Rwanda commemorates 20 years of the genocide on 6 April, 2014. Since the atrocities of 1994 during which nearly one million people were killed, the central African nation has made tremendous strides and re-emerged stronger. Central to the country’s development has been the significant uniting contribution of football. The unique influence and power of football to bring a people together, reuniting them as one and helping them rebuild lives has been critical. As the world looks and joins Rwanda in commemorating the genocide, CAF is at the centre of events and a continental governing body delegation of President Issa Hayatou, Vice-president Almamy Kabele Camara and CAF Secretary Hicham El Amrani will be in Kigali for the occasion.
CAF’s attendance and support to Rwanda will reinforce the Confederation’s standpoint and determination to use the power of football to reach out to millions of people and inspire them into positive transformation.
Said CAF President Issa Hayatout: Football is a powerful force that reaches out to everyone; fostering positive transformation and development in many lands. Therefore, to have this spectacle of football not only provide entertainment, foster friendship, peace and inspire generations but significantly contribute to fighting disease, poverty, fostering unity and development deeply motivates us to even work harder and augment present initiatives so that we can achieve even more.
The 1994 genocide touched lives worldwide.
But a nation scarred by the brutality of the massacre and war had to live again, to rebuild and claim its place in the world.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s remarks at the Memorial Conference on the Rwanda Genocide, organized by the Governments of Canada and Rwanda in New York, 26 March 2004 said: May the victims of the Rwandan genocide rest in peace. May our waking hours be lastingly altered by their sacrifice. And may we all reach beyond this tragedy, and work together to recognize our common humanity. If we can accept that everyone on this earth, regardless of colour, creed, language or ethnicity is fully human — and, as such, fully worthy of our interest, sympathy and acceptance –- we will have taken a giant step forward from dehumanization and toward a stronger sense of global kinship.”
That was a decade since the extermination that shocked the world. The people of Rwanda had emerged from the massacre and continued with efforts at furthering their unity. In that reemergence, a bleeding nation found the first strings of reconciliation and unity in a common ground, football field.
Just a few months after the genocide, the people of Rwanda got back together in a stadium. The first post-genocide football match in the country took place on 11th September 1994 between Kiyovu and Rayon Sports at Kigali stadium.
Thousands trooped to the stadium to attend one common uniting event, one event that would bring them back together as one people, one nation: “Watching and enjoying a game of football”.
“There was an unbelievable ambiance despite the heartbreak genocide period people were coming from. They were talking freely and embracing each other with the same focus: watching football.”
Of that match, broadcast live on national radio and television and Rwanda’s eventual qualification to the Africa cup of Nations finals 2004, President Paul Kagame said: “Today’s gladness belongs to one and all; from those thousands of citizens who were present at the stadium as well as the others who did not come to attend the match; they were all happy wherever they have been celebrating all over the country watching TV or listening to radios. This has a meaning: the victory and the satisfaction are for the nation”.
Football matches became more than mere contests of entertainment and weekly sports activities meant to run a national league, support national teams or fulfilling fixtures and associated undertakings. The sport took an added meaning. The games meant more than playing and winning a match. It was for the people, for healing, reconciliation and for the nation.
“After the genocide, we used to play football for unity and reconciliation,” recalls Karekezi Olivier, captain of the Rwanda national team, nicknamed The Amavubi. Recently retired from international football, Olivier reckons that the unity and togetherness forged by the people in the aftermath of the genocide provided them with the bedrock for a successful run in the qualifiers for the Africa Cup of Nations 2004. The Amavubi qualified for the final tournament hosted by Tunisia. They lost their opening match 2-1 to the hosts, drew 1-1 with Guinea and beat Congo DR 1-0 to finish third in Group A.
“Even if Amavubi went into Afcon 2004 and got eliminated at the group stage, the important thing of just qualifying was achieved,” says Olivier adding: “In a few words, the 1994 genocide left for the Rwandese community with a gap we couldn’t easily fill without football.”
The genocide took the lives of many players, referees, sports journalists and other key personalities who were synonymous with the popular sport. Young and old and promising talents were lost. Some which the country reckoned were destined to fill the shoes of local legends such as Katauti or Gatete.
Rwandan football history will record such names as goalkeeper Louis Kirenga of Rwinkwavu who was famed for not only his more than two-mere height but fabled wonderful sportsmanship and fair play. Rudasingwa Martin Kunde, captain of Kiyovu Sports, Munyurangabo Lonjin also of Rayon Sports who was considered the fastest ever in Rwandese football were all slain. Lonjin was nicknamed Mukamurenzi in comparison to arguably the greatest Rwandan marathon runner of all time, Mukamurenzi Marciana.
But their legacies and a football family’s nostalgia and belief that others needed to bring people together and unite a nation would steer different personalities into sacrificing careers for the sake of Rwanda.
There are many other unforgettable football names. The likes of Kiwanuka Joseph, a great referee who lived at Kamonyi. His colleagues Ruterana JMV, Bahanuzi Akilimali and Kagabo Innocent and many others who died in the genocide.
Sports journalist Kalinda Viateur who had established himself as the voice of Rwandan football through his popular football running commentaries and analysis died in the genocide. But his legacy lives on; the new generation of sports journalists and analysts ‘rate’ themselves against his achievements and even in death, his love for the sport inspires many to carry on taking the game to the people through mass media, enhancing unity and development.
Various other stakeholders were determined to toil at organizing matches and using the power of the sport to rebuild the nation.
Such was the mammoth task that in the immediate aftermath of the genocide, the country could not trace any qualified referees, many players had been killed, the voices of their football personalities had gone silent, in death or fallen victim to the genocide and turned against sections of the population they inspired with their work
Promising and hugely talented players opted to end propitious careers and the prospect of furthering dreams for mega-bucks.
If there is anywhere were the football field has demonstrated its power of unity, made a mockery of divisionism, Rwanda stands out. From grieving and mourning, the people have rallied to set aside language and tribal barriers, religious differences, ethnicity, regionalism and all forms of segregation to speak one language – football.
It is that language that CAF’s Hayatou and his delegation will be augmenting when they join hands with the people of Rwanda from 7th April to mark two decades of the end of the genocide.
How much football means and how it has healed a nation can still be measured in many different ways. The football measure is impossible to quantify because it stretches into the future!
Its impact will resonate for many years, from the era of King Yuhi Musinga to whom football is believed to have entered Rwanda courtesy of a German missionary between 1896 and 1931, the entertainment, fanfare, education, development, integration, unity and transformation it brings is something that will live on generation after generation.
Generation after generation, football will be played, generation after generation the story of the genocide will be told and generation after generation; the game will be played and protected because it is the keeper and protector of the people.
In that long journey and love for the game that has continued to transform the people, Rwanda welcomes the continent and world to its land. Preparations for the next big thing in Rwandese football – the African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2016 – the biggest continental football championship ever, comes to Kigali in two years’ time; five years after the successful CAF Under-17 championship in 2011 which followed in the success of the 2009 Africa Youth championship.
Confederation of African Football (CAF) News
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