• Adeline Rwigara lost parents in genocide in 1994.
• Adeline Rwigara lost a brother who perished along with a family of 9 people in genocide in 1994.
• Assinapol Rwigara, Adeline’s husband, lost parents in genocide in 1994.

The Rwigaras’ nightmare did not end with genocide — it continued under Kagame

• Adeline Rwigara lost her husband, Assinapol Rwigara mysteriously in Kagame’s Rwanda in 2015.
• Adeline Rwigara and her daughter Diane Rwigara were thrown into prison in 2017 because Diane dared attempt to run for high office.
• Adeline has now lost everything — the latest loss is the auctioning of family tobacco business in 2018, following the demolition of their hotel in 2016.

As now head of the family, Adeline continues to suffer under the Kagame regime — genocide was only the beginning.

Dear Adeline, with your daughter Diane and your bible, you showed us the meaning of courage. Even rains do stop sooner or later, Adeline. Evil is not indefinite by any means. Keep your heads high. We are bound to meet in better times.

I know we shall meet because both you Adeline and Diane Rwigara keep rising. Genocide could not keep you down. You kept rising. Kagame will not keep you down. You will rise. Just like Maya Angelou’s poem:

I RISE

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.