Kagame: US sanctions won’t weaken Rwanda’s defence forces:
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has defiantly declared that the sanctions imposed on Rwandan defence and security forces would not minimise its strength and integrity, emphasising: “They are among the finest that can be found anywhere”.
On March 2, the US department of the treasury’s office of foreign assets control announced it had imposed sanctions on the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and four of its senior officials on accusations of actively supporting, training and fighting alongside the M23 rebels.
Kagame denies the accusations but acknowledges that Rwanda has put in place defensive measures to protect its country and its citizens from threats posed by militia group FDLR. It was formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
The FDLR has launched several incursions into Rwanda, attacking citizens and infrastructure in its attempts to destabilise the country and seize power.
When the genocidal government collapsed in July 1994, the soldiers and militias fled across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), forcing millions of civilians along with them.
Inside the camps, they reorganised themselves and launched a sustained cross-border insurgency against Rwanda, claiming tens of thousands more lives.
Rwanda’s western border was fully secured by the end of the 1990s, through the combined efforts of the army with the help of residents from the affected areas.
Kagame said Rwanda had maintained defensive measures to ensure that the FDLR did not attack his country again.
“And since then, our defensive measures have been aimed at ensuring that such attacks can never again be made across our borders,” the tough-talking Kagame told thousands of people gathered at the Kigali Genocide Memorial on Tuesday to mark the 32nd commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi (Kwibuka32).
He lamented how US sanctions had been imposed against Rwanda’s security services because of the defensive measures, pointing out that penalising Rwanda for defending itself only emboldened those who threatened the country.
“Indeed, no sanction or insult from outside can ever tarnish the honour and integrity of Rwanda’s defence and security forces, who are among the finest that can be found anywhere,” Kagame said, promising to raise the matter further.
There are concerns that the FDLR and other militias in the eastern DRC are spreading genocidal ideology, hate speech and are targeting Congolese Tutsi and the Balamulenge in what UN officials has described as another genocide.
Kagame raised concerns about regional challenges, particularly Congolese refugees being displaced by the FDLR genocidal militia in eastern DRC.
“Even today, the international community is ignoring refugees. Yet the UN has adopted many resolutions identifying the FDLR as a terrorist group that should be dismantled.”
The FDLR was also accused of aspiring to take over Rwanda through force and continue with the genocide against the Tutsi.
“What we ask is for partners to join with us to fight extremism rather than punishing Rwanda for defending itself,” Kagame said. “We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. Genocide ideology is still spreading in our region. Left unchecked, it has the power to take us all backwards again.”
That was not a problem that should be left to Rwanda alone, he said. “Doing so only rewards those behind the threats, while Rwanda is penalised for standing up for itself.
“Imagine a farmer whose field catches fire. At first, the flames are small. A few neighbours think it does not concern them. Others say the wind will change and the fire will die out on its own. So they watch and wait. But the wind does not change. Meanwhile, a pyromaniac is secretly adding fuel to the fire. So, the fire spreads from one field to another and then into the forest and the towns and beyond.
“Only then do people run with buckets of water and call for the establishment of a fire department.”
Kagame noted that there were others who incorrectly believed that Rwanda exaggerated the threats posed by the continued spread of genocide ideology and hate speech for ulterior motives.
“This is not only false; it exposes the deep cynicism that led to the tragedy we commemorate today. What sustains Rwanda today is the unity of Rwandans and the conviction that like all people, we have the right to live in safety and dignity and at peace with all our neighbours.”
There was a need to ensure that Rwanda would be secure and peaceful for future generations, said Kagame. “We owe future generations of Rwandans more than survival. They deserve to inherit a secure, united and bold country and an integrated and confident Africa.”
Kagame led the RPF/RPA in stopping the genocide and liberating Rwanda from the extremist regime that had organised and executed the genocide against the Tutsi.
That was a simple truth of history, Kagame said, noting however that many had reservations about acknowledging it.
Kagame warned against the dangers of genocide denial and historical distortion, stressing that the facts of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi were well-documented and could not be erased.
The facts of the genocide had been established by international courts and the Gacaca court process, which produced millions of records across the country. “The proof is undeniable. And yet, we still find people throwing doubt and twisting the facts up to today,” Kagame said.
Genocide denial began long before massacres started, through a pattern of ignoring warning signs and normalising dangerous rhetoric.
