Faustin Twagiramungu, 73, is an angry and bitter man who lives in self-imposed exile in Brussels, and listening to him you realize that the ravages of despondency and age are beginning to take toll.
But he is not that old to take leave of his senses.
Last night I watched a video of a recent interview on IKONDERE, a rag tag propaganda media outlet staffed by Rwanda’s enemies and other sundry characters. Twagiramungu has a proclivity to embellish and mis-state and misconstrue history to fit his agenda — whatever it is.
He was Rwanda’s sixth Prime Minister (1994-95), and a former chairman of the infamous MDR party.
And to this day Twagiramungu lives in the past, and talks like he has a following. Which reminds me of a Malawian proverb, “He who thinks is leading and has none following him is only taking a walk.”
It is a lonely and cold walk in Belgium’s brutal winters.
When you listen to Twagiramungu’s narration and fulminations of events leading to the genocide against Tutsi, both in 1959 and 1994, you simply wonder about the man’s integrity, and sanity.
To him facts do not exist. Only his interpretations.
According to him, the Tutsi were not forced into exile in 1959. They simply voluntarily followed Umwami Kigeli when he, on his own left the country, and they would plan on returning to Rwanda when he returned. This assertion offends decency, common sense and humanity.
Twagiramungu has dared to be naive. And he really is. But his condition is bitter, dangerous and founded on extremist theories that were propagated by his late father-in-law, Gregoire Kayibanda whom he talks about in laudatory terms.
The New Rwanda is simply un-acceptable to Twagiramungu. One Nation, One People is a concept that he cannot relate to.
On the coup that toppled Kayibanda, he says it was un-justified and gave a black eye to one of the best leaders Rwanda has ever had. His words, of course, not mine.
This man lives in a photocopied world. He believes everything he thinks. I know he knows the truth and it is making him mad. Literally. But it is never too late to be what you might have been.
It is one thing to disagree with events, but no one has a license to make their own version of history. It is no accident that Twagiramungu does not refer to the events of 1994 as “the genocide against Tutsi.” The omission is calculated and stealthy ly aimed at those he loathes. The victims and survivors of the genocide against Tutsi.
But his dog whistles fool nobody. This is pure and utter genocide denial and trivialization. There is no other way to interpret his utterances.
Twagiramungu allegedly rejects ethnic labels. But his speeches are over-flowing with hatred and his facial contortions give him away. When he mentions the name Kagame, you would think somebody made him swallow rotten eggs.
If he rejects ethnic labels, why did he join forces with FDLR in 2014? For what purpose, and to what end ?
Why does he exonerate the French in their active participation during the genocide against Tutsi? Why does he not call what happened in 1994 by its correct name – genocide against Tutsi – instead of distorting what led to the genocide and justifying the horrific events of those hundred days that turned Rwanda into killing fields?
Per chance Twagiramungu is reading this I say, the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.
