OH RWANDA!

Louise Umutoni

Iam a Rwandan, born and raised in Uganda. Alot of people might say I am Ugandan maybe because i spent half of my life there or maybe because i can hardley speak my mother tongue without error. All these would be pretty good reasons to start with and at times i might even refer to my self as Ugandan but Iam not and Iam Rwandan. No matter how hard I might try to run away from it Iam. I have to live with the fact that Iam associated with a country of murderers, a country where the blood of innoscent people was spilled by their own friends, collegues, neighbours, relatives, name it. People they laughed with, played with, shared meals or even the tinniest of necessities. A country where the smallest of aspects such as ethnicity was enough to cause so much hate, hate that caused the most artocious deaths ever immaginable. A country where even sharing the same language did nothing to convince us that we were one but we were on the contrary so quick to believe what the white man told us that there never had a excisted two groups that were so different. They said we looked different and that made us different, and those that had features that looked almost like those of the white man, they were considered superior. Stories were made up about our difference in origin and we were forced to believe that we were from completely different places and thus we were different. some were presumably from Ethiopia and others were believed to have origianted from West Africa.
Differences in physical features were also used to convince us that we actually were different and minute details like the size of one's nose were considered determinants of one's ethnicity. The classic colonial tactic had worked!!! We were totally divided and thus could be easily ruled, a tactic that had worked every where else but this time was bound to cause un imaginable damage.
Where were we looking when this happened? People say it was all misundertanding from the very start. The king did not know he was giving away his land to these people, how would he have known that with a simple hand shake he was giving away decades of hard earned land.
No he couldnt have know, but i still our ancestors for having been too naive. If they had been stronger back then maybe, just maybe this fate wouldnt have befallen my land, my beautiful home.
And the hate that came with it, hate that may take centuries to wipe out would never have excited. People would still live along side eachother as one believing they one, Rwandans is what they would refer to the selves as, not hutu, tutsi or twa. Oh Rwanda my home land, how could we have let this happen to you.
They call it "payee de mille colline" the land of a thousand hills. And that it is, hill after hill un folds forming a kind of pattern, to me it looks a thousands of pillows made of feather, one after the other. Soft and comfortable enough to lay your head down and go to sleep, a peaceful, sound sleep and wake up to the chitter chatter of the "nyamanza" believed to be the wisest and most talkative of birds. A land thats green from one end to the other that it looks like its covered in green carpet!
Rwanda a country so small and yet one that caused the world to bow its head in shame. Shame for not doing its honourable duty of saving man kind. A world that would rather give in to the silliest of whims but would not a lift a finger to save the lives of atleast a handful of people. A world that saw dead bodies strewn on the streets of Kigali but chose to turn a deaf ear to the cries for help. A world that waited for up to 1 million deaths before intervening. oh world where were you when we needed you the most? We have orpahans, widows, rape victims living with AIDS, we have sisters and mothers to the dead asking this question. Where we were you? Was it because we didnt have any oil or any diamonds to offer, was that what made us worthless. Was it the reason why you turned your backs on us and had only our rebel brothers to count on, rebels not armed enough to fight an army armed to the teeth. And yet some of you helped the enemy, some of you thought it was better to support muderers. But guess what we were saved, saved by our very own men, men who gave their lives to save a people that we were on the edge about to lose all hope. At the point where we though all hope was lost, where we had lost faith in man kind, it was at that point that we were rescued. God says it is at that point when you have lost all all hope you are abot to give up that i'll rescue you and renew your hope.