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In the census of 1991, there were three ethnic groups in Rwanda, recorded proportionally as in the following statistical figures: HUTU (85%); TUTSI (14%); and TWA (1%). These numbers might have significantly changed since for different reasons, the main one being war.
According to today’s upheld propaganda, prevalent especially since 1994 and which is found in many circles dominated by TUTSI extremists across the world, HUTU are genocidaires.
That propaganda preaches that HUTU are genetically born with the intend to kill TUTSI. The regime of RPF [ – this is at least what the Rwandan president Paul Kagame highlighted on June 30, 2013 in a public speech, when he asked in Kigali all HUTU including those born after 1994, the year of the so called “genocide” (1), to apologize to TUTSI for a crime their fathers might have committed].
And we know where that propaganda originated from. It was initially engineered in the 1950s by the ruling TUTSI elite in Rwanda. This was the time of the monarchy in that country.
The former had well observed how effectively the then entire “civilized” world had come to the rescue of the Jews during Adolf Hitler military campaigns across Europe of WWII.
At the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, the Rwandan ruling TUTSI elite found that by using the genocide card to attract international sympathy for its minority leading community, its royal and political privileges could be safeguarded.
It was under the strength of this logic that for example Dominique Mbonyumutwa, a HUTU leading political figure at that time and which was going to become the first president of Rwanda, was accused of fomenting a genocide against their community. Unfortunately for the latter, the accusation did not work out.
Approximately thirty years later, in 1994, having refined all the required propaganda, – particularly during their exile in Uganda -, understandably with the help of all foreign vested interests which found appropriate to be associated to the new propagandists of genocide, the accusation succeeded.
Today, it is widely accepted by many uninformed people outside Rwanda that HUTU are genocidaires. This might not be their fault because broad interested parties have heavily invested in that propaganda of tarnishing the image of HUTU for strategic reasons.
Why palestinization?
When the Jewish writer Bat Ye’or talks of palestinization, he appears to mean siding or empathizing with Palestinians. However, my reference here to the concept is related to the victimization of the group, i.e in other words, for example in the case of HUTU, treating them the way Palestinians have been treated since the creation of Israel: as pariahs.
In the mind of many around the world who are fed by and consume happily Western propaganda supportive of Israel, Palestinians are terrorists.
When Palestinians defend their right to live decently as other citizens anywhere, not being evicted from their ancestral land, or not treated as second class category people in territories today occupied by the Jewish state, they are called names.
The similarity of their situation with what the HUTU community has been experiencing since 1990 in the Great Lakes region is pertinent.
Its negative portrayal by the West and concurrently the ruling TUTSI in Rwanda serve strategic interests of particularly US, UK and other foreign powers. That is the same treatment that Palestinians are subjected to for the same reasons of political strategy in the Middle East.
Presently
On 05/12/14 Germany prosecuted a number of members said to be part of the FDLR. This is the HUTU movement which today represents those among the community that have resorted to protecting their people at any cost even by giving up their lives.
The victims of the German court still have the right to appeal. “The verdict and the sentences are not yet final. The German Supreme Court could revise them.”
The group has been mostly active in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo where more than 250,000 HUTU refugees have been identified.
These are some of the survivors of the many attacks by the Rwandan Patriotic Front [RPF] and foreign forces combined with the complicity of international organisations such as UN and NGOs that targeted them since October 1st, 1990, either inside Rwanda or DRC.
Could there be any correlation between the timing of publicizing the German court’s sentencing and the 02/01/15 deadline for the FDLR having disarmed completely? Maybe or maybe not.
Whatever the timing of this court’s decision, putting it in front of the public’s eyes at this particular period, helps a lot those who, either inside UN institutions, or in Western capitals, and even in Kigali, have tirelessly worked for total annihilation of the FDLR.
Across Europe and the entire world, there are numerous people of HUTU origin who are either in prison or being investigated, not for the crimes they might have committed especially in Rwanda during the “genocide”, but only for the fact of being who they are. RPF propaganda has worked so far in this respect.
On 27/11/14 in The Netherlands, the Hutu community organized a public manifestation to protest against the injustices that the country’s authorities are committing harassing outrageously its members: removing citizenship to those who had it, imprisoning those who speak out for others, etc. The country is responding to Rwandan government’s requests based on fabricated facts against the victims.
The Western policy of recent years of reducing sensibly the number of foreigners in their midsts, particularly those from countries where there are minimal excuses to do so – thanks to propaganda from places like Rwanda, and because of the increasing nationalistic trends developing especially in Europe, will simply be more tightened.
Available options
The HUTU community everywhere, inside Rwanda and outside, has two options: either they stand up as a people, or they perish completely as one. The latter process of reducing their number started in 1990.
FDLR has made a stand so far which has preserved the lives of many particularly in the DRC. More needs to be done on that front. And the contribution and support needs to come from any member of the wider community wherever they are.
While officially the pariah is the HUTU, at the same time, the Bantu community by large, particularly in the entire Great Lakes region, is being exterminated in the process. Congolese have lost more than six millions. Africans are being massacred by the millions to give space to exploitation of their minerals.
What about the TUTSI in the region and particularly in Rwanda who might wrongly think that they are not at the mercy of that game of sacrificing African people for safeguarding foreign interests?
There is undoubtedly an elite group among TUTSI which is leading [reference to the speech of Joweri Museveni during the 20th commemoration of “genocide” on April 7th, 2014] and ready to sacrifice anybody, even among their own people, in order to preserve their immediate interests and those of their Western masters.
One can argue that the Palestinian case is different from the Hutu one. I agree at some extent. But the similarities are so striking that one can hardly avoid thinking of their closeness; 1) foreign forces that impose a minority community to rule over a majority people; 2) sustaining the power of the minority by strong military and financial foreign intervention; 3) use of extreme state terrorism to oppress masses; 4) the ruling elite being celebrated in its masters’ capitals and universities as role models of governance, democracy and development.
In my overall opinion, the palestinization of the HUTU community started the day US and UK decided to back up RPF and its regional platform of support, meaning Uganda mainly, to become its backbone for their stronghold in the Great Lakes region. Conscious of that reality, and especially what they can learn from the conditions of Palestinians, HUTU survival as a people will depend on how they address their current situation of “pariahs”. Better late than never, as seen in The Netherlands on Thursday 27/11/14.
(1) The Rwandan tragedy and its Congolese aftermath have affected enormously every family including mine in all the countries of the region. On the journey of trying to survive the slaughter, we lost countless parents, siblings, in-laws, nephews, and friends. Some survivors have been left handicapped by machetes or bullets for life or simply mentally. Other relatives died some years after because of the consequences and policies put in place by RPF, this in Rwanda. Those who did not die in prisons, have become citizens of second category. Prisons are continuously receiving hundreds of candidates months after months as countries like The Netherlands, UK, US, etc do not stop financing the oppressive regime of Paul Kagame.
Ambrose Nzeyimana
Political Analyst/ Activist
Organising for Africa, Coordinator
The Rising Continent, Blog editor
Organising for Africa, Coordinator
The Rising Continent, Blog editor
London, UK
Email: risingcontinent@gmail.com
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