5 July 2008
interview
Kampala — Rwandan President Paul Kagame took over the chairmanship of the East African Community (EAC) from President Yoweri Museveni. The hand-over coincided with the First East African Investment Conference in Kigali last week, which attracted over 700 investors. George Kalisa and Els De Temmerman had an exclusive interview with Kagame at the end of the conference.
Q: What did you expect to come out of the first East African Investment Conference?
A: It was well conducted and it brought in key players in business and investment from the whole East African region. A lot of networking was done. People learned more about Rwanda and what happens in the other East African Community (EAC) states. We can really work together for prosperity of the East Africans.
Q: In your speech you talked about the constraints of doing business in East Africa. You listed them as congested and ineffective ports, dilapidated railway lines, broken highways, chaotic border crossings and a multitude of weighbridges that encourage corruption. How do you want to address those constraints?
A: The easiest and most effective way of dealing with them is changing the mindset. The more the private sector and government leaders become conscious of these problems, the easier they can be overcome, especially when it comes to corruption. I am sure people understand the cost of corruption in business.
And I am sure that we can put in place mechanisms and measures to try and fight it. It is important that we talk about it so that people become conscious about it. And then all of us, the government side and the business side, can plan how to defeat it.
Q: The director general of the East African Development Bank, Godfrey Tumusiime, blames the poor state of infrastructure in the region on corruption. "If our meagre resources were efficiently deployed, we would have done a better job in putting in place at least basic infrastructure of reasonable quality," he wrote. What do you plan to do under your chairmanship to stamp out corruption?
A: That corruption is bad for business and bad for governance is not in dispute. It is a problem for which we do not need to go looking for donor support, but which we can address ourselves.
I don't intend to apportion blame and say that one country is more corrupt than another. This would not help. I am looking at the EAC as a whole because the problems are found in all the partner states. They may be at different levels, but they are problems that concern all of us.
Q: Do you believe the other leaders have the same commitment to fight corruption?
A: I have no doubt that other leaders are also thinking about it. How they will ensure that we all work together to resolve this problem is another matter.
In any case, I don't think there is anyone in business or government who would argue that there is no corruption or that corruption is something good to have around.
Q: You took the test and sent a researcher on a truck with export goods from Kigali to Mombasa. What were his findings and how much did he have to pay in bribes?
A: He was paying different amounts of money at different stages. But for me it is not whether you pay a $100 or 10. A bribe is a bribe. We are not discussing how to reduce the amount we pay in bribe; we are talking about eliminating altogether bribery as a form of corruption. This researcher was someone from outside who acted as a co-driver. He met over 10 roadblocks from Kigali to Katuna alone. When I got his report, I tried to figure out why our police would need 10 roadblocks over such a short distance. Somebody delays you until you think of a way of getting out fast. Even if this researcher did not meet anybody who asked for a bribe, somebody else who came behind may have paid.
Q: You called the weighbridges the most devastating, accounting for 84% of the total bribe value.
A: Why should you have 10 weighbridges between Katuna and Malaba? First of all they are expensive. Second, I don't understand the idea of weighbridges. Why should you keep weighing these trucks? And then there are the hours of waiting. Some things that happen at the border are just not necessary.
Look at the border between Rwanda and Uganda. One time I went there. People on the Ugandan side had woken up. The engines of the trucks had started running. But they could not move.
People 100 metres away, across the border, were still sleeping because Uganda is one hour ahead. It does not make sense at all. We should make sure we are more efficient. The danger is that people have become used to it. It is a way of life. Nobody seems to complain.
Q: What are you going to do about these obstacles?
A: We should reduce the number of weighbridges to maybe two per country, one at the entry and one at the exit. We should also leave the border open 24 hours a day. We might start by extending the opening times gradually, one or two hours at a time.
Q: Uganda's exports to Rwanda more than doubled in one year - from $30m in 2006 to $83m in 2007. Rwanda being a smaller country in the region, don't you fear a trade imbalance.
