Untold stories about President Kagame and the Rwanda government
These claims (that there are ongoing efforts by the state and President Kagame to intimidate the citizenry into total silence and prevent the emergence of free discussion and debate) should not be dismissed outright. Nor even should they be accepted without question. In my 10 years of acquaintance with Rwanda, I have encountered many people who are reluctant to talk about anything that smells of what they understand to be 'politics'. They include members and supporters of the ruling RPF, former members or supporters of banned political parties, and members of the armed forces. They become even more reluctant to talk the minute they learn that whoever is seeking their opinion is in any way connected to journalism, particularly print journalism, for in the minds of many, journalists specialise in misquoting their interviewees and twisting stories to suit their agendas. I have also encountered people whose openness and willingness to discuss any subject, including President Kagame, I had not expected. Many are members and supporters of the RPF, including public officials serving in a wide range of institutions. A question to which I am yet to find an answer is how many people who refuse to discuss politics do so out of genuine fear of what may happen to them, and how many are simply playing safe as a matter of habit. Enthusiastic critics of the government of Rwanda, some of whom have never set foot in the country or have been there only briefly and read nothing about it beyond the familiar genocide stories, do not seem to ask themselves this simple question.
I have also attended several public meetings where, before President Kagame speaks, ordinary people are allowed an opportunity to air their views about issues that concern them. I have sat dumbfounded as I listened to peasants accusing senior local and national officials, including police and army officers seated among VIPs, of incompetence, malpractice, and worse. I have listened as women whose husbands are in prison on genocide charges have protested their innocence and argued for their re-trial. These are not things one would expect to happen in a country where people are immobilised by fear of the state, state officials, or even their President.
Also, the post-genocide government has built a system of local government that emphasises collective decision-making by members of the public and officials about issues of general interest within the localities where they live and work. I have not attended any of these meetings yet. However, researchers on a project I oversee, who reside in the rural areas they work in, some of them among the remotest in the country, have. Their field reports show that these meetings, usually well-attended, are characterised by real discussion and debate, with villagers showing neither fear nor restraint. The government of Rwanda also hosts an Annual National Dialogue (Inama y'Umushyikirano), attended by people from all walks of life, including national and local leaders from all spheres of public administration, and Rwandans from the Diaspora. I have had the opportunity to sit in and watch and listen. Views are exchanged frankly, and difficult questions asked of public officials. During proceedings, members of the public are able to phone in and also send SMS messages which, thanks to Rwanda's advances in the IT sector, can be read off a large screen inside the venue. Via telephone and SMS, ordinary citizens who follow proceedings on radio, TV and over the internet, are able to ask questions and make comments. Again, this raises questions about the 'climate of fear' thesis and the extent to which people who propagate it are familiar with the country's political and social evolution.
The same 'climate of fear' claims have recently been used by some to explain the large turn-outs at President Kagame's campaign rallies and on election-day itself. The objective, it seems has been to portray Rwandans as incapable of making up their minds about whether or not to attend election rallies or even whether they should vote at all. And so it has been argued that people turned up because they feared that if they did not, they would be accused of defying or opposing the government. It is easy for a believer in the 'climate of fear' narrative to buy into these claims wholesale. However, the large turn-outs by Diaspora Rwandans on election-day and the resounding endorsement they gave to Kagame tell a different story. Yet one ought not to stop at the popular endorsement President Kagame has won. Rwanda is the only country in the region which has demonstrated the organisational capacity to conduct transparent elections. The enormity of this achievement becomes more striking when one considers that in the five-country East African Community, Rwanda is the second poorest country behind Burundi.
Is Rwanda sitting on an ethnic volcano?
In a recent profile of Kagame by the Financial Times of London, the writer, Tom Burgis, quotes a 'Rwanda-watcher' who asserts: 'he's sitting on an ethnic powder-keg'. From my experience, this claim is much-loved by diplomats and aid workers whose knowledge of Rwanda and interactions with locals are often superficial. It is based on the idea that because there is a climate of fear in the country and that it prevents people from talking and expressing their frustrations, aspirations and fears, tensions and anger are building up below what, it is alleged, is cosmetic peace and quietness. Rwanda, they argue, is therefore set to explode into violence any time. The less restrained among them argue that those being denied a voice are the Hutu population, and that 'one day' they will rise up. I have already shown how such claims amount to over-simplification of a complex situation. I do not claim that Rwanda is guaranteed never to become unstable again. However, were it to do so, there is no guarantee either that it will be because the Hutu are currently denied a voice. If there are Hutu who have clearly been denied a voice, it is those who aspire to exploit their identity for political purposes. It is equally important to note that even the Tutsi are not free to use ethnicity as a political tool.
Kagame and the media
The government of Rwanda has been characterised as hostile to the press by media rights groups, of which the most outspoken is France-based Reporters without Borders (RSF). As for President Kagame, the best label RSF could come up with was '˜media predator' or something to that effect. True, compared to Uganda, for example, the media in Rwanda are much more restrained in their assessment of Kagame and his government, and in debating public affairs. It is also true that since the RPF took over power, journalists have fled the country or been prosecuted for various offences. More recently one journalist was murdered following what international media and his own editor allege was his investigation into the shooting of Lt. General Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa. Taken together without reference to context, these things easily raise questions about both President Kagame and his government. But there are also important aspects of Kagame's relationship with the media that critics do not talk about. One is that he is the only President in the region who religiously holds monthly press conferences where journalists are encouraged to ask questions freely. The president's media people complain constantly about journalists lacking the capacity to rise up to the challenge and ask searching questions on matters of policy.
