1 2 3 4 UMWAMI KING KIGELI V AND THE SHATTERED KINGDOM OF RWANDA (1896-2016) Stewart Addington Saint-David 5 “My wish is that every human being should be treated equally, and as a child of God, both here and in Rwanda.” -H. M. Jean-Baptiste Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, King of Rwanda (r. 1959- 2016) © 2018 Stewart Addington Saint-David. All rights reserved. 6 FOREWORD H. M. YUHI VI BUSHAYIJA King of Rwanda I was born into a branch of the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of Rwanda as it entered its final phase as the active central component of the country's political and cultural life, during the reign of my late uncle, King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa. The king of Rwanda, called Umwami in our Kinyarwanda language, has always been considered the “father of the nation,” and is seen as the universal patriarch of the countless family groups that constitute the vital human fabric of our country. Through decades of foreign intervention and encroachment, the institution of the monarchy withstood the test of time, and was seen as the central pillar of the Rwandan state. Under the wise rule of my grandfather, Yuhi V Musinga, as well during that of my uncles Mutara III Rudahigwa and Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, the nation was able to preserve its cultural heritage and internal autonomy, all the while moving haltingly toward full independence and eventual self- determination. The monarchy, and the monarch in particular, have always acted as guarantors of stability and continuity across the land, despite the turmoil that engulfed other surrounding nations as the moral, social, and political depredations of colonialism left waves of conflict and bloodshed in their wake. Following the enactment of colonialist schemes to dethrone my uncle, King 7 Kigeli V, in the early 1960s, came the early, bloody days of the Republic of Rwanda, during which tens of thousands of Rwandans were either murdered or forced out of our territory into neighboring countries. The seeds of the unspeakable tragedy that was the Genocide of 1994 were initially planted by the cynical social engineering of the Belgian colonialists during the 1930s, who separated Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa into ethno-racial, rather than into socio- economic categories, which had always been our commonly-held view of such things before the intervention of a foreign power in the unbroken millennial stream of our national history. The intrusion of this false scheme of racial classification and segregation was just a small part of Belgian efforts to “divide and conquer” us, using fabricated designations, falsely based on the notion of race, to divide our people, our one and only people, the Banyarwanda. The elimination of the monarchy, and the imposition of the Belgian-controlled Republic, caused great distress and instability within the country, as well as widespread violence and bloodshed. The “Father of the Nation,” Umwami, my late and beloved uncle, Kigeli V, was barred from re-entering the country, and since that time, Rwanda has vacillated between periods of brutally enforced, but precarious “stability,” usually under the rule of unscrupulous strongmen and their regimes, or has been overwhelmed by chaos, death, and destruction, as seen most tragically during the horrific, bloody, and heartbreaking weeks that witnessed the maniacal savagery of the Genocide during the spring of 1994. As a Rwandan born at the very moment when the culturally organic and stabilizing edifice of the national monarchy was being demolished, both by foreign intervention and domestic collusion, I have lived the majority of my life as an exile. Following the sad passing of my beloved uncle Kigeli, on 16 October, 2016, I was later named, in full accordance with our ancient monarchical traditions, as the new Head of the Royal House, and as titular King of Rwanda. The fact that I have lived in the United Kingdom for many years as a subject of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, has perhaps prepared me to be the Head of another equally ancient Royal House, while at the same time I am fully conscious of the realities of this modern age. In this position for which fate has prepared me, and which in many ways is no less important than that of my royal forebears, 8 who once actively ruled over the territorial expanses of our Rwanda, I know that I must continue to accept, to understand, and to adapt to new realities, while at the same time never abandoning what is at the heart of the ancient concepts and values that will, I hope, continue to serve as essential guides for present and future generations of my fellow countrymen. All Royal Houses have tales of triumphs and of tragedies. My grandfather, King Yuhi V Musinga, for example, who was a noble king and warrior, much like His father, the great Kigeli IV Rwabugili, nevertheless failed