This morning in Washington, D.C., President Kagame and First Lady Jeannette Kagame join close to 3,500 guests including US Cabinet members, US Congress members, the diplomatic corps in Washington, UN diplomats, & US and foreign business leaders, for the National Prayer Breakfast.
President Kagame is in Washington DC for this year’s Rwanda Day, an event which brings together different Rwandans from all over the Globe, to discuss about the development of the country and the way forward.
In the prayer breakfast, President Kagame talked about dark times Rwanda went through which led to the Genocide against the Tutsis in 1994.
Talking about the journey after the Genocide, Kagame said: ” All public institutions were destroyed, the harvest was destroyed, and there was no money to rebuild, we were even expected to repay the money the Genocidal Government had borrowed to purchase machetes and guns. “
” The desire for retribution was huge. as the commander to keep my own emotions in check, I had to order my officers at a certain point to stop showing me the mass graves. We could not allow people to take justice into their own hands, we were to break the cycle of violence and convert the urge of vengeance into a national program of Unity and reconciliation. ” President Kagame added.
President Kagame said reconciliation doesn’t come with no cost.
Here, he was referring to the way justice had to be delivered and sacrifices made.
” Hundres of thousands of people deserved to go to jail for life, or even hanged by any measure of justice. But, we had to find a way to repair those people, and make them part of the society again. “
National Breakfast prayer is an annual event convening the political, social, and business leaders to assemble and pray together.
