Rwanda remembers with dignity

This week Rwandans countrywide commemorated the 1994 Genocide. The young were told to disassociate themselves with an older generation who orchestrated the Genocide and to turn their backs on Genocide deniers. Meanwhile the fight against genocide ideology was stepped up. Canadian complications Recently President Paul Kagame has expressed disappointment and frustration at the attitudes and actions of many in the western world towards African affairs. News that he the Canadian embassy in Nairobi was asking Rwandans to identify which ‘ethnic’ caste they belonged to in Rwanda, will have been unwelcome to say the least. It is reported that Rwandans asking for a visa to Canada on official or personal business are asked to clearly state whether they are Hutu or Tutsi. Senior officials in the Rwandan government and civil society have been denied visas to Canada because they refused to state whether they were either Hutu or Tutsi preferring to be identified as Rwandans. Applicants of Canadian visas are further required to provide a copy of their pre 1994 national identity cards, the very cards that were used as the major means of identifying who was Hutu or Tutsi on Interahamwe manned road blocks. Perhaps it is not surprising that Canada is among several western countries who dispute the fact that 1994 is a landmark year in modern history. In a crazy turn of events, the Canadian parliament last week passed a motion for the commemoration of the genocide in Rwanda. General Romeo Dallaire the UN peacemaker who tried his best to stop the 1994 Genocide comes from Canada. Canada has also staged conferences this month where the 1994 Genocide has been vociferously denied by academicians. The Genocide has been labeled a political gimmick of the RPF government under President Kagame for political gain. Canada has seen the development of two activist organizations - one made up of Rwandan genocide survivors mainly and another by deniers of the same genocide backed by opponents of Kagame’s administrations. Théodore Simburudali the president of Rwandan survivors’ organization Ibuka was recently denied a visa at the Canadian embassy in Nairobi, as a result he cold not travel to give a speech on a conference of Genocide survivors and activists. That is the kind of dignity that Kagame called for while speaking on the 14th national commemoration events held at Nymata in Bugesera district. Kagame recently gave a detailed explanation of the attention seeking Spanish judge Fernando Merrelles; the crazy Spanish indicted 40 senior leaders in the Rwanda Patriotic Front as having caused the 1994 Genocide. The Spanish and French courts have stood up for a handful of their citizens that died in the 1994 genocide; and made mockery out of the other million Rwandans that were killed by a government that benefited from massive European funding. President Kagame has stood up for the reconstruction and rebuilding of the survivors of that mayhem and raise the country to international prestige. Good news for chicken lovers In many of Rwanda’s supermarkets, a kilogram of chicken costs Frw2,500, while an egg goes for Frw90. The high cost of chicken has been attributed to a ban that Rwanda had imposed on Ugandan imported poultry products with the outbreak of bird flu in recent years. Chicken has been rare in many Rwandan dishes as a result of that ban. The ban was lifted last week and leading Ugandan poultry breeders Ugachick began exporting to Rwanda. It is expected that the price of eggs and chicken will reduce. Furthermore, as a result of Rwanda lifting the ban on imported chicken, poultry exports from Uganda to Burundi and DR Congo will also resume. Talk about the CEPEGL (Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo) benefiting from the East African Community (Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania.)! One corner of the EAC is still having a tough time. Violence erupted in Kenya again after talks broke down between President Mwai Kibaki and the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, over the distribution of ministries in a power-sharing government. Talks were suspended this week on forming a power-sharing government of national unity, plunging Kenya back into political limbo. Ends