to recognize that modernization and conversion were necessary, in order to better confront and adapt to European colonialism, and to better protect His people from its negative effects. Sadly, because of His unwillingness to entirely submit to the dictates of foreign interlopers, He was forced to abdicate by the Belgian colonial authorities, who considered Him too independently-minded and nationalistic. Both of my uncles, however, studied abroad, and were entirely open to the modernization and Westernization of Rwanda, and of its monarchy. Their successes in gaining recognition of Rwandan national sovereignty from the United Nations, from various fellow rulers, and from the Pope Himself, unfortunately resulted in the ill-concealed murder of King Mutara III Rudahigwa, on 25 July, 1959, and in the eventual prohibition of the return of King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa to Rwanda following His famous address at the United Nations in 1960, the year of my own birth. Both vile political acts were motivated, not by the people of Rwanda, but by the intruders in our country, as well as by opposing forces working outside it to undermine the monarchy's stabilizing effects. The ultimate long-term result was the horrible massacre of millions that took place in 1994, which was witnessed by the entire world, and which gave rise to a trauma that still resonates across the collective minds and souls of all of humanity. It is essential that the lessons of the past, both glorious and painful, should be frequently called to mind, and that the related story of my family and its kings, in their role as guardians of the nation, should be recorded and assessed from a historical perspective. This book, written in direct collaboration with my late uncle, King Kigeli, and His associates, is a deeply and comprehensively 9 researched account of the final active days of our country's monarchy within the context of its extended recent history. It has been created to further underscore and to celebrate the importance of unity, tolerance, and cooperation, values that we, as Banyarwanda throughout the modern world, hold most dear in our hearts, and which have always been a key aspect of the precious heritage that is our great and genuinely unique national culture. 10 28 July, 2019 I sometimes imagined that King Kigeli would always be with us, that He would one day return to the throne of His Kingdom, and that a painful and persistently suppurating wound of modern Rwandan history would somehow be healed thereby. On 17 October, 2016, however, I learned of the folly of my imaginings, for on that morning I was informed by email that His Majesty had suddenly passed away, the victim of long-hidden heart disease. As one often vividly remembers moments of great joy, so, too, does one recall moments of deepest sadness and personal loss, and in this case, the irretrievable loss of a great living link with Rwanda's millennial royal heritage. More than anything, however, I am still frequently reminded of the pall that descended upon all those of us who had admired and served His Majesty at the end of His life, for both His personal presence and His humble struggle to heal the wounds of colonization and genocide in His homeland had touched all of us very deeply, and had inspired us all most profoundly. My association with the late King Kigeli V came about in a most modern fashion, for I was initially contacted directly by His Chancellor, Boniface Benzinge, via the good offices of the owners and operators of an internet armorial register. As I was due to make an unrelated business trip to the Washington, DC, area a few months later, I happily agreed to a meeting with representatives of the Tutsi monarch at His favorite local hotel, the Marriott Fair Oaks in Fairfax, Virginia. Once my professional obligations on the East Coast of the US had been fulfilled, I was met by Chancellor Benzinge himself, and we then embarked on what I must admit seemed very much to my mind like an ever-so-gentle game of 11 “cat and mouse.” Ever circumspect about the safety, comfort, and reputation of the King, Chancellor Benzinge, frequently in the company of Rwandan historian Israel Ntaganzwa, set about vetting and testing me for roughly one week. We would meet daily, and he would on each occasion try to determine whether or not I could be considered a “friendly party.” The Rwandan Royal Court in its heyday was constantly awash in scandal, intrigue, and assassination plots, and a difficult life in exile had not served to at all dissuade the Chancellor and his kingly charge from the celebrated notion that “uneasy lies the head that wears a Crown.” As I was to learn later on, however, the ultimate aim of this somewhat round-about exercise was to discover whether I might be a suitable person to write the history of the last one-hundred-fifty years of the King's dynasty, and if so, whether I was truly up to such a daunting task.