Politics ering over the Cabo Delgado crisis . I suspect that having been through a similar tragedy of being disavowed by virtually all countries of the world in times of unprecedented mass human loss , Rwanda has chosen to position itself differently from the countries that preferred to emulate the colonizers ’ “ blindness ” in 1994 .
The Importance of Swift Action
From 1977 to 1992 , Mozambique endured 16 years of civil war that claimed the lives of over 1,000,000 people and caused over 5,000,000 Mozambicans to seek refuge across Southern Africa . It is fair to presume that the hope / prayer of an average Mozambican today is that the kind of death , dehumanization and fear that characterised the dusk of its 20th century would not mar its 21st-century history . So , when the Southern African country called for help , Rwanda answered , to the chagrin of its critics .
Rwanda owes its current stability to reconciliation efforts that required – and still demand – great empathy from its people and leadership . That same empathy allows the fervently Pan-African nation to recognize every African ’ s entitlement to stability , peace and human dignity . In the same spirit , Rwanda has been able to identify its own pre- and post-genocide vulnerabilities in the social and political conditions of African nations plagued with warfare . Rwanda perhaps more than any other state , relates to Mozambique in many ways , and understands that time is a luxury an entity under direct , violent and persistent attack does not have .
At first glance , Rwandan and Mozambican post-colonial histories and societal designs are very different . While Mozambique was being ravaged by a civil war that mirrored cold war politics , Rwanda was suffering decades of build-up to , and the eventual unrolling of , an ethnic genocide . However , the Rwandan and Mozambican crises both led to the death , exile and disappearances of millions of their nationals across neighbouring countries , where they live ( d ) as refugees , battling poverty , struggling with the challenges of community integration and worrying about the fate of a native land they might never live to see again . Both countries have had to commit to massive repatriation efforts after the mid-1990s in a bid to glue a fragmented and traumatized population back together , united in the ambition to witness their country ’ s promising development and improvements in social welfare in order to compensate for the decades of pains and losses .
For both Rwanda and Mozambique , the aftermath of the local tragedy was the pursuit of reconciliation between communities that had known long periods of fracture . In the case of Rwanda , the core separation was ( questionably ) perceived to be purely ethnic , while Mozambique ’ s was ideology-based ( FRELIMO Marxists vs RENAMO pro-west anti-Communists ). Rwanda is no stranger to the detachment with which foreign forces , whose main concern is the protection of their geopolitical and economic interests , treat conflicts taking place in strategically positioned African countries . This indifference , whether intentional or a result of innate inhumanity , strengthens oppressive forces every second it festers .
When the injustices against the Tutsi population of Rwanda culminated in an extermination attempt , not even Nazi Germany , with its immense manpower and incomparable resources , could match the velocity of the Parmehutu genocidaire killing machine . The killings were gruesome and relentless , yet tolerated by the world . The international community , for the most part , acted dazed and overwhelmed by the momentum the murderous forces had gained , which was disingenuously deemed too great to halt mid-flight .
The “ it ’ s too late to do anything now ” narrative is the one the indifferent procrastinators aim for , as they hide behind bureaucratic semantics and diplomacy , due diligence and due process , to avoid getting involved where they claim not to have interests . But , for those with a conscience – therefore interest in saving human lives – when casual dehumanization flourishes across the landmines left by centuries of colonial barbarity , to sit back and wait for the explosion is either sadistic or senseless . But unlike its dedicated faultfinders , Rwanda , which has committed to the responsibility to protect the UN principle by contributing peacekeepers to Northern Mali in 2015 and the Central African Republic in 2019 under the Kigali Principles on the Protection of Civilians , as well as sent forces to Sudan as part of an African Union Darfur mission , has proven itself to be neither cruel nor stupid .
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