Rwanda genocide @30: Kagame warns against ethnic populism

Paul Kagame, president of the republic of Rwanda, has commemorated the 30 years anniversary of the country’s genocide attack, warning fellow African leaders that genocide can happen anywhere if left unchecked.

Kagame made this call while addressing world leaders in Kigali, the country’s capital on Sunday, noting that division and extremism are prime causes of genocide.

“Rwanda’s tragedy is a warning. The process of division and extremism, which leads to genocide can happen anywhere if left unchecked.

“Throughout history, survivors of mass atrocities are always expected to be quiet, to censor themselves, or else be erased and even blamed for their own misfortune,” Kagame said.

“Their testimony is living evidence of complicity, and it unsettles the fictions which comfort the enablers and the bystanders,” he added.

Rwandan president stated that the media, controlled by the bigwigs, are often used to make the victims the villains with a series of propaganda.

“Over time, in the media controlled by the powerful in this world, victims are rebranded as villains, and even this very moment of commemoration is derided as a mere political tactic. It is not. It never has been. Our reaction to such hypocrisy is pure disgust,” he said.

The genocide, otherwise known as genocide against the Tutsi, lasted for about four months during the Rwandan civil war, claiming the lives of not less than 800,000 people which included mothers and children.

While the attack occurred for about 100 days, world powers did little or nothing to quell the already war torn country, multiple reports showed.

“Today, in 1994, the most grusome genocide in world history started. 800 000 tutsis were murdered at a speed three times the holocaust. The world powers looked another way,” Erik Solheim, a former minister of Climate and Environment in Norway said on X.

The remembrance saw many world leaders, both present and past, trooped into the country among who were former president of the United States, Bill Clinton, president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, Tanzanian president, Suluhu Samia.

Others were Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed Aliy, president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki and Akinwumi Adesina, president of African Development Bank.

Victor Oladokun, a corporate communication strategist said on X: “If there is one key lesson to take away from Kigali, it is the sanctity of human life and the compelling need for the world and global leaders to always insist – “Never Again!”