A: There might be an imbalance, but by not being part of the East African Community, Rwanda does not become any bigger. It remains small. The only chance to grow is actually being part of a bigger community. There are those pressures, certainly, of smaller economies feeling the weight of more powerful neighbours. The good thing of such a community is that it brings harmonisation and rationalisation.
Q: What could Rwanda export to the rest of East Africa?
A: We can export coffee, tea, but also finance, information and communication technology services. When it comes to energy, we are most likely to produce more electricity than we need out of the gas in Lake Kivu.
We are trying out new technology; converting gas into electricity. The pilot project is going to produce five megawatts. Once it has succeeded, we are investing in another 100 Megawatts immediately.
We can keep scaling it up to 800 Megawatts. We don't need all that. Even if we got 100 megawatts today, we would not need all of it, so we might be able to export 30megawatts of it. If we sent it to Uganda, it would serve Kabale and Mbarara districts.
Q: The East African Community is still an oasis of stability in a very troubled region. There is conflict in Somalia, Sudan, Congo and Zimbabwe. Even within the East African Community, the situation is not all that stable as recent events in Kenya and Burundi have shown. How are you going to assure investors that the region is safe?
A: The Kenyan problems are more or less resolved. Foreign investors who see how the issues were resolved will be encouraged. The Burundian situation has been much worse in the past. Today it is increasingly stable. And the East Africans are working together to ensure that it remains stable. So what is happening in creating stability should assure investors.
Q: You have been quite outspoken on Zimbabwe. What in your view is the solution?
A: In our statement (of the EAC summit) we said we did not think the elections Mugabe went for were going to provide a solution. They were just going to complicate the situation further.
The parties in Zimbabwe need to get together and probably move in the direction of the Kenyans. There is no winner really in that situation. I wonder if Mugabe will go and celebrate that he has won the elections and really believe it.
Q: Are you satisfied with what the Kinshasa government is doing to deal with the negative forces?
A: I am not very conversant with what it is doing about the negative forces. Let's wait and see. We have left the matter with the UN to work with Congo.
Q: Are you still worried about the Interahamwe in eastern Congo?
A: For sure we don't need them along our border. Being worried is another matter. But we have the capacity to deal with that situation if it came up. I don't think even the Congolese need the Interahamwe in Congo because they are also a threat to their populations.
Q: How many members of the former Rwandan army have been resettled and reintegrated?
A: In the last 14 years we probably have integrated 20,000 soldiers of the former government into the army. In 1994, the army had reached close to 60,000. And they had trained over 100,000 militias.
Q: How successful has the Arusha Tribunal been?
A: About 30 people have been tried, at a cost of $1 billion.
Q: So are you happy with that?
A: Would you be happy with that?
Q: Has your own justice system, the Gacaca, been more successful?
A: It has been very successful. People expected a more conventional way of justice, but we have not been able to find one. And the critics of Gacaca were not able to tell us another way we could use to deal with such a big number of people who had to be tried. The Gacaca has handled tens of thousands of cases. But more important than the numbers is that it has contributed to justice and reconciliation.
Q: Has it really achieved reconciliation?
A: Absolutely. If it hadn't, you would not find most of these people who are being released going back to their villages and staying alive and being integrated. They would escape or be killed by people who hold them responsible for having participated in the murdering of their families.
The National Reconciliation Commission organises programmes where people discuss the genocide openly. People who killed come and give testimony and people discuss that.
There are no taboos. Somebody will come up and say: 'I can go and show you where we killed and buried your mother.' Many people were able to identify for the first time where the remains of their relatives were.
Q: Does it not keep alive the trauma?
A: The trauma is kept more alive when there is silence. If somebody broods over it alone, he is going to be more affected.
Q: Do the perpetrators regret?
A: To an extent they do. Others look like they have lost their senses, their eyes are like those of a zombie. Even if you tell them: 'We'll kill you', they would say: 'Yes.' Life to some of them means nothing.
