White Nile, Blue Nile ....and the Red Nile?

A macabre footnote brings all of the strands of this account neatly together -and suggests that a new name could be added to the rivers of Africa. Uganda claims the source of the Nile at Jinja (right) where the outflows from northern Lake Victoria form the head waters of the White Nile. But we heard reports that mutilated bodies from the Rwandan genocide had been found on the shores of the Mediterranean having survived the Murchison Falls, the Aswan Dam and all other obstacles to float at least another 250 miles down the Kagera from the centre of Rwanda. The Kagera River could hardly have furnished more blood curdling proof of the claim for its headwaters to be considered as the true source of the Nile. Surely the Rwandan authorities could now be justified in renaming their principle river the "Kagera Nile", linking logically to the Victoria Nile and the Albert Nile further downstream. __________________________________________________________________

But extending that thought - the Kagera is naturally red with sediment from the rich soil of its 1000 hills and sadly was red for another reason in 1994. Perhaps as a further memorial, not just to the 1994 genocide but hopefully to the end of the years of war and millions of deaths in this region and as an answer to the conundrum of the source of the Nile a new name should be added to the geography of Africa: ___"THE RED NILE".

WHERE NOW FOR RWANDA

Rwanda gives the impression of energy and stability but the tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis cannot lie far below the surface. Perhaps not unlike Europe after the second world war?

I mention this because I remember a senior civil servant in the British Government telling me that the real driving force behind the political will to form the European Union was not economics but the creation of a political entity which would virtually eliminate war between nation states in Europe. There are clear economic arguments for the re energising of the East African Federation but the inclusion of Rwanda and Burundi and even one day the Congo (DRC) suggests a broader agenda.

We asked our guide if he was Hutu or Tutsi. He replied that he was a Rwandan. Perhaps the wounds are beginning to heal and hopefully political moves such as the re activation of the East African Federation will help create a stable future for the whole region.

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Garth Gunston April 2008