Rwanda. Kwibuka 28. 28th anniversary of the Genocide. The Never Again promise made by the international community, shattered by indifference towards the genocide in Tigray.
On April 7, 2022, in Kigali, has start Kwibuka 28, the celebrations in memory of the twenty-eighth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. A celebration that falls during a second genocide in Africa: the one that has been taking place since November 2020 in Tigray. Just as in 1994 Rwanda, the Western Democracies turns their eyes elsewhere, insensitive to human tragedy. To date, 500,000 Tigers have died. Today we must honorate the memory of 1 m rwandian died in 1994 and half million of Tegaru died at nowdays.
On April 6, 1994, the terrorist attack on the presidential plane landing at Kigali airport, Rwanda, with President Juvénal Habyarimana on board, kicked off the 100 days of the African holocaust in which 1 million Rwandans died. Most of the victims were of Tutsi ethnic origin. The attack was organized by the president’s wife, Agathe Habyarimana and by the hawks of the HutuPower racial supremacy party in power since the 1970s with the active collaboration of France. The sacrifice of hundreds of young Rwandan Popular Front fighters and the determination of their leader, Paul Kagame, succeeded in liberating Rwanda, ending the genocide and transforming the small East African country into a modern and developed nation.
On Thursday 7 April, President Paul Kagame opened the national commemorations Kwibuka 28, a week of reflection on the 1994 genocide in honor of the victims. These are the 28th commemorations of the genocide that take place annually. Kwibuka 28 began with an official ceremony at the Gizosi genocide memorial erected in the capital Kigali. President Kagame gave a speech in English in which he responded to the main criticisms leveled at Rwanda, in particular regarding freedom of expression and justice.
“On a day like this, everyone is speechless. And it’s not because it’s not possible to talk, as some people suggest. There are people who claim that we are a country without freedom of expression. This is bullshit”, President Kagame said. The Rwandan Head of State also defended his policy of reconciliation, the Rwandan judicial system and accused Western countries of remaining silent in the face of genocide.
“We are a small country, but our justice is great. And there are large and powerful countries, but whose justice is small. And they don’t have a lesson to teach anyone. Because they too are part of this history, which has seen the death of more than a million of our fellow citizens ”, underlined Paul Kagame.
“For 28 years, every year has made us stronger, made us better as a people. And to be what we want to be, we should be the ones to decide. Nobody can decide for us. Most people on this planet recognize what happened here and call it what it should be called. But there are others who claim that not only the Tutsis are dead. That others are dead too … Yes, of course. But, to say that it was a genocide against the Tutsis, how can it be false? How can we question this? How can this even be discussed? “
For the third consecutive year, the commemorations are held under the banner of the coronavirus. There will be no large collective events, such as the Walk of Remembrance and the Vigil. But across the country, Rwandans can participate in local ceremonies and discussion groups.
On the same day as the commemoration began, the United Nations paid tribute to the million people who were killed in 100 days, during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, in which (contrary to what Kagame claimed) they were also killed many moderate Hutus who had opposed the genocide.
“We honor their memory. We are amazed at the resilience of those who survived. And we reflect on the shortcomings we are responsible for as an international community, ”said the Secretary General in his message on the occasion of the 1994 International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda. António Guterres said the genocide was committed “deliberately, systematically and in plain sight”. The UN chief recalled that even if “no one were aware of the news” it was not possible ignore the “horror of the violence” perpetrated in Rwanda. There were “too few to be indignant and even rarer to try to intervene”. “Much more could and should have been done. A generation after the fact, the shame remains, ”he said.
Unfortunately, both Paul Kagame and Antonio Guterres have forgotten to talk about the current shame of humanity that is taking place in Ethiopia. Just as it happened in Rwanda in 1994, today genocide is taking place in the north Ethiopian region of Tigray and the international community for almost a year has been trying to ignore the horror of the violence caused to 7 million Ethiopian citizens just because they were born Tegaru.
“Everyone should oppose the genocidal forces,” reads an editorial from the Ethiopian news site Omna Tigray.
“The genocidal war on Tigray that was waged in November 2020 caused the extreme suffering of millions of Tigrayans living in Ethiopia and traumatized Tigrayans around the world. Following the formation of the genocidal alliance between the starving Ethiopian power Abiy Ahmed, the evil Isaias Afwerki and the land-hungry Amhara expansionist leadership, the people of Tigray have endured a war of aggression that no one can imagine in their most gruesome nightmare “
There is no doubt that the main objective of the war on Tigray is the decimation of every Tigrinya and all Tigrinya possess, both tangible and intangible, including their lives. As the Tigrays themselves, foreign workers and diplomats testify, Abiy and Isaias’ intentions are clear: to wipe out the Tigray.
If the genocidal plan had been fully implemented in the manner envisaged by the alliance, ancient Tigray would have ceased to exist, as would all its rich traditions, cultural heritage and historical pride of the Tigrinians inherited from their ancestors. The attackers’ plan was to exterminate the Tigrayans, take their lands and reclaim their history through the complete destruction and subjugation of its people.
For Tigrayans, there is nothing more horrifying and humiliating than losing their identity rooted in unwavering faith in the right to self-determination and territorial integrity. The idea that they would live as second-class citizens in their own homeland is so inconceivable that they would rather sacrifice their lives and that of their children for their nation, for their motherland, for their Tigray Adey.