Secondly, on a number of occasions Kagame has held long meetings with members of the media fraternity, during which frank views have been exchanged. I have been informed by reliable sources that during these meetings journalists have been assured of their right to publish whatever they want, provided it is well researched and does not incite ethnic division. I have a recording of President Kagame condemning a government minister at one press conference. The minister had suggested that journalists could be arrested for refusing to disclose their sources of information. Kagame's view was that that should be a matter for the courts to sort out between individual journalists and aggrieved parties. Further, he has stated publicly that he has never ordered the arrest or incarceration of any journalist, and challenged anyone with information to the contrary to produce it. No one, not even international media rights groups, has stepped forward. Rather than confirm the 'media predator' claims of his critics, all this seems to point at deliberate efforts to smoothen relations between the media and his government.
Thirdly, anyone with contacts in the media fraternity in Rwanda would know that it is deeply divided over the validity of the criticisms media rights groups throw at President Kagame and his government. Depending on which journalist one talks to in Kigali, one is either going to be told that the criticisms are based on thin research or no research at all and therefore on shallow understanding of the situation on the ground or that they are valid and justified. Indeed, at a media conference held in Rwanda in July this year at which media practitioners from across the continent were in attendance, several Rwandan journalists denounced the 'self-appointed champions of media freedom', with their venom directed mainly at Reporters without Borders whose campaigners they accused of not seeking the views of Rwandan journalists. My own assessment following repeated off-the-record discussions with some key members of the media fraternity is that there is room for improvement in relations between especially print media on the one hand, and the government and individuals within it on the other, and that media rights groups would do a lot for their reputations if they always based their campaigning on good, in-depth research.
It is not enough to argue that Rwanda is a dictatorship, that another genocide is likely unless freedom of speech is respected, or even that the government and Kagame are hostile to news media. Rwanda's politics is heavily shaped by the country's history of periods of state-orchestrated violence and ethnic and regional discrimination and marginalisation. If we see Hutu elect Kagame and the RPF and rejoice at their victory, we should recall that they, too, have been victims of the dirty brand of politics they seem determined to leave behind them and move on in a decisively different direction. Over the last 16 years, there have been clear moves by all political groups towards encouraging the growth of a new kind of politics in which ethnic discrimination and marginalisation will no longer be accepted as normal.
There are things the post-genocide government, the RPF and President Kagame could be criticised for. Critics are right to point them out. They, however, should also join Rwandans in celebrating the RPF's vast achievements which, for better or worse, will leave a permanent imprint on the country and in due course, be seen to have been central to its evolution towards becoming a normal country with a more conventional politics. The journey is going to be long and not without bumps, as indeed the events in the period leading up to the elections have shown. Kagame may not be the leader to take them to that destination, but that he has helped them navigate some of its most difficult stages is without doubt.
(This is the second and last part of the 'Rwandan secrets' commentary)
The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research. Over the last few years he has conducted and overseen research for the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Africa Power and Politics Programme at the Overseas Development Institute.
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written by Shamba boy, September 09, 2010
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written by jose tamale, September 10, 2010
The mirage has been unrevaled. It happened in Ethiopia, it happened in Uganda and it is happenning in Rwanda. You dont have to hold on a dying dream- Let go. I sympasise with you, but it is time you open your eyes. You used to question every trick, you never allowed the teacher to get away with anything, use that.
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written by Birori, September 10, 2010
and Burundi (137) The trend happens in a stable state where people are at ease, free and secure to invest, take good business decision and participate in their nation's development. Innovation, productively and competitiveness do not exist where the state clamps on individual freedom, whose absence is recipe for disaster. No, Rwanda is not a dysfunctional state as you hopelessly wish to portray.
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written by Birori, September 10, 2010
and Burundi (137) The trend happens in a stable state where people are at ease, free and secure to invest, take good business decision and participate in their nation's development. Innovation, productively and competitiveness do not exist where the state clamps on individual freedom, whose absence is recipe for disaster. No, Rwanda is not a dysfunctional state as you hopelessly wish to portray.
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written by mugaga, September 12, 2010
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written by Lakwena, September 14, 2010
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written by Birori, September 14, 2010
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written by Lakwena, September 14, 2010
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written by shakwe, September 15, 2010
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written by omega speedmaster, September 15, 2010
Don't part with your cheap tiffany jewellery illusions.
When they are tiffany jewelry gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. zf
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written by Lakwena, September 15, 2010
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written by Lakwena, September 15, 2010
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written by shakwe, September 15, 2010
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written by Lakwena, September 16, 2010
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written by Shakwe, September 16, 2010
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written by Lakwena, September 16, 2010
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written by Lakwena, September 16, 2010
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written by Birori, September 16, 2010
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written by Jojo, September 17, 2010
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One would wish others could as well cross check what they put to public consumption. My thinking, I may be wrong, is that journalism is a professional field that requires some minimum qualification, not only those who can read and write!
Therefore, when left to anybody, alot of harm than good is done to the society! Keep up the good work guys out there who upkeep standards and ethics in your work.