The gullible Western world has for too long swallowed the lies about the 1994 Rwandan genocide from President Paul Kagame’s propaganda machine.
In this atrocity, about 800 000 people were killed because of their race. Kagame, whose invading Tutsi army eventually conquered Rwanda, presents himself as a heroic victim, and is the darling of Western aid donors.
Actually, Kagame was largely responsible for the genocide himself, benefited mightily from it, ordered the mass slaughter of the opposing tribe, and assassinates anyone he thinks might oppose him.
At last, the truth about this wicked man has been told by Michela Wrong in her wonderful but frightening book, Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad. (‘Wrong’ is an old English surname of Norman origin.)
Wrong opens with the murder of Patrick Karegeya, a former colleague and then critic of Kagame, on 1 January 2014, in the Michelangelo Towers, Johannesburg. Kagame had almost certainly ordered his assassination. She then traces the history of events leading up to it.
The small central African countries of Burundi and Rwanda are each composed of two main tribes: 85% of the population are Hutu, 14% are Tutsi. In pre-colonial times, the Tutsi minority ruled the Hutu majority, and felt themselves naturally superior. The Belgian colonists retained this tribal power structure. In Rwanda in 1959 there was a Hutu revolution.
Many Tutsis fled to neighbouring countries including Uganda, where they formed the Banyarwanda, a Tutsi resistance movement.
In Uganda there was dreadful tribal bloodshed under Presidents Milton Obote and Idi Amin. Hundreds of thousands were killed. The Tutsis worked with a Ugandan guerrilla fighter, Yoweri Museveni, who eventually overthrew Obote and took over Uganda in 1986. Tutsi soldiers defected from Museveni’s army to join the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF). In October 1990 they invaded Rwanda.
Hutu terror
Their mission was racial, to overthrow Hutu majority rule and replace it with Tutsi minority rule. Hutu terror at this prospect is understandable.
In neighbouring Burundi, in 1972, the minority Tutsi government had ordered a cold-blooded, systemic slaughter of every Hutu with more than primary school education. About 300 000 Hutu were killed purely because of their race. Tutsi death squads would enter schools, pick out the Hutu children and kill them, sometimes using sledgehammers.
I was horrified to see on page 52 of Helen Zille’s otherwise excellent book, ‘Stay Woke’, that she compares Tutsis with Jews. She appears to be a victim of Kagame’s lies. No, the Jewish minority never ruled Germany in a reign of terror. Jews never entered German schools with machetes and hammers to kill every child who was not Jewish.
In charge of the invasion was Fred Rwigyema, who soon died in mysterious circumstances. He was replaced by Paul Kagame, who headed RPF intelligence. Highly disciplined, puritanical, cruel, cunning and vengeful, Kagame was much like Stalin, but without Stalin’s ability to control his temper.
The invading Tutsi army caused panic among the Hutu, and their activists began preaching hatred against the Tutsis. Rwanda became a huge pile of tinder waiting for a spark.
The spark came in April 1994, when the plane of the Rwandan President Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali, the capital, almost certainly by Kagame. The killing frenzy began. Mobs of maddened, terrified Hutu set upon every Tutsi they could find, including close friends and relatives, and slaughtered them with knives, axes and clubs. In a few weeks, 800 000 people were killed.
Meanwhile, Kagame’s invading Tutsis easily beat the much larger Hutu army. Hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled, chased by the Tutsis, who killed large numbers of them. The Tutsis took power in Rwanda in July 1994. A puppet, Bizimungu, was their first president. In April 2000 he was replaced by the real holder of power, Paul Kagame, who is president still.
Why is the 1972 slaughter forgotten and the 1994 one remembered? The main reason is the skill of Kagame’s propaganda and his ruthless suppression of anybody who tells the truth about 1994. He shows gullible journalists the corpses of Tutsis killed by Hutus but never of Hutus killed by his Tutsis. Kagame is a racist tyrant.
Much worse
His Rwanda is like a very much worse version of apartheid South Africa. All power and privilege belong to the Tutsi minority. He impresses the West with the clean streets and apparent development of Kigali. He has used terror to bring peace. He stages bogus elections where, like in Hitler’s referendums, he wins more than 90% of the votes. He attracts aid and investment from the West. He seems to falsify his economic data to suggest higher economic growth and more economic freedom than there is. He kills anyone he suspects of opposing him.
In 1997, his Tutsi army invaded Zaire, overthrew President Mobutu Sese Seko, and then committed atrocities against the Hutu there, and plundered the country.
Michela Wrong’s outstanding book is essential reading for anybody who wants to know the truth about central Africa. We cannot manage the future unless we understand the past, however ghastly it might be.
[Image: configmanager, Rwanda Genocide Memorial]
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