As Rwandans and the World gather for the 20th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against ethnic Tutsi's, it is imperative to reflect on how the Country has tried to overcome this tragedy.

This time twenty years ago, the whole Nation of Rwanda was galvanised by a political evil driven by hatred to execute what turned out to be the Genocide of the century.

More than one million of Rwandans were killed in the most horrific mass murders the World had ever witnessed. In just hundred days, public servants, men, women, children, teachers, nurses and doctors, were all wiped out because of their ethnic background.

By July, 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) managed to alter the Genocide after conquering the whole country. Rwanda by then had become a failed State due to a civil war that destroyed all infrastructure and levels of institutions.

The country had no water or electricity, Banks had been emptied by runaway perpetrators, hospitals were overloaded and unmanageable, Schools and churches had all become crime scenes, while streets were full of dogs devouring corpses.

By virtue, it was extremely impossible to imagine how this country could ever be rebuilt. Even more inconceivable was to imagine that twenty years later Rwanda could be counted as one of the most emerging countries in business and technology.

Rwanda is a landlocked country with limited natural resources but more reliant on its Citizens that had either been murdered due to their ethnic background, or had fled the country because of the crimes they had committed.

This alone reveals how unprecedented the situation was for the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

Under the command of President Paul Kagame, RPF/A inherited a broken nation with no people, no communication system, no transportation system, or sanitation system. The country had simply become a no man’s land.

As International organisation started pouring in aid relief for the new Rwandan government, the former was tirelessly designing a comprehensive strategy of rebuilding the nation.

First in line was the Repatriation program which aimed at bringing back a large number of people who had fled to the neighbouring country of Republic of Congo. One of the major problems with this project was the fact that majority of people were either part of the military branch which had executed the Genocide or civilians who had participated in the killings.

Moreover, those who were too young or too old to kill could not return home because they were held back by the killers. And those who had killed were afraid of prosecution if they returned home.

After the Repatriation Process, the government set up the Gacaca court system a form of communal Justice inspired by a Rwandan tradition form of justice.

Foremost, the government realized that those who had committed crimes were in hundreds of thousands, thus to process each case, it required a tremendous amount of money that the country did not have.

Secondly, was the fact that it would have been extremely time consuming to collect evidence in a country where survivors were either dispersed or too petrified to testify.

However, this is by no means to say that Gacaca court system did not present challenges. It simply proved to be the best affordable yet feasible system in a very extraordinary situation.

The fact of the matter is that the Nation had just suffered an unimaginable loss of humanity, and those who had inflicted this painful wound were unfortunately Rwandans.

In other words, the people who were needed to return to their villages as part of the nation building process were the exact same people who had committed the atrocities.

Nevertheless, the Rwandan government had no choice other than repatriate its population inspite of their criminal record. It had committed itself to look beyond the tragedy in order to rebuild a broken Nation.

In parallel with Gacaca court was the Peace and Reconciliation Process. This was arguably the most controversial project of all because it required both the victims and the killers to live side by side back into their villages.

Basically, those who were found guilty within the Gacaca court were sentenced to prison while those found Not guilty were reintergrated back to community. But how do you reconcile the people who murdered babies and mothers with those on whom they inflicted pain?

Even so, how do you make sure that those whose loved ones were killed do not seek revenge of any sort? Those were few among many questions the Rwandan government had to deal with at the time.

I cannot for certain say that these endeavours were best answers for a Nation especially given the fact that some were even unbearable for the survivors.

But what I’m certain of is that they were crafted to serve a specific purpose from which a foundation of a new Rwanda was meant to be built.

Rwandans have at least something to be proud of after twenty years of pain, sacrifice, hard work and dedication.

The country is now one of the cleanest and most secure on the continent. The economy has averaged between 7-8% GDP for ten consecutive years. 90% of children now have access to education.

Over one million people have been lifted out of poverty line. The country is now ranked the third easiest economy to do business in Africa, just behind South Africa and Mauritius.

There is no doubt that more still need to be done to establish a Rwanda with a stable social construct, a vibrant economy and a strong middle class.

However, it is essential to remind ourselves that our prosperity is measured by our progress and our progress is measured from the point at which we started.

The results on the ground are tangible, the facts are undisputable, and Rwandans should feel proud of what they have achieved in the last twenty years.