The Sheen Comes off Kagame

What did the BBC do for Rwanda's information minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, to suspend their programs and call them "a real poison with regards to the reconciliation of the Rwandan people" yesterday?

The Beeb broadcast an interview with former Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, now living in Belgium, who said that as a Hutu, he could never apologize for the 1994 Genocide. (A Rwandan government spokesperson was invited to participate in the program, but declined.)

This is not the first time that Mushikiwabo has taken issue with the BBC. Last August, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Mushikiwabo threatened to shut down both the BBC and the Voice of America if they didn't stop their "non-factual" reporting.

None of this should come as a surprise. In his hagiographic profile of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, "A Thousnad Hills," NY Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer points out that Kagame's role models are autocratric rulers like Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew and Malaysia's Mohammad Mahatir.

Friends of Kagame's Rwanda, like Kinzer, suggest that all this censorship is necessary -- in the short term at least -- to keep harmony in a society that was traumatized by the 1994 genocide and whose faultlines remain volatile. Organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Freedom House don't quite see it that way, and have consistently complained that social harmony in Rwanda is being achieved through the abregation of human rights.

Much of what Paul Kagame has done in Rwanda is admirable and no doubt necessary. But after Rwanda's dubious adventures in the Congo and the steady diet of repressive measures that Rwandans have been subjected to, some of the sheen is coming off his image. In France, Kagame is officially viewed as a criminal, on a par with the perpetrators of the genocide, because of the heavy-handed revenge his soldiers took on defenseless Hutu civilians.

U.S. policymakers will likely never take this line on Kagame, stemming in part from U.S. guilt over inaction during the genocide. But that's no reason to ignore ugly incidents of censorship and repression.

(First Published April 27, 2009 in World Politics Review)

Was Mitterand a Murderer?

This has been a bad week for the glory of France. Not only did they have their 'trash talking' about the American Olympic swim team smashed back into their faces: they have also been accused of complicity in the Rwandan genocide by a special commission in Kigali.

To this point, the official French response has been to question the objectivity of the report and to basically distance itself from the whole sordid episode. According to a spokeperson from the French Foreign Ministry the accusations are 'inacceptable'. (Not wrong, or insane...somehow simply inappropriate. Quelle horreur!)

Is it enough to let sleeping dogs lie here? Is French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner going to roll-over on this and follow the 'fog-of-war' party line.

The basic points of the accusation are that:

• The highest echelons of the French government were active in supporting the Hutu led government and viewed the RPF, Paul Kagame's Tutsi led guerilla movement, as an Anglophone plot to remove Rwanda from the French sphere of influence;
• Militarily, the French not only materially helped the Rwanda Hutu-led army but also the dreaded interhamwe guerillas

(This from a French journalist who was on the scene:

Je dois d'abord dire que je suis le seul, je dis bien : le seul journaliste français et même européen à avoir été mis en prison puis expulsé par les autorités belges pour avoir pris la défenses de ces pauvres gens. Il était déjà évident, pour tous les gens de bonne foi, qu'un génocide se préparait dans ce pays. Et, pour le gouvernement français, il fallait, à tous prix, garder ce pays dans la françafrique. Le reste... Tout le reste, était sans importance. Plus d'un million de morts. (Basically he is saying that everyone (Belgians, French, etc.) knew a genocide was coming and did nothing about it. For his efforts at tringing the bell this journalist was expelled from the country. )

If true this is a damning blight on the French national honor far beyond other questionable events such as the sinking of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

In order to clear the air the French need to set up a commission of inquiry and send representatives to Kigali to review the evidence in the Rwandan report and stop doing their tit-for-tat dance with the Kagame government over who did what to whom.

The commission should interview, under oath, all living members of the government and military who were involved in Rwandan policy.

French academics and journalists should climb into this and look at the accusations point-by-point and do their own independent analysis.

As is often the case in Africa, people are willing to settle for reconciliation and let justice slide. African governments have real reasons to let this happen, but European ones, especially ones where Bernard Kouchner is the Foreign Minister, have no excuse whatsoever.

The Way of Kagame

Stephen Kinzer, former Times correspondent, has written a curious book about Paul Kagame, current leader of Rwanda. Kinzer's approach is to tell Kagame's story from the beginning and then let Kagame, in his own italicized words, comment on the ideas and incidents that Kinzer has highlighted. This makes for a nice balance of author and subject but more often than not Kinzer seems uncertain whether Kagame's particular approach is really as wonderful as Kinzer desperately wants it to be.

Why is Kinzer so eager to see Kagame succeed? That's a simple enough question to answer. The Rwandan genocide was a horrendous event and one can only feel sympathy for the Rwandan people and wish them well in overcoming the disastrous effects of that grusome episode. One also senses a real affection for Kagame on the part of Kinzer who undoubtedly views him as an immensely heroic (even romantic?) figure. A true guerrilla leader/statesman in the mold of Che Guevara. A man who also bent history to his own will.

One of the most remarkable revelations in this book is that fact that foreign diplomats posted in Kigali are often at odds with their home governments in how to deal with the overtly authoritarian and at times repressive actions of Kagame's government. When Kinzer interviews these diplomats the same rationale seems to emerge: we don't like everything Kagame is doing but it seems to be working so let's not rock the boat. Kinzer also makes short work of critical analysts from organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who according, to Kinzer, are short-sighted and may even have an anti-Kagame bias.

This is not to say that Kinzer himself is totally on board with the Kagame Way. Far from it. He asks all the right questions about all the appropriate issues, but his bias is always to give Kagame the benefit of the doubt. In fact he gives more than a benefit: he ends up suggesting that the Kagame Way might be the most appropriate way for the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.
What would this mean? Basically a shift away from democratically elected governments to one party, 'enlightened' authoritarianism. Highly aggressive population control schemes, coupled with an emphasis on education, particularly of the technical kind. It also means state involvement in all aspects of the economy as well as hyper-security measures that are designed to undermine any organized resistance to the state's control. In other contexts, these measures would be reviled by the international community: in Rwanda the diplomats note that the streets are clean, that there is no visible crime in their particular neighborhoods and that the people are industrious, punctual, and polite. (What's there for a foreigner not to like?)

Given what Rwanda has been through it is hard to argue that what exists there now is much better than what went on before. It is also hard not to admire Paul Kagame. He is 'serious' (a 'serious' word in Rwanda), and fearless and does seem to be in the mold of other enlightened strong-men like Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore and Mahatir of Malaysia.

Whether there are other Kagames waiting in the wings of other African nations is highly doubtful. The best hope is that young politicians in other African countries will see that Kagame is offering a way that is not totally dependent on the 'kindness of strangers' i.e. foreign aid, and a way that stresses hard work and honesty over corruption and greed.

As for enlightened despotism: well let's hope that the world and Mr. Kinzer believe that even Africans deserve better.

A Thousand Hills:Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It
John Wiley & Sons 2008
www.stephenkinzer.com