September 16, 2022
When you think of it, bankrupt and myopic rule is interesting! To it, its people are a burden and the fewer of them it has, the merrier. Rwanda has ever had the misfortune of being burdened with such extremism, exclusion and persecution during, worse still, genocidal regimes.
Pray, how would a reasoning government tackle the serious business of advancing its country without its people? When it comes to brass tacks, who does the heavy lifting? The truth: the more of them you have, the better-off you’ll be.
That’s why Rwanda craves integration of the region, the continent. Only, Africa is still littered with many bigoted rulers who are so tenuously smitten to their little ‘imperial thrones’ in their minuscule ‘empire bubbles’, however poverty-stricken, that to them integration is anathema.
Usually, this is done in the name of protecting their little nothings! But even if they had substantial resources, none’d benefit except the little ‘emperors’ and cronies.
Have they heard of what made USA rise (ignoring the West’s past looting)? Why China, India and others are rising?
This thought struck me as I read an article in the ‘East African’ by Rwanda’s High Commissioner to the UK, Johnson Busingye. It was on how Rwanda is ready to host any vulnerable group from any corner of this earth and offer them all opportunities available to Rwandans. From Burundi, D.R. Congo, Libya, Afghanistan, the UK, Denmark, citizens or migrants, bring them on!
H.C. Busingye was reacting to the debate raging in the UK about its intention to relocate migrants to Rwanda. Some MPs whose knowledge of the world is limited to what they see while oscillating between their constituencies and their parliament benches are up in arms. They are opposed to the idea because, say they, Rwanda is rights violator.
All hogwash because, unlike their government officials who are proposing the idea because they’ve been to the ground and know the Rwandan government well, these talk from a point of total ignorance. Equally parochial Brit opinion pushers have joined the chorus.
Their commonality: they rely on opportunistic human rights organisations’ reports, organisations loath to seeing governments that cannot bend to being played as their fiddle. Other cynics see in this, pecuniary interest. Almost comparing it to Rwanda engaging in human trafficking, but that, too, is pure tomfoolery.
These lazy critics don’t take time to think about, or entertain little logic on, the object of their attacks. Because if they thought over today’s liberated Rwanda, they’d see a country that’s changed for good and for ever. From human rights abuser under regimes past, she has turned liberator.
And liberator not only to her citizens but to any persecuted person, no matter their origin.
As to why countries should reject dejected migrants, that’s their business. Rwanda’s concern is that every single human being, whatever their condition, has the right to a dignified life.
And so, this government has taken up the responsibility to ensure no human being suffers the indignities that Rwandans had to bear for so long, even as the world watched, for as long as it has the capacity to intervene.
A little look at this country’s recent past would awaken these sleepy and uncritically thinking MPs and cohorts to the fact of how this leadership led Rwandans into forgiving millions of rogue Rwandans who’d killed their own in most contemptible ways. How this government coaxed those in shameful exile to return home in a programme dubbed “Come and see, go and tell.” This was to convince the first group of the veracity of the programme for them to convince others, in turn.
That’s how only Rwandan terrorists were left to the generous ‘security and succour’ of exile.
Mostly in Western countries, as possible trump cards against countries of their origin that sought to stubbornly act independently of them. If in African countries, they are used as Trojan Horses against their own people or innocent neighbours.
For seeing all this evil in the world and knowing there are many positive forces that can easily answer the call to work together for a better world order, Rwanda will always be in the eye of the storm. Still, she believes she can work through it.
That’s how she has come out to take on efforts that she thinks may in the end turn Africa into a united force. From which point the world may notice that, truly, unity of all is power.
Open door policy to refugees and other victimised groups. Visa-free entry into Rwanda for Africans and some others. Visa on arrival for some outside Africa. Active support to the seamless integration of regions and the African continent. Subscription to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Many more such efforts for cooperation.
Add membership of world organisations like the Commonwealth, La Francophonie, the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States. That’s when you’ll see that this land is begging the world to come together in the unity of positive growth.
Imagine the sizes of the markets and the forces of self-advancement these efforts can generate.
Dear MPs, humanitarian intervention for the dignity of all, taking every single one to be an asset, that’s what makes Rwanda tick.
