Explaining how men shortage has led to women's prominence and parity in Rwanda's governance

By Haganirimfura
May 12, 2009

Photo:
RPF leader, Rwandan President, Paul Kagame.

On her last visit to Rwanda, the visiting Executive Director of the United Nation’s Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Ines Alberdi, expressed an illusive satisfaction over women’s prominence and parity in the country’s governance.

Ms Ines Alberdi was treated to the usual RPF lie propagandas as it has always been over two decades. She was told that Rwanda is the first African country that has more women in the National Parliament, which is indeed an undisputable fact. But what they did not want to let her know was how did Rwanda really get there.

As a Professor of Political Science at the Rwanda National University and an Economic Consultant for many African NGOs, I want to provide our special guest with the true picture of why we have many women in parliament unlike any other African country.

As it was published in an online newspaper All Africa News, which is one of the many RPF sponsored media for Kagame’s lie propagandas, the UNIFEM leader was told that Rwanda is on the right path to achieve women's parity in all government institutions. But this was not the whole truth. They knowingly forgot to let Ms Ines Alberdi know that it is not by mercy nor by grace that Kagame has appointed more women in most government institutions in Rwanda.

It is widely known that Rwanda is still a nation in crisis. The RPF regime has therefore enabled special measures some of which happened to turn into a powerful political weapon to attract foreign investors while others have contributed to current sufferings of the Rwandan people.

The untold truth behind current women's prominence and parity in Rwanda's governance is that when the Tutsi led RPF rebels invaded Rwanda in October 1990, they were good at butchering innocent Hutu civilians in Byumba. Their stories have never been reported by any international media because of the USA and UK cover-up. The majority of people who were slaughtered were young people who were either in High Schools, Colleges, or Universities.

Indeed, in the process of “liberating Rwanda”RPF soldiers committed mass murder of innocent civilians not collaterally but deliberately. There is no shortage of witnesses, survivors, and documentations of RPA massacres before, during, and after massive killings of 1994 such as: Compendum of some RPF crimes, Rwanda: Alarming resurgence of killings, and Rwanda: Ending the silence to name just a few.

The RPF leader, Paul Kagame, ordered these killings in various parts of Northern Rwanda i.e. in Byumba, Ruhengeri and Gisenyi. In many cases, the majority of the victims were brilliant young people with a very promising future.

The RPF leadership continued to order selective killing of innocent Hutus believed to be reluctant to quickly embrace RPF ideology. This was mostly due to the fact that the RPF sinister plans were aimed at reversing the ethnic composition of the Rwandan population which has always been composed of Hutu majority and Tutsi and Twa minorities. God willing, such sinister plans fell short: the Rwandan ethnic composition is not expected to change any time soon.

When massive killings of 1994 took place, the majority of the victims i.e. Tutsis minority and moderate Hutus majority were males. This is another key factor that has contributed the current shortage of male elites in Rwanda.

It is important to recall that in July 1994, the RPF took power by force in Kigali. To attain this military coup, the RPF leadership sacrificed many Tutsis inside Rwanda by preventing its soldiers from intervening early on to stop the killings but also by dissuading the international community from dispatching a strong peace keeping force. When it was too late to intervene, RPF leadership with some help from western allies managed to convince the international community that the massive killings that were taking place in Rwanda sinch April 6, 1994 were not a spontaneous fratricide but a well planned genocide.

Surprisingly, even though acts of genocide character took place on both sides i.e. the RPF and the government sides, with regard to the Hutu-led government and military leadership of that time, on December 18, 2008, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) acknowledged that there has been no prior planning nor conspiracy to kill innocent civilians, a judgement that raised a more profound question: if there was no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic civilians, can the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda properly be called “a genocide” at all? Or, was it closer to a case of civilians being caught up in war-time violence, like the Eastern Front in WWII, rather than the planned behind-the-lines killings in Nazi death camps? The ICTR judgment found the former.

In addition, one should always keep in mind that these killings started after the shooting down of Rwanda’s presidential aircraft on April 6, 1994, a terrorist act that killed the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, including their respective delegations and the crew members.

Up to date, the UN did not bother investigating about the culprits of this terrorist act which is believed to have been ordered by Kagame and to have been carried out by a special RPF commando, as this has been revealed by several eye witnesses, including but not limited to, Abdul Ruzibiza, Aloys Ruyenzi, and Jean-Pierre Mugabe.

At that particular moment i.e. the night of April 6, 1994, that is when the RPF leadership sinister plans attained its paroxysm. RPF soldiers tirelessly killed as many Hutus as possible, with special instructions to moslty target educated males. It is widely known that after Kigali’s capture by the RPF soldiers on July 4, 1994, an even greater number of Hutu lost their lives within and outside Rwanda at their hands in what has now come to be absurdly rationalized as their “reprisal killings.”

Until late 1998, RPF soldiers and Local Defense Militia continued to selectively hunt down any young male Hutu who had the opportunity to go to school. Many other hutu elites have been indefinitely thrown into jails with no legal assistance so that over time they can get rotten there. Those who escaped RPF atrocities are those who fled to the country DR in 1994.

Unfortunately, those who fled to DRC, their safety did not last for long because in 1996 the RPF soldiers proud of strong support from UK, USA, Uganda, and Burundi attacked and destroyed UN refugees camps in Eastern DRC and continued their mission to exterminate Hutu elites and young male Hutus who were viewed as the future of Rwanda.

With an unspeakable complicity of the intermational community, RPF soldiers continued to track, kill, or maim Rwandan refugees throughout the equatorial forest in DRC under the umbrella of hunting down ‘Genocidaires’.

The International Community continued to watch Hutu refugees being murdered without any sort of help. This grand shameful cover-up has continued until today. Those Hutu refugees who were lucky enough to escape to other countries where RPF soldiers couldn't reach them, they are up to date scrupulously put on black lists as genocidaires or simply as revisionists or negationists all of which are terminologies designed to deny Rwandan Hutu elites freedom and equal opportunities they deserve in Rwanda. Indeed, in Rwanda, since there is little political space for dissents, disagreeing with the RPF regime or making unpopular statements can easily be portrayed as genocide ideology, punishable by sentences of 10 to 25 years.

Ultimately, the current dictatorship in Rwanda is designed to allow Kagame's led war criminals to continue to oppress the Rwandan people. The Hutu elites in diaspora has no rights to come home in dignity and serve Rwanda because Kagame and his supporters continue to spread lie propgandas that all opponent Hutus are either genocidaires, revisionists, negationists, or simply harbor genocidal ideology, and hence should be kept our of power as long as possible.

All of the above mentioned facts have plunged Rwanda into an unprecedented shortage of male elites in all domains of leadership. Sixty seven percent (67%) of all people who were killed since 1990 up to date, were males. This is why the RPF regime has no option but to use females in order to fill up the gap left by innocent male elites victims of Kagame’s culture of death and divisionism among Rwandans in order to ascend to power and hold on it.

In conclusion, having more women in the parliament, does not mean that Kagame has done something spectacular because he had no choice. He had to do so in order to rule the country without any reliable opposition. Many Rwandan male elites from all ethnic backgrounds have been killed in the 1990s. Many more are still languishing in secret prisons scattered throughout Rwanda. Those males elites who survived Kagame's unspeakable brutality are living in diaspora. These are the main reasons for the current women's prominence and parity in Rwanda's governance.

Related Materials:
Rwanda: Accountability, Missing Link in Gender Equality

UNIFEM to Boost Support to Rwanda Defence Forces in Fighting Violence against Women