And so France snared Félicien Kabuga. Yet he is said to have sent out feelers on how to create contact with the Rwandan government.

Reason? Asking to connect his aging bones with the soil of his birth. Unfortunately, he has been collared before fulfilling his wish.

Touché.

Seriously, I mourn the failure of the dying desire of Kabuga (mention of his name soils my tongue) ‘to touch native soil’ without the least hint of sarcasm.

I sincerely wish this ‘Butcher-of-Byumba’ (Byumba, his region of birth) could have his wish of joining this land. The land he invested all of his mental, physical and pecuniary might to drench in blood.

Butcher-of-Byumba should make it here to witness the futility of his consuming effort.

True, many fell at the devilish-slaughter hands of this monster and his partners-in-genocide. And we all feel the searing pain today, as we did those twenty-six years ago. The mention alone of the name of any of those executioners feels like a drill through the heart of every survivor.

As it does for us all, who share in this agony.

For that, we are bleeding today as we always will. The diabolicalness B-B and his ilk clothed in this land is otherworldly. I guess hell is an amusement park in comparison.

Yet even if, in between appearances in court, he is resting his bloodstained bottom in a prison cell as comfy as any of the snug French sitting rooms, he would enjoy more comfort here. Without exaggeration, none of those prisons equals our Muhanga Prison in comfort.

Plus, where in the cold (when not sweltering hot) clime can you enjoy this daily luxury of pure, fresh air? I bet it’d be the miracle tonic to stretch the lifespan of his diabetic bones.

In fact, the way this government has amazed before, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did not at all put him behind bars. I wouldn’t, if it let him free to roam the land, as free as that fresh air. Free to observe what he left as a blood-spattered tomb looks like today.

Yes, wherever he is or may find himself later, he should beg to join the soil that had the misfortune of siring him.

Only, alas, the spectacle of what that blood-soaked tomb has transformed into might jolt his feeble heart to a halt. God forbid, for then he wouldn’t have his moment of ruing and lamenting.

But, apparently, he has wised up to the fact of that possibility; that of his heart halting.

So he is fighting to have his trials nowhere else but France

It’s a pity because he would actually have been well treated here, with consideration of the weakness of his bones and the possibility of that heart halting. For this, I am sure our government would not open the spectacle of today’s Rwanda bang to his face. B-B would be blindfolded from the plane and taken to cool his heels in the confines of a Muhanga Prison cell.

From there, ever slowly, he’d be placed into freedom to witness the clean country that Rwanda is today. He’d see evidence everywhere of the ever-burgeoning economy that, albeit COVID19 interruption, is billed to be among the fastest growing in the world.

Shock, horror! Where is the bloodied tomb that he and his evil breed worked so hard to create?

Ever slowly again, B-B would be made to witness the united society that Rwandans have turned into. To observe their association, working as one and looking so like brothers and sisters that they would appear to be from one father and one mother.

Groan! Where is the society that he and his satanic genocide-architects laboured to put asunder?

Tell me, with a few such jolts, for there are countless, wouldn’t B-B’s heart go kaput?

Let’s not deceive ourselves, however, B-B would not be allowed the freedom to roam this land unrestricted and breathe her free, fresh air. Not on the life of some powers that be.

For the last twenty-six years the man has not been gallivanting all over because he has some mystic powers, we know very well.

You don’t freely globetrot with an Interpol Red Notice hanging around your neck unless you are under the protection of the powers of Western Europe and North America. It’s beyond understanding how the world’s examples of democracy can hold so tenaciously to the Rwandan génocidaires all with hands dripping blood but then, there it is.

What’s more bewildering, however, is why France has had a change of heart and fished B-B out of ‘hiding’ – though all along open to them. Of all the arch-génocidaires and minor others that it protects and succours, why him? Why now?

Because he is old and spent, anyway? Then why make a big drama out of it?

Listening to the heroics of his capture, you’d think it was the great feat of pacifying the world!

Loud democracies of Western Europe and North America singing "Never again!” every day, what’s it that these blood-spillers are helping you to hide? Your ugly histories?

Much good it’ll do you: a ten-year-old student of elementary history knows them all!