said we originated.
Instead of learning lessons, alarm bells are ringing loudly. The same accusations that led to the Tutsi in Rwanda being massacred in the 1994 Genocide are being leveled at the Tutsi in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) and the world is responding in exactly the same way. Doing nothing. The radio, and social media, are constantly inferring that the Congolese Tutsi don’t belong in their country, DR Congo. They even call them ‘Rwandan’, to emphasise that they are not Congolese.
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Conflicts are always complex. There are over 120 armed militia groups in eastern DR Congo alone. One notorious militia, the FDLR, originates from the Interahamwe militia and former Rwandan genocidal regime’s army that fled Rwanda after committing the 1994 genocide.
We don’t hear much from human rights groups or in Western media about groups like CODECO, or the Islamist ADF, that, according to UN data, are the ones who kill most civilians in eastern DR Congo. Instead, we read, regularly, about the M23 rebel group, which controls territory in eastern DR Congo to protect the Congolese Tutsi because the Congolese government and the UN failed to do so. The M23 are framed, and blamed, for all the instability in eastern DR Congo.
You might ask; what happened to the FDLR? They still hold onto the same genocide ideology of the Interahamwe who attacked my uncle’s home. They still want to carry out and finish the genocide they began in 1994. Today, they fight alongside the government of DR Congo against the M23 rebels.
South Africa has made headlines recently for accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice. The ICJ ordered Israel to prevent and punish anyone who incites genocide. What does South Africa make of former Congolese minister Gabriel Mokia, who, on May 17, 2021, said: "The settlement of the Tutsi must end ... eliminate any face that you feel is not like us."
Or of Jules Kalubi Munyere, the head of the youth league of the ruling party, who, speaking outside UDPS Party Headquarters, in Kinshasa, on June 15, 2022, announced ‘Operation Long Nose’, a term of discrimination referring to stereotypes of Tutsi faces. Munyere was specific about where to find ‘Rwandan Tutsis’, leading to a manhunt. Lynching, beheadings, and burning of the Tutsi have become commonplace.
ALSO READ: South Africa opposition party calls country's deployment to DR Congo reckless decision
Rather than take DR Congo to the ICJ for incitement to genocide, the South African government has sent its special forces to support the Congolese army to fight the M23 rebels. The last time a group at risk of ethnic cleansing was disarmed, leaving them unable to protect themselves and without international protection, it resulted into the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, in 1995.
Stirred by constant hate media, violence against Tutsi civilians in DR Congo could flare up at any moment. Even as it takes a case against Israel, South Africa is treading very close to being an accomplice to genocide itself.
Some years after the 1994 genocide, Yahaya was asked why he risked his life to rescue me and 30 other Tutsi.
He said, "I read in the ‘Qu’ran that if you save one life it’s like saving the whole world.” That is in the Jewish Talmud [the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology] also.
As the world once again blames the Tutsi for the danger they find themselves in and turns a blind eye to their fate, I pray there will be many like Yayaha ready to open their door and save the Congolese Tutsi, whose situation becomes more perilous by the day.