“Speech turns into hate acts. Behaviour that should be immediately condemned is rationalised and minimised … In the process, a moral equivalence is created between the targets of the genocide and the planners of it.”
He rejected claims that the genocide against the Tutsi was spontaneous, emphasising that it was systematically planned, with militias trained, weapons stockpiled and dissenters silenced.
Kagame added that early massacres were used to normalise killings while the international community largely remained indifferent.
South Africa’s Youth Crisis Meets Action: Vaal EmpowaYouth Week Delivers Outcomes, Not Promises:
At a time when youth unemployment in South Africa sits at 41% and exceeds 90% in parts of the Vaal, a powerful, solutions-driven story is taking shape.
Vaal EmpowaYouth Week 2026 (20–24 April, Sebokeng) is not another conference. It’s a live economic activation platform delivering real outcomes in real time from job placements and enterprise funding to accredited skills and industry access.
Bringing together over 10,000 young people, alongside business leaders, funders, and innovators, the initiative focuses on unlocking opportunities across the digital economy, green innovation, creative industries, healthcare, and entrepreneurship.
At the centre of this movement is Simphiwe Masiza, Founder and Executive Producer of EmpowaYouth, who is available for interviews. Simphiwe can speak to:
- Scalable solutions to South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis
- Why the Vaal is a critical site for economic revival
- How EmpowaYouth is moving beyond dialogue to measurable impact
- The role of public-private partnerships in driving youth economic participation
With a proven track record of reaching over 198,000 youth, facilitating 690 jobs, and funding 150 township businesses, this is a story of real, measurable change.
Zawadi Yamungu: The African Dramaturg:
In her closing keynote on courage and collectivism at the recent Australian Progress Conference, Sisonke Msimang said: “Love — watered by rage — is a powerful impulse.”
I read these words on her sub- stack more than two weeks after seeing Zawadi Yamungu at the Market Theatre.
Finally, I think to myself, here is a phrase that captures a show that spoke to the Anthropocene, nationhood along with reconfiguring ancient texts for contemporary political realities.
Zawadi’s performance teeters between immense rage watered with great stores of ancestral grief and rage.
This is what Nkosingiphile Mpanza, who has adopted the moniker Zawadi Yamungu, which is a Swahili name meaning “Gift from God”, imbues in her cultural work.
In his book, The Land is sung: Zulu performances and the politics of place, Thomas M Pooley discusses the notion of an ethnoscape. The notion, refers in part, to a set of sonic identities that are culturally embedded over time and space. Pooley notes that “the keynotes to a soundscape are its fundamental tones carved out by its geography and climate; water, wind, forests, plains, birds, insects and animals”.
He says “many of these sounds possess archetypal significance; that is they may have imprinted themselves so deeply on the people hearing them that life without them would be sensed as a distinct impoverishment”.
“Ukuphi: Where are you?” I ask Zawadi as our wi-fi connection falters. She giggles. “Ekhaya! Home,” she exclaims. Home could be anywhere for Zawadi. This is similar to jazz. It makes and remakes itself across the world in different tongues and permutations. Zawadi’s jazz trill sounds like she is calling on shamanic tongues or perhaps speaking in biblical tongues.
She sits at the intersection of vocalist, composer, arranger, dramaturg and an adept indigenous instrumentalist with a repertoire that includes umakhweyana bow player and the Swedish hand pan.
She teaches both us and the children she has commissioned to perform with her how to play and harmonise to the old technologies of sound. In 2020, Zawadi released a debut album, Magogo School of Thought, as she was paying tribute to Princess Magogo. On the album, she worked with Mbuso Khoza of the African Heritage Ensemble and Nduduzo Makhathini who was the producer of the album.
“Umcimbi,” I burst out laughing! Zawadi laughs. We are both overjoyed because we both know the significations of the Zulu word which is not quite translatable into the flatness of English. Umcimbi denotes an event or more appropriately, in this instance, an event led by matriarchs. We giggle, exhale, marvel and think deeply about how her most recent performance in Johannesburg was reminiscent of this exact notion. Pinnafores, doeks and takkies took centre stage in the style choices of the audiences.
Her most recent album, Ngimuhle, which came out in 2025, is a meditation on the poetics of Zulu matrilineal heritage. The album includes the song Isibikezelo, featuring praise poet Sindiswa Zulu, which is an example of a decolonial counter-history.
