With more than 40 years of political activity, Tito Ruteramara, a senior stalwart of the governing Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) who took part in Rwanda’s liberation struggle from a genocidal regime, is still passionate about his service to the nation.

"I still have the intellectual capacity I used to have,” said Rutaremara, who celebrated his 80th birthday on November 23. The highly respected former Senator and Ombudsman is currently the Chairperson of the Rwanda Elders’ Advisory Forum.

Born in 1944, when Rwanda was still under Belgian rule, Rutaremara did not enjoy his youth. In 1961, less than a year before Rwanda could see the back of colonial rule, young Rutaremara’s family fled to Uganda due to the pogroms against the Tutsi, which had begun two years earlier.

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Coming back from school for holidays in 1961, Rutaremara found that his family had fled their home in Gatsibo and he joined them in a refugee camp in Uganda.

The first born in his family recalls harsh conditions in the refugee camp: "You can’t have a dream. You don’t even have a life,” Rutaremara said when asked about his aspirations as a child.

He went on to study in Uganda, before attending university in Europe. He would later be one of the founders of the Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU), the precursor to the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), a movement that liberated Rwanda 1994.

ALSO READ: Tito Rutaremara on why war was the only option to liberate Rwanda

Rutaremara’s hope for his "greatest pleasure” was dimmed by the events of 1994 at the end of the liberation war and the Genocide against the Tutsi.

"When we were in the struggle, I used to say that I will have the biggest pleasure when we take Kigali. But, unfortunately, when we took Kigali, there had been a genocide, there were so many bodies around and so many people were victims of the genocide. Other people had spent months in the rooftops, trying to hide and others in holes and so many things that had happened. I didn&039;t have a chance to have that pleasure,” he said in an exclusive interview with The New Times on November 26.

'A daughter’s surprise'

Over the years, Rutaremera has played a key part in the country's healing and transformation journey, holding key roles such as heading the team that carried out public consultations that resulted in the 2003 Constitution, serving as the country's first Ombudsman (a role which some people still associate him with and from which his nickname 'Umuvunyi was affectionately coined'), and Senator.

Yet, Rutaremara waited for 30 years to get what he calls his "first real pleasure” and this was a surprise on his birthday. His birthday bash, held on Saturday, November 23, was attended by his family, colleagues and friends, and was graced by President Paul Kagame and First Lady Jeannette Kagame.

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Rutaremara’s birthday party was organised by his family, children and siblings, but he knew little about the big thing that would happen on that day – he only had a few hints. At one point, one of the elders at the advisory forum said Mzee Tito’s birthday would be celebrated; and Rutaremara later pressed his daughter Sylvie on what they were preparing for his birthday because he could see a lot of movements a few days before the main day.

"I knew that they were preparing something for me at Serena Hotel, but I didn't know how big it would be,” he said.

Although he might have guessed some of the people who had been invited, he never thought President Kagame would be there.

"I didn't know that the First Family was coming,” he said, recalling how he brushed off all the hints he got from the presidential security that was around Serena Hotel.

"I didn't take it seriously because I thought perhaps the President was around Serena or in another hotel; Marriott is nearby.”

But roundtable that had been prepared for him, his family and friends had two more chairs that remained vacant until the party almost began.

"I didn't mind until things started, then the surprise started unfolding. The First Lady came. I stood up and went to greet her. She came and sat on one of the chairs, leaving one still vacant... She asked how surprised I was. I said, ‘Yeah, I'm very surprised because I didn't know that you were coming.’ I said, ‘But the other chair... who is coming?’ She said, ‘I don't know...’”

By that time Rutaremara still had more surprises coming. After about 10 minutes, the President arrived. the senior citizen suddenly saw people standing up without warning, he stood up and then proceeded to greet and welcome the President.

"It was very much a surprise,” he said.

"The President gave a very nice speech, very nice indeed,” he said, recalling that he even joked about it being played on his funeral because he wouldn’t want to change the good things Kagame had said about him.

Rutaremara, also fondly known as simply Mzee Tito, asked members of his family about who had invited the First Family only to find that it was his daughter Marie-José.

"When I stood up to speak, I said, my daughter Marie-José, the biggest surprise that I have is from her. She's the one who invited the First Family, because I would not have invited them. I would have said, the President has got so much work to do and doesn't have time to come for birthdays,” he said.

"I said, I'm very much pleased, because it is the best day, the greatest pleasure, the best surprise that I have ever had,” he said. "It is the First Family I love and I respect, because he is my President. We know each other. He's a very good president, but having him in your anniversary – though it was a big anniversary because it is after 80 years – of course, it was something.”

"It was the first time to have the pleasure that I had wanted to have during the time that we were coming to liberate our country,” Rutaremara said.

Who is Kagame... through Rutaremara’s lens?

Although he knew Kagame's family, Rutaremara first saw him in Uganda when he was coming back from Europe. At the time, Kagame had the rank of Major in the Ugandan army. He met him after Kampala had fallen and the National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM) liberated Uganda in 1986.

Then he got to meet Kagame and Late Gen Fred Rwigyema on several occasions, and by the end of 1987, they had created the RPF, which would launch the war to liberate Rwanda three years later.

ALSO READ: Tito Rutaremara on how unity is Rwanda’s foundation

Having worked with Kagame for more than three decades in the RPF and in government, Rutaremara explained his most efficient way to get good results.

"I have been working with him for so long,” Rutaremara said. "I know when he gives me something to do, usually I [want to] understand it. When I understand it, I make it mine and I do it according to how I understand it. The problem others have is that when he gives them an assignment, they usually take the task as Kagame’s and they don’t own it.

"For me, I own it straightaway and try to get what he told me to get, I even try to get more. You have to own it and understand it as it was your problem and not a problem of the President. That’s the difference,” Rutaremara said.

"A very good human”

Rutaremara is known to be media-friendly and gives long interviews whenever he has time. Asked about what he had never been asked by journalists, Rutararemara talked about Kagame as a person.

"I have always talked of my leader, Kagame, as a visionary leader, as a good leader, as a strategic leader and so on, but Kagame is very human. I will say it as a I see it. He is a very good human; he has a good heart,” he said.

"He knows when someone is suffering, he even comes to see you, it makes him feel bad. He likes talking to people. When you sit down and you’re calm, normally he jokes with you. He loves his children and his family, now he has grandchildren. He is a man with a life, like me, like you, with more humanity and humour than we have. But that side, people never see it.”

Asked about one word that could describe Kagame, Rutaremara said, "Compassion.”

"He understands people – even those who committed crimes – more than we do and he can forgive them more than we forgive them. That is my analysis,” he said.