Rwanda enters a new era of individual and political freedoms

[Rwanda]

Rwanda enters a new era of individual and political freedoms

Dear Rwandans, Dear Rwandans, Friends of Rwanda,

July 01, 1962, was an unforgettable date in the hearts of Rwandans, for it marked the recovery of freedom by putting an end to more than seven decades of colonisation and trusteeship.

This independence also intervened in the furrow of the installation of the Republic, proclaimed on 28 January 1961, ending more than 4 centuries of feudal rule.

The enthusiasm is therefore total when raising the first flag of independent Rwanda on July 1, 1962. Rwanda enters a new era of individual and political freedoms with the consecration of multiparty and pluralist elections according to the principle “one man one voice”.

The young independent republic tries hard to tackle the development of independent Rwanda but is quickly confronted with the problem of refugees who have fled the exactions resulting from the Social Revolution of 1959 which led to the overthrow of the monarchy, The establishment of the Republic. While the majority of these refugees have serious reasons to fear for their lives, others, in this case the leaders, are more concerned about losing the benefits of their former status and do not intend to The new Republic. They multiplied the attacks against the young Republic, which resisted and put them in check definitively in 1967.

Moreover, internal problems do not allow to maintain national cohesion and the first Republic was deposed on July 5, 1973, by a military coup, putting an end to all the hopes of a democratically elected power.

On October 1, 1990, former refugees, members of the NRA (Ugandan Army), regrouped within the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), attack Rwanda and put forward the right of return of Rwandan refugees, Favorable to a part of the population, concerned about the equality of all Rwandans.

On June 10, 1991, a new Constitution was passed, consecrating the multiparty system. Many political parties therefore formally enter the Rwandan political scene while the war between the RPF and the Rwandan government continues to rage.

The appointment of an opposition-led government in June 1992 opened a new era and the Arusha negotiations began and led to a Memorandum of Understanding providing for the end of the war, the sharing of power between the RPF, MRND and the opposition parties in the MRND. This agreement, which was signed on 4 August 1993, gives the Rwandan people great hope.

But this hope will fly very quickly with the attack on April 6, 1994, against the plane of the Rwandan President, an attack in which the presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda, Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, their sequels as well as the French crew perish.

This attack triggered the genocide against Tutsi, a genocide in which thousands of Tutsis and “moderate” Hutus were massacred. Meanwhile, in the territories controlled by the RPF, thousands of Hutus were massacred by the RPF troops.

On July 4, 1994, the RPF took power in a generalized bloodbath and established a regime, which first presented itself, under the power-sharing aspect, before taking possession of all powers, by ousting its Old allies who believed in his liberating discourse.

Today, the RPF party has taken control of all sectors of the socio-economic life and the Rwandan people find themselves in the same situation as the one which had prompted this jolt of pride and reaching To its self-determination, freeing itself from all the yokes of colonialism and feudalism.

Democracy is currently muzzled and the only party-state FPR and its allies have a right to the city. While a small fringe of the population gravitating around the head of state displays insolent opulence, the popular masses are dying of hunger. Famines are raging on the hills of Rwanda and their names like “Nzaramba” (I will be a long time) say a lot about the hope that the population has to see them disappear. This unprecedented crisis in food is not the result of chance, but a clear desire on the part of the authorities to starve people by cultivating crops that do not meet their primary needs.

In the health sector, while the state should guarantee access to care for everyone, including the most deprived, the population that does not even have the means to meet food needs is harassed Authorities to pay the “mutual” when it does not have the means to do so. In some hospitals, even the dead bodies are confiscated, for lack of payment of the “mutual” by the family of the deceased.

In the education sector, as the number of secondary and higher education institutions continues to grow, the level of education is declining proportionately. Rather than improving the education system, the “establishment” members send their progeny to study at the best western universities at the expense of the taxpayer.

While poverty has reached a record level, the population is subjected to endless taxes and is even forced to pay special contributions to the RPF, including for non-members of the RPF.

At the security level, when the country is presented to foreigners as one of the safest in Africa, there is not a day passing without the discovery of a corpse, the circumstances of which Death are never elucidated.

The crackdown on opponents, human rights activists and journalists, is at record levels with political assassinations, arbitrary imprisonments and persecutions of all kinds.

Meanwhile, General President Paul Kagame is preparing to take up his ninth term in a mock election, where he is going to compete on his own, wasting public money, without a real challenger, because he has refused to have serious elections Organized with candidates not belonging to the RPF.

Dear Rwandans, dear Rwandans, friends of Rwanda,

The celebration of the 55th anniversary of Rwanda’s independence is not a time of festivities for the majority of Rwandans. It is rather a moment of great anguish and sadness.

May this moment allow each and everyone to realize that only a change of power will allow the restoration of the achievements of independence, as wanted by the historical leaders of these times immemorial like Messrs Joseph Habyarimana Gitera, Gregory Kayibanda, Anastase Makuza, Balthazar Bicamumpaka and their fighting companions.

Long live the Republic, long live Rwanda.

Done at Paris on 01 July 2017

For Inkingi FDU

Dr Mwiseneza Emmanuel

Second Secretary General

[email protected]