This isn’t the first time Tigrinians have been fighting for the future of their homeland, a homeland once rooted in their Ethiopian identity. In the history of Ethiopia, countless Tigers have made the ultimate sacrifice by fighting against foreign invaders to defend Ethiopia’s territorial integrity.
In exchange for their contribution to Ethiopia, the Tigrayans were subjected to the unimaginable collective punishment that nearly a year and a half of genocide brought. The entire region is suffering a slow death as the Ethiopian government suffocates the Tigray by imposing a siege that prevents humanitarian end entry.
The scale and intent of this gruesome genocidal warfare has once again awakened the Tigrinians’ innate courage, tenacity and resilience to defend their homeland and identity, no matter how strong or powerful the enemy may be. People of all ages, faiths, genders and social status have come together with one goal in mind: to fight for their own survival and that of their own identity and homeland.
The way forward may be challenging and difficult to predict, but two things are certain: the Tigrayans want to live in peace and they want to hold accountable those who committed the atrocities during the Tigray War.
Today, as a result of the war and the siege of Tigray, millions of Tigrayans live in conditions of famine and thousands have died from starvation or lack of basic medical care. Tigray is still facing an uphill battle on multiple fronts.
In the meantime, it is the moral duty of every human being to empathize with those who suffer in Tigray and denounce the atrocities committed during this genocidal war. It is the duty of every human being to hold criminals responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal acts in Tigray »
This is the touching editorial of the Ethiopian news site. An indictment aimed at Western hypocrisy.
Since November 2020, the European Union and the United States, which are moved and indignant (rightly) for a few thousand Ukrainian victims caused by the Russian invasion war, have pretended not to see the 500,000 lifeless bodies of women, men, the elderly , children who died of hunger, for lack of medicines, lac of clean water or under the air raids with drones wanted by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed Ali. Many of these humans suffered horrific deaths like their Tutsi brothers in 1994. Killed with bayonets, machetes. Even burned alive.
Yet only a few days ago Amnesty International and Human Watch Rights, in their joint report on the crimes taking place within the Ethiopian conflict, spoke clearly. “ETHNIC SYSTEMATIC CLEANING IS IN PROGRESS IN TIGRAY” What will the European Union and the United States do now, self-elected the only bastions of democracy and the defense of human rights, to stop all this horror in Tigray?
28 years after the African Holocaust in Rwanda, we also observe the same inhuman desire to extinguish an entire people in Tigray. 77 years after the end of the Nazi nightmare, we are witnessing the emergence of far-right nationalist parties in Ethiopia that openly praise Hitler and the “final solution” by adopting a culture of extermination that is alien to the millenary Ethiopian culture. A cancer that devours this wonderful country in the Horn of Africa which for 30 years has been the pride of the continent as it was capable of ensuring commendable economic progress and peace between the various ethnic groups. Albeit contradictory and not always linear or perfectly just but anyway a Peace.
In recent days, the Ethiopian warmonger Premier went to Eritrea to discuss with Isaias Afwerki’s Beast the final preparations for the second invasion of Tigray with the clear aim of exterminating 7 million people who in their eyes are “weeds to be eradicated”. as in the eyes of the Rwandan HutuPower Nazi fanatics, in 1994 there were 2.5 million Tutsis. The attack to secure the final victory now seems imminent. They wanr to take advantage of the worldwide attention paid to Ukraine to massacre an entire people!
In this year and a half of war so brutal that in comparison the Ukrainian conflict is rose water, Europe has preferred to turn its eyes elsewhere, launching vague appeals for peace. Even the Italian government, which certainly does not represent its people for several years, is currently collaborating with the two criminals: Abiy Ahmed Ali and Isaias Afwerki, the latter rehabilitated by Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio and Premier Mario Draghi . An unprecedented insult not only towards the 7 million Tegaru but against the entire Ethiopian people and to the humanity. A cynical policy that becomes complicit in the worst crime against humanity: the will to exterminate an entire population, certainly not shared by the Italian people who fought the fascist horror to make the world better.
And what about the United States? Dear President Biden, you who are fighting to defend democracy in Ukraine, (embodied by an oligarch, former comedian who sympathizes with the Azov Battalion), attacked by another totalitarian country governed by an oligarch class very similar to that of Kiev, remember that it is not enough to supply arms and ammunition the Ethiopian democratic forces of the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army.
You are using the same tactic you are using in Ukraine: to make other peoples fight to defend your geo-strategic interests and to sell weapons to increase the profits of your killing factories. On the contrary, you should commit yourself personally, without reservations and hesitations, with all possible means to prevent monsters, be they Ethiopians, Eritreans, Ukrainians or Russians, from destroying the most precious and irreplaceable good: human life.
Sadly commemorating the million victims of the Rwandan genocide and the half million victims of the Tigray genocide, I conclude with the bitter reflection of an Ethiopian woman from the diaspora in Italy. «Since yesterday I have been reading many Twitter’s of political representatives from all over the world in reference to the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. They mourn for the past, helplessly witnessing the current genocide in Tigray. Pure hypocrisy ».
