By Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa
Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
What is national liberation? What is national independence? These questions require more in-depth answers than just surface-level explanations. Liberation should mean the moment a people shake off fear and reclaim their dignity; independence is the point at which a nation truly governs itself for the benefit of all its citizens. By those standards, Rwanda’s historical annual commemorations—July 1st for independence from Belgium in 1962, July 5th for the 1973 military coup, and July 4th for the RPF’s military victory in 1994—highlight changes in power but not societal transformations. They celebrate the change of authority, but not the underlying structures that have undergone substantive changes. What remains beneath these anniversaries is a cycle of domination and betrayal, where elites inherit the tools of coercion and reshape them in their image.
The warning signs have been clear for a long time. Throughout Rwanda’s history, elites have established fragile, centralized systems that exclude most citizens from decision-making. Power is usually held by a single leader—whether a king, president, or general—sitting in a court or palace and surrounded by an ethnically selective inner circle. In this system, authority spreads outward, but accountability never comes back. Repeatedly, political change has occurred not through consensus or elections, but through violence. Every major power change—1896, 1959, 1973, 1994—has been achieved with violence. Violence has not been an exception in Rwanda’s political history; it has been its main driving force.
With each new regime, a new founding myth emerges. History is rewritten, flags and anthems are redesigned, provinces are renamed, and curricula are reoriented to justify the legitimacy of the new order and the illegitimacy of the previous one. The language may change, but the core story stays the same: the few claim to represent the many while building systems that entrench their power. Peasants—the vast majority of the country—remain on the margins, cultivated for their labor, exploited during crises, and discarded during times of peace. They are conscripted into militias, used as political props, and cast aside once their usefulness ends.
Foreign powers have also played their part. Colonial rulers came with gunboats and catechisms; post-colonial ones arrived with donor funds and diplomatic support. In each case, they invested in the current ruling elite—until circumstances shifted, and they shifted support to the next faction. In Rwanda, external legitimacy has rarely matched internal justice.
Rwanda’s regional entanglements have increased this fragility. Instability in neighboring countries has often spilled over borders, and Rwanda has projected force into the Democratic Republic of Congo and beyond. These cross-border interventions are often justified as security needs, but they have worsened regional instability and kept conflict going.
This long history has left a grim record: assassinated kings, exiled monarchs, overthrown presidents, and ruling parties that fall into prisons, graveyards, or permanent exile. Each elite believes its reign is lasting—until it too falls, often violently, into the same pit it once pointed to as proof of its predecessor’s failure.
If Rwanda is to break this cycle, the country must dismantle the pillars that sustain it and create something new in their place.
The first pillar to fall must be absolutism. The current model of centralised power must give way to a truly constitutional state, where term limits are absolute, where parliament can hold the executive accountable, and where local governments have genuine autonomy over budgets and policy. Unity imposed from the top is brittle; unity grown from below is enduring.
The second pillar is fear. For decades, Rwanda has been governed by the reminder that violence is always nearby. To change this, the government must be subject to civilian oversight, make its security budgets transparent to the public, and allow independent investigations into past atrocities, regardless of who committed them. When transparency prevails, the politics of suspicion and silence will wane.
The third pillar is silence, specifically, the official erasure of history that does not serve the regime. Rwanda needs a national process of truth-telling, not orchestrated forgetting. A genuinely independent Truth Commission must give voice to the full spectrum of pain and complicity. No community, no regime, no period should be exempt from scrutiny. Only when the national story can include the dignity and trauma of all can reconciliation become a lived reality.
The fourth pillar—possibly the most overlooked—is economic exclusion and dependency. The journey toward true liberation and sustainable independence starts with shared prosperity. This process begins in rural areas. Rwanda must transition from a model of extractive governance to one of economic citizenship. Secure land titles, farmer-led cooperatives, and equitable access to credit should become standard. Moreover, Rwanda must grow from a low-income, aid-dependent economy into a high-income, regionally connected one. This involves investing in value-added agriculture, developing industrial corridors aligned with East African demand, and equipping young people with skills in technology, design, and green energy. Domestic revenue should replace donor reliance, and infrastructure—railways, power grids, financial markets—must connect Rwanda robustly to its neighboring countries. A thriving economy based on equity and integration is the strongest safeguard against future instability.
Finally, Rwanda must shift from regional adventurism to regional stewardship. Instead of spreading insecurity, Rwanda can help develop a Great Lakes compact—a shared framework for border security, trade, peacekeeping, and environmental cooperation. Prosperity in the region should no longer be a zero-sum game but a shared effort.
With these pillars dismantled, Rwanda can begin to lay the foundations of a republic that serves everyone: a country where healing is practiced in truth, where democracy is not theatre but competition between visions, where the rule of law restrains both the powerful and the powerless, and where prosperity reaches every Rwandan hill as surely as it does the towers of Kigali.
Another messiah figure will not lead this transformation. It will be built by a generation that refuses to kill or be killed in someone else’s name; that rejects violence and constructs bridges instead of battlements. Rwanda’s history serves as a warning. Its current situation is a call to action. Its future relies on the courage of its people to do what no elite has yet achieved: tell the truth, share power, and create a country where liberation and independence are genuine, everyday realities, not mere performances. When that courage takes hold, Rwanda’s commemorations will no longer feel empty—they will resonate with meaning from hilltop to parliament.
Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa
Chairman
Rwanda Freedom Movement-ISHAKWE
Washington D.C.
USA
July 4, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
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