January 4, 2025
Since I posted the video commentary about the Rwandan incident, several things have become clear. Both the Rwandan police and the South Sudanese Student leadership in Rwanda have noted that the violent incident that was wrongly attributed to South Sudanese students has, if anything, to do with South Sudanese.
As
the president of South Sudanese Students Association in Rwanda, Saleh
Mohammed Adam, has said in his
interview with Juba-based Eye Radio, “the incident happened on the 27th
of December, so we actually have seen the footage, and I told them clearly when
we tried to view the footage …and in the actual truth we found out these people
who fought Rwandans…are not South Sudanese.”
He
added, “I have called one of the police who was in the investigation process of
the incident [and] he told me I was right. They said the issue has been already
solved so it was just misinformation and misidentification.”
This
is why it is crucial that we wait to hear all the facts surrounding the incident
before we respond as to who is at fault. Both Rwandans and South Sudanese
automatically assumed that South Sudanese are to blame. They attributed
violence, a natural fact of every society, to be a natural propensity of South
Sudanese as people.
While
the South Sudanese leadership did
not respond to the incident, the Rwandan
authorities did. The Rwandan police and
the ministry of foreign affairs did not buy into the narrative that South
Sudanese are naturally violent. Rwandan authorities have shown a sense of
leadership South Sudan’s foreign ministry has not.
Boniface
Rutikanga, the spokesperson for the Rwandan
national police, cautioned the public against using social media as the source
of facts and truth.
“People should not be worried about what is
going on over the social media but should learn to understand that the fact not
always comes from the social media” [sic].
Advising
against targeting South Sudanese, Mr. Rutikanga said that the incident is a normal
event that can happen between any communities living in Rwanda or among Rwandan
themselves.
“What
happened”
he added, “was just a case that could
happened to any another community. It is normal. It could happen between
Rwandans among themselves or could have happened between one community and
another” [sic].
Mr.
Rutikanga assured the public that neither South Sudanese nor other foreign
nationals living in Rwanda have violently targeted Rwandans.
“…there is nothing special that would be
called that South Sudanese were targeting Rwandans or certain foreign group
targeting Rwandans. There were no premeditation of doing that, so let me just
assure people that there is nothing problematic.”
Responding
to the hateful vitriol directed at South Sudanese by Rwandans on the social
media, The
New Times warned on January 1,
2025, against current and historical dangers of othering. that “Young [Rwandan]
people should be taught about the dangers of otherness, especially prejudicial
and stereotypical. It starts off as just that, but the cost is too high. Crimes
committed should be reported to the right institutions and dealt with legally.”
The
New Times added that “Inciting hate against a
specific people has no place in Rwanda today or tomorrow. Our hospitality
should reflect the remarkably diverse society we have built over the years.”
The
New Times was echoing what the Rwandan Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olivier Nduhungihere, posted
on X on December 30, 2024, about Rwandan
values of unity, rule of law and respect for diversity of the people living in
Rwanda.
These
remarks underscore what I said in the video; that, at the time, we did not know
what happened. I said that we should wait for the police to do the
investigation to find out what really happened.
I
also, as a cautionary reminder, showed a video of South Sudanese being maligned
in the Australian media. Some of the videos shown in Australia as South
Sudanese youth engaging in acts of violence turned out to be non-South
Sudanese.
As it turns out, the Australian case is
similar to the Rwandan incident as facts start to come out. It is pent-up
hatred meant to tarnish South Sudanese.
It
is therefore vital that we wait for facts before we share our opinions in spaces
that do not have editorial oversights. X, formerly known as Twitter, is a
sociopolitical wild west.
While
it is prudent that we respond to reports when they arise, it is also crucial
that we show restraint and avoid self-denigrations.
I
am not, of course, saying that South Sudanese do not engage in acts of violence
in Australia or in East Africa. I only suggest that we blame South Sudanese
when they make mistakes. As South Sudanese, we should not join self-blame and
denigration before we get all the facts.
We
have started to see ourselves through the prisms of those who have no respect
for us.
___
Kuir
ë Garang (PhD), is the editor of the Philosophical Refugee (TPR)