I think the way we deal with it publicly is the best possible therapy. The very fact that these people can just walk the streets hits them harder than if they were put in prison.
Q: What in your analysis caused the genocide?
A: Human beings can be made to think and act the way they do. In the 1930s, the Belgian colonial system introduced identity cards, which identified you as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. They then institutionalised it to the point that in terms of management of society, each identity was given some preference.
Europeans even came here and were measuring people's noses, the size of their foreheads. There are pictures of people opening their mouths and scientists counting and measuring their teeth. From that they deduced, saying: when you have these features, you think like this and you should live like this.
When you introduce such a distinction, imagine what you are doing to a society. When it came to a point where some people politically wanted to use this, it was very easy. They would just say: "Go and kill that one. He is different. After all he wants to kill you or take something from you." And you just go and kill.
It was the work of many decades of indoctrination. And it worked almost equally on the educated and the non-educated. How else do you explain that at our national university in Butare, students killed their fellow students? They killed 500 of them, out of a population of about 2,000. People can be nurtured to behave the way they ultimately behave.
Q: How do you want to break this indoctrination?
A: There are many grounds on which people can believe in something. You can be made to believe in something because you are gaining from it. Others, ideologically, when you keep rubbing it, they start seeing it like that.
When the situation changes and there are no more benefits, those who were gaining might start questioning it. Even for those who were ideologically indoctrinated, the reverse process can also take place. But it takes a long time, more than a generation.
Q: How many genocide suspects are still in prison at the moment?
A: We have released over half of the number we used to have. Of the 120,000 we had, there are about 30,000 left.
Q: A few months ago, a Spanish judge issued international warrants of arrest against 40 RPF soldiers for their participation in mass killings. The judge also said he had evidence against you. Earlier, a French judge implicated you in the assassination of (former president) Habyarimana. What is your reaction to these allegations?
A: My reaction is three-fold. First, the facts are wrong. Secondly, even the process they used to get to what they allege is flawed. And thirdly, there is the big question about the so-called universal jurisdiction exercised by those judges, who are mainly abusing it. It is associated with another type of injustice, where the western world and their systems are full of arrogance and inconsistencies.
What gives a judge in France or Spain the right to try cases in Rwanda? Do you envisage a Rwandan judge trying Europeans for cases they were involved in while in Africa and Rwanda? Does justice have a definition where might is right, where it is Europe that can try Africa and not the other way around? This has nothing to do with facts. I am just questioning the whole principle under which they are operating. It even involves some level of stupidity.
If you look at all the people the Spanish judge talked to, who form the basis of the indictments, they are either genocidaires or people who have established themselves as revisionists. None of the 40 people he indicted were ever interviewed. They were not even notified. It just came out on the Internet and spread all over Europe: 'When you see those people, arrest them'. But of course, those countries are running a danger and causing a judiciary case.
Imagine if our judges started operating under the same so-called universal jurisdiction and indicting ministers or generals in Belgium or France or Spain or elsewhere. We have some of them on record of having been involved here.
Q: Who do you have in mind?
A: This is not a subject to this discussion. You will get to know it when it comes out.
Q: You conducted your own commission of inquiry into the role of France in the genocide. What were the findings?
A: The commission report is out. It is supposed to be discussed by the Cabinet. Then we'll see how to treat it before it is released.
Q: Four members of RPF were arrested recently. Is it related to the Spanish allegations?
A: It has to do with an old case of the murder of bishops in 1994. The Arusha Tribunal said they had evidence against those who got involved. "Either we try them or you try them," they said. We had no objection trying them. They gave us the facts. Based on those facts, they were arrested. Two of them have come out on their own accord and accepted that they killed them. One said he knew that the bishops were among those who caused the death of their families. He thought they needed to pay back. Another one, a senior officer, is not implicated as such in the killing but he happened to be the commander of the force. He is being held for failing to prevent it. So they will be tried in Rwanda.
Q: Relations between Uganda and Rwanda have not always been good. How would you rate them now?
A: Very good.
