Exactly a month ago, on Thursday, April 7, 2022, the commencement of the 28th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide Against The Tutsi kicked off. The yearly commemoration which is in its 28th year has always been themed Kwibuka (Kwibuka is a Kinyarwanda word for remember.) And this year was no different.
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What was different about this year’s commemoration was that it was the first commemoration since the lifting of the lockdown. A quick dash to see off a Nigerian friend who is a renowned journalist of my generation and who was in Kigali for a few days on the Rwandan leg of a fellowship; I realised that the streets and roads were basically devoid of vehicular movements and just a trickle of pedestrian movement. It was almost like a ghost town; a scene, I had not experienced in the past.

Even though I had witnessed several Kwibuka commemorations since my first one in April 2014. The famous roundabout in downtown Kigali was devoid of any iota of human movement (aside two stationary traffic policemen) and less talk of traffic. Same could be said of the KN3 Avenue where you would find some 5 star-hotels and Camp Kigali. The popular UTC building was not left out. All the stores were not open including the famous supermarket there. And nothing commenced in the building till 12.20 pm. The streets of Kigali from what I could see were basically empty.

The amphitheatre of the Kigali Genocide Memorial was not empty but filled with invited dignitaries.
A survivor Jean-Paul Sibomana from the district of Gasabo gave a moving personal testimony. He narrated how they lived ordinary lives, breeding cows, cultivating crops on their farms etc and had several bad incidents from 1990 to 1994 and that between that time and 1994, life was a test.

He gave instances when students didn’t return to school due to systemic bullying; then people would go to their homes; waylay or murder family members of the students.
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As he spoke there was a deafening silence (a silence you would hear from the screen) at the amphitheatre situated in the premises of the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Gisozi, Kigali. He narrated how during a chase by an irate mob; “they began to shoot at us. Some jumped over some fences/walls and climbed on a tree but others whose reflexes were not fast were shot at and gunned down,” he said.

He also remembered a particular road he ran through which was a muddy and steep area back in 1994 but has now transformed into a paved road and a farm. Parents were killed and dismembered and their children were forced to move their parents’ parts stacked in wheelbarrows and dump into wells.

Jean Paul who is married made the audience and those watching via television screens and online or via the radio realise that “The Kigali you are seeing was stinking. It was full of dead bodies in 1994. I knew I had suffered but I met people who had suffered more than I did.”

“Remember the hole? Eleven people were retrieved from the hole and they were emaciated when the area was liberated. People jumped into the hole with fear.”, he revealed; “And in 2021, we were able to retrieve the bodies from that particular hole.”
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He concluded his testimony by stating that “What I have done is to forgive and I know people who have done so. Let us rebuild ourselves and the future is bright.”

President Paul Kagame in his remarks stated that “the most important thing is these very hard and bad lessons should never be wasted. In the last 28 years, every year that passes makes us stronger and better people. And for being who we want to be, we shall be the ones to decide, not anybody deciding for us what and how to be. We are a small country but we are big on justice. Whilst some of these big countries are small on justice.”

He stated that; “there is no hero in a situation like ours.” And went further to state; “Another thing I have that is problematic with that word (hero) is that you can also manufacture heroes. You can decide to baptize somebody a hero, especially when you are powerful. You can create it, and if anybody raises an argument they are meant to sit down, to shut up.
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“That is what I meant when I said the powerful are powerful. They are big, but small on justice. They even talk about freedoms, and yet as we know, they create false stories about people, about Rwanda, about The 1994 Genocide Against The Tutsi. And when you argue with facts, when you want to present facts; they also know there is that power to tell everyone not to give you space to express your opinion; to answer back and to argue. And yet they are the same people who will start accusing others of lack of freedom to express themselves.”

At the tail-end of his speech, he asked a rhetorical question; “But what do you do if somebody is insulting you? You take it. It’s better not to insult back. You just absorb it and do whatever you want to do for yourself. So, the lessons learnt for the young people, for our country, in this land, is to say: Let’s just do for ourselves what we need to do, to be what we want to be, and the rest it’s a struggle, it’s a fight, we shall give it a good fight.”
Discussing with some Rwandans later on that evening of Thursday, April 7, 2022, I asked if they had forgiven the perpetrators who were responsible for murdering their family members (some were born after 1994 but they knew their own family tales about 1994)? They said as Christians, they have to forgive. Others might not forgive, but they have forgiven the perpetrators.

I could not but notice that it rained and poured cats and dogs some minutes after the end of the commemoration at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. 28 years ago, it must have rained during this period too.

Aina wrote in from Kigali, Rwanda.

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