Rwandans have been urged to move to the future with focus in order to give full meaning to their liberation.

This call was made yesterday by the Minister of Local Government, Protais Musoni, during the first in a series of debates under the theme; "Our dignity is our strength” in preparation for the July 4, liberation day celebrations.

Other panellists at the debate were Major General Caesar Kaizari and Pastor Antoine Rutayisire.

"We cannot move to the future on our backs, we need to turn and move forward with the help of our norms, taboos and values that regulates our society,” said Musoni.

He explained the meaning of liberation and elaborated on why the liberation of Rwanda was inevitable at the time it happened.

"As usual, all liberations start with major contradictions, so ours also had some contradictions that sparked it - divisionism and the refugee status of the Rwandans who were in the neighbouring countries,” he explained.

"The leadership at that time had ethnic sponsored division; this led to insecurity, poor governance and corruption, so all this led to the invasion by Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) in order to liberate a country which had lost dignity.”

He however, highlighted some of the achievements the country has registered 15 years down the road which included; a participatory governance, security and gender equality.

Major General Kaizari, gave details on why the Rwanda liberation war was unique compared to others that had been fought in Africa.

"After the colonial era, there were many wars that were fought in Africa and some of them were triggered by the first world, but ours was unique in that it wanted to liberate a country which had been turned into ‘a man eating man society’,” he said.

One of Pastor Antoine Rutayisire arguments was that the people of Rwanda have a very big struggle of liberating their minds.

"People in the country side think that everything should be done for them, this is a very dangerous mindset which needs to be done away with so we can fully be liberated,” he said.

Rutayisire however said that this was not going to be an easy task and it needed much effort to fight it since it took 40 years to build the prevailing mindset in the people.

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