Q: What, in your analysis, was the problem?
A: I don't think I'll go into this. Going into that is a disservice to the level of friendship we have attained.
Q: Plastic bags were banned both in Rwanda and Uganda. The difference is in Rwanda they have disappeared but in Uganda they are still there. What is the secret?
A: We tried to efficiently deal with that by ensuring that plastic bags don't enter the country. People are being checked at the airport and the border points. I am sure there were more stocks of plastic bags in Uganda than there were here, probably because of the population size and the economic activities. Getting them banned in such a bigger population might be more problematic. And the method used was maybe not very effective.
Q: What would you rank among your biggest achievements?
A: One is stability, peace and security, which is paramount. The second is reconciliation, bringing the people back together, which is the basis for everything else. Our third achievement is economic growth.
In the past eight years, we have registered growth of not less than 7%. Construction is growing by almost 20% per year, while industries have been growing at between 7% and 9%.
In education, too, we made big strides. When we took over, we had around 750,000 children in primary school. We now have 2.3 million. We continue to improve the quality of education. When there are such numbers in schools, there is a tendency to compromise on quality. The number of teachers did not increase accordingly. We are training more teachers.
Health is another area where we have booked huge successes, whether it is in health insurance or reduction of malaria infections. By distributing treated mosquito nets, we reduced malaria cases and deaths of children below five by 67% in one year alone.
Agriculture has been growing in the last two to three years, though at a slower pace. Being fed by World Food Programme, which used to be the order of the day, is now a thing of the past. For years we had about 30% of our people being catered for by WFP. Now we are self-sufficient. Even with the high food prices, we have not suffered much.
Q: How did you break the aid dependency syndrome?
A: When we took over office, we found people who would lie back and be fed, like in many parts of Africa. The mentality was: When there is disease, the West will bring medicines. When we starve, the West will bring food. We have gone out to attack this aid dependency. In our discussions everywhere we go, we ask: 'Why do you think somebody else, somewhere, has to feed you? Why don't you get a hoe and grow your own food?' So people are constantly challenged on this. And it is working. Now people are really serious about work.
Q: Many Rwandans have returned from the diaspora. How do you attract them?
A: Not only Rwandans from the diaspora are coming back. We are also getting in people from the region. We waived work permits for skilled people from East Africa, such as teachers, doctors, engineers and agronomists. There are many Ugandans, Kenyans and Tanzanians working here. We are carrying out a nationwide skills audit, which should help us plan better in terms of training and education.
Q: Your decentralisation programme has proved to be quite successful. What can Uganda learn from it?
A: You can have good policies, but implementing them is where the problem lies. We have been reinforcing our decentralisation programme through imihigo, performance contracts. Mayors of districts and other leaders sign contracts in which they stipulate what they want to achieve in the next year, depending on the resources that are availed to them, be it in health, education, road networks or cleanliness. Leaders at all levels participate in defining the priorities.
Every year there is a review. A team with members from several ministries, led by the Local Administration, moves countrywide, asking the district leaders: "What did you do among the things you said were priorities?" They check and give them marks. Those who performed well are rewarded. There is even some kind of competition. What this has achieved is that leaders follow up their subordinates, and the subordinates follow up the people under them, up to the family level. When buveera (polythene bags) are found in a district, the leaders have to answer for that. And because they don't want to answer, they organise inspections and make sure the loopholes are plugged.
The inspection teams also visit restaurants and check their kitchens. That is why we have very few cases of food poisoning. Even at the home level, when they find dirt at your doorstep, you are fined. The good thing is that it has turned into a culture. It does not need to be enforced. It now drives itself.
Q: You have been seen participating in cleaning the streets.
A: Every last Saturday of the month, we have a general clean up, called umuganda, literally 'we work together'. The whole idea is to keep the policy of cleanliness alive in people's mind. That is why the UN has named Kigali the cleanest capital in Africa. But it has taken root in the rural areas as well. And the actual cleaning happens every day because people have now internalised it.
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