Camane on behalf of the Minister of Public Works during the Commemoration of
the Rwanda Genocide held in Pretoria
7 April 2006
Excellency Ambassador, Mr James Kimonyo (Ambassador of Rwanda to the
Republic of South Africa)
The Dean of the Diplomatic Corps
Excellencies ambassadors
Heads of international organisations
Members of the Rwandan community in South Africa
Distinguished guests
It is a pleasure and an honour for South Africa again to be part of
Commemorations of the Genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994.
I believe today is an opportunity for us all to reflect on the well known
tragic events but it is principally an opportunity to ensure that the world
never again experiences the pains of Rwanda and apartheid South Africa.
In very significant ways our political histories have travelled along
similar trajectories, albeit at different times and varying scale. In South
Africa particularly in the 1980s, leading to elections in 1994, we witnessed
what was easily the most violent period of our political life as a country. In
our situation thousands died when friends and blood relatives turned on each
other in a blind feat of rage fuelled by irrational anger towards the outside
world. In our own version of the age of impunity women, the old, children and
the disabled were not spared from the marauding bands of attackers who
descended on townships by night to leave a trail of death and destruction when
morning broke.
The world knows today what we did not know then that Rwanda in a matter of
days like a man gone mad turned on its women, the old, children and the
disabled that April 1994 and the months to follow. In Rwanda itself, military
styled killing machines arose from the bushes of the rural hinterland to
unleash untold violence on a nation that like the rest of Africa had never
enjoyed long periods of peace. And so it is that we gather today to commemorate
a tragedy that remains one of the greatest blots in the recent history of
humankind and not just of Africa.
That a thousand people lay dead at the end of the killing spree of the
state-sponsored militias in South Africa in the late 1980s and before does not
diminish from the fact that elsewhere, in Rwanda, a million or more people lay
dead at the end of the skirmish. As President Thabo Mbeki has said before in
Rwanda as in apartheid, we see examples of the unimaginable depths to which
humanity can descend in order to find cause to violently dispose of its fellow
human beings.
Like in Rwanda, in South Africa cultural and physical characteristics were
dusted up from the cabinets of race based pseudo science and deployed as the
weapon of choice during the train and hostel attacks.
So the violence in the Reef was often incorrectly portrayed as a war between
Zulu migrant workers and the Xhosas. In Rwanda the genocide was also
incorrectly characterised purely as a Hutu-Tutsi conflict.
We know today what we did not know then that it is impossible to have a
tragedy the size of Rwandaâs take place in broad daylight and in the dead of
night with such swiftness without the assistance or acquiescence of an outside
force.
We know today what we did not know then that in South Africa the so called
black on black violence was in fact allowed to continue for so long because it
favoured those who were in power at the time.
Together Rwanda and South Africa, we learned the hard way that it takes the
silence of a few good men and women for tragedies of such proportion to thrive.
We vow again today that this will never happen again!
None of us on this continent suffered the terrible genocide that you did.
Therefore, we must succeed in overcoming the legacy which led to that genocide
and all the things that led to the apartheid crime against humanity. And as we
do those things together, Rwanda and South Africa will have something positive
to give to the rest of the world.
In seeking to deal with our own apartheid past we in South Africa went the
way of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The process opened up old
wounds in order that we would know the full extent of the atrocities. We
deliberately opened these wounds because we found that millions had believed
the apartheid propaganda that black people were intrinsically sub-human. With
the TRC they saw for the first time how evil the system of apartheid was.
We support you in the manner in which you have chosen to deal with this
unprecedented genocide. It is a tragedy for which humanity as a whole stands
guilty as charged even for allowing it to happen.
As President Thabo Mbeki has said before, in our case it has been difficult
to see how we could achieve reconciliation without transformation. Our
transformation has of necessity had to deal with racial divisions but it also
must address poverty and the racial disparities in the wealth distribution and
income. It also deals with gender discrimination which severely disadvantaged
black women and we have now accorded all languages and different cultures an
equal status. We believe it is important to deal with these once and for all
because we never again want to return to that place where these can be
exploited to divide and destroy our nation.
In collaboration with the Rwandese government and through multilateral
institutions we continue to contribute to lasting peace in Rwanda and the Great
Lakes region. We have a joint bilateral commission which we established in 2000
and a Joint Commission of Co-operation (JCC) through which we seek to
strengthen relations between our two countries on a more structured basis.
During a JCC held in Kigali in December 2002 we made significant progress
towards implementing special focus plans on training and development and gender
mainstreaming. Our respective Home Affairs Ministers have signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) with specific reference to a number of issues. This
includes co-operation on immigration, refugee and nationality issues; human
trafficking; establishment and use of movement control systems; management of
data, technical systems and products; training in network security and
programming languages. These we believe are going a long way towards further
strengthening our relations.
The above are underpinned by the solid diplomatic relations we established
to facilitate contact at the highest political level as early as February 1995.
Flowing from such high level contact we have among others concluded several
agreements between our two countries in the area of bilateral air transport,
protection and promotion of bilateral investments, health, tax evasion and
security.
We consolidated our security relations when in July 2004 our defence
ministers signed agreements on training, capacity building and transformation
in that area. Rwandan students have over the years studied at South African
tertiary institutions under our bilateral agreement on education.
A trilateral agreement between the governments of South Africa, Cuba and
Rwanda on health co-operation, funded by South Africa's African Renaissance
Fund facilitated the implementation of a programme whereby Cuban medical
practitioners train medical personnel in Rwanda.
We continue to seek ways to increase the value of our trade so it begins to
reflect more balance over time imports. Our private sector entities such as
cellphone operators have set up ventures and investment in Rwanda. We agree
that there remains ample room for expansion in trade and economic relations
between South Africa and Rwanda going forward. Today we commit ourselves as the
government of the Republic of South Africa that we will never abandon the
people of Rwanda and we will do everything to ensure that the conditions which
led to the genocide are completely obliterated in Rwanda and everywhere else in
the world.
As South Africa implements the Accelerated and Shared Growth
Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), Africa, including Rwanda, is implementing
major economic development plans under New Partnership for Africaâs Development
(NEPAD). This is to ensure the stability of democracy in our continent by
addressing such issues as poverty and the infrastructure backlog. At the same
time under the African Union (AU) we will actively support the African Peer
Review Mechanism (APRM) which holds all our governments accountable.
We must of necessity do more today than we did yesterday. In that way our
yesterdays will be a thing of the past as we look forward to a future in which
all our children live an economically and politically secure life.
To conclude, I have spoken about the issues above to illustrate that our
countries are living proof it is possible to fashion from the depths of death
and despair an âAge of Hope.â Indeed, we are gathered today to ensure that as
Nelson Mandela told us that: âNever and never again, shall it be that this
beautiful land shall again experience the oppression of one by another.â Never
again! God Bless Africa!
I thank you!
Issued by: Department of Public Works
7 April 2006
Source: Department of Public Works (http://www.publicworks.gov.za/)
