Kigali, 4st July, 2014: In a Press Conference held at Urugwiro Village in preparation of the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Liberation ( July 4), President Paul Kagame stated that Liberation meant being able to live freely and sustain oneself as well as striving for what empowers Rwandans to achieve both. 

“Having enough food and living free is what I wish for Rwandans… but this doesn’t mean to have one, you must sacrifice the other. There is no choosing between freedom and food, because one cannot exist without other… Freedom with an empty stomach isn’t freedom,” he said. 

The President also stressed that he wishes Rwandans the best in life. “This is not something that someone has to give them, which is why empowering Rwandans is an undoubtedly essential step. When you empower a Rwandan with the ability to feed himself, and with any other capacity to achieve whatever he aspires to, what else can they wish for?” 

He accentuated that the Liberation struggle had fulfilled its purpose of liberating Rwanda from bad leadership. “We have achieved plenty like economic growth, health reforms, education, improvement of citizens’ living standards etc. But we will continue to move forward. We have to build the capacity to measure up to the challenges we face.” 

Talking about the FDLR group, President Kagame refuted that the problem is with the rebels’ age range, but the genocide ideology that they have been harbouring for a long time. “This is why they still endanger the security of our people.” He added that FDLR fighters deserve to be handed over to justice and criticized countries who failed to take this necessary action. “Rwanda will not allow anyone to destabilize the security of Rwandans”, he remarked. 

On the existing relationship with Tanzania, he said that Rwandans and Tanzanians are more than brothers and sisters who share not only the same continent but also the same destiny. 

On growing demands that France declassifies archives on Rwanda during the genocide, he wondered why the archives have not been declassified in the last 20 years. “We have realized that meetings cannot resolve issues because if that was the case, all outstanding issues would have been resolved by now. What I think should happen is retrospect by some individuals”, the President concluded. 

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