The poem resembles Aimé Césaire’s crucial essay “A Discourse on Colonialism” through the lens of a Zulu woman in post-colonial and post-apartheid. Zawadi makes the consistent case for an attuned sense of environmental vigilance through songs like Woza We Mvula, Xoxo and Jabulani Sizwe. In performance, Zawadi grounds the songs with clear missives about nature being a form of communal heritage.
What Zawadi does in this moment is what Mahmood Mamdani does in his book Citizen and Subject. In an attempt to define the realm of the customary, Mamdani argues in 1996 that colonial institutions “cast the net wide enough to catch within its fold every person with any trace of African ancestry. The objective was to arrive at a racial definition, [and not necessarily] a cultural one”.
It is interesting that Mamdani’s son seeks to remake America by remaking New York, a city which is so similar to Joburg in feel, grit and societal ugliness.
In his opening remarks at the historic Culture and Resistance Symposium in Gaborone, Botswana, on July 9, 1982, Thami Mnyele argued that “the act of creating art is not different from the act of building a bridge — it is the work of many hands”.
Zawadi expresses a similar sentiment in our call. She tells me that she sits with her elders. She says she loves the company and attention of her elders. This is her acting as a kind of bridge that undoes the work of situating black people in the customary of both the colonial and apartheid states. When we hear Zawadi sing her song Woza We Mvula on a dry summer’s night in Joburg with a municipality that has cut off water for multiple people in the audience, the torrent of rain that gathers in Newtown feels like an intervention from the divine.
We realise in that moment that black subjectivity is not an archaic or primordial existence but a contemporary one rooted in the modern-now. Western society was unable to understand the differentiations that they encountered in African communities as useful or part of the modern experience and Zawadi’s lyricism reminds us of this.
Rather, they imposed a linear conception of time onto the Global South and effectively cast them and more appropriately, us as backward and underdeveloped.
Zawadi critiques this history by providing oral counter histories through song and performance that upend simplistic and dangerous notions of “the customary”. Zawadi also calls on a rich tapestry of Pan-African musicianship that undoes the root assumptions of xenophobia.
By holding onto a Swahili moniker and introducing her audiences to aural sensibilities of Oliver Mtukudzi, Princess Magogo and songs of another tongue, Zawadi shifts the consciousness and the “us and them” of the dishonesty of parliament.
This is a useful intervention given that in parts of Zulu-land strangers or migrants that do not self-identify as being Zulu effectively have a questionable claim to the resources within that community or the resources within that land.
Xenophobia or xenophobic attitudes can be read as state sponsored in this regard. This Zulu state, to some degree, is seen as an institution of trusteeship which effectively safeguards resources its citizens are entitled to. Given the fact that there are a finite number of resources, one can start to grapple with why individuals who are seen as “outsiders” to the state can be seen as threatening.
When we hear Zawadi sing Adonja, we are tricked into Hebrew pronunciations of Adonijah, which is a Hebrew name meaning “my Lord is Yahweh”. We are also sent hurtling to the biblical character of Adonijah who was born at Hebron during the long conflict between David and the House of Saul. In 1 Kings, he briefly proclaimed himself king of Israel.
Finally the Nguni speakers in the crowd hear a cutting critique of the men in our lives — we hear Zawadi sing that we are not to be relegated to the position of dogs in their lives. We carry this as armour against being dispossessed by the men that animate the patriarchy that crushes us.
Nationalist discourse and various forms of Zulu nationalism which have been entrenched further under president Jacob Zuma’s term which equated indigeneity with access to resources starts to persist in the post-colony.
Imbued in the character of the indigeneity rhetoric is an insidious move from nationalism to a kind of ultra-nationalism wherein some have suggested a kind of national chauvinism and subsequent racism persists.
Zawadi undoes simplistic notions of Zulu supremacy through her musical oeuvre and through her introduction of collaborators such as The Soil, Dumza Maswana, Sindiswa Zulu and the multiple church choristers from Soweto Central Choir, along with members of DWC Church that help situate the meaning(s) of her message beyond the confines of an album and a theatrical performance.
Her performance is a testament to spirit-led musicianship as a kind of artistic praxis. Zawadi makes us new by recounting the old. She holds the position as dramaturg, Mother Gaia, Princess Magogo and spirit leader.
Submit and get free exposure here: Showcase Your Business | Advertise Your Special Offers.
