Focus Media (Kigali)
Shyaka Kanuma
10 January 2009
interview
In an exclusive interview with Focus President Kagame reveals he already is thinking of succession to his presidency and he speaks out on a number of other issues including his style of governance, Congo issues and a few other problems such as tycoon Tribert Rujugiro and his business dealings.
President Kagame: "We have to do more to strengthen our East African Community-it would be hard for anyone, either from the West or elsewhere to ignore this market and its opportunities." (courtesy photo)
The interview with the President was an exclusive that went on for almost three hours. The President's press secretary Yolanda Makolo was the only other person present in the ornately furnished boardroom of the state house where we sat down with Kagame for the interview.
One of the more remarkable things he said was that his proudest achievement will be: "when I hand over power to some other Rwandan when my time to go comes; my proudest achievement will be this, plus seeing the continuity of my work in my successor."
It is a truly remarkable statement when one puts it in the perspective of what the man already has achieved.
Kagame is the individual who was at the head of a movement that led a people back home after three decades of exile-reversing a colossal injustice and stopping a genocide along the way.
This is the individual under whose leadership a poorly equipped, undernourished and at one point highly demoralized guerilla army (equipped with enough ideological clarity though) could take the fight to Habyarimana (with his French political and military support) and claim an impossible historic victory.
It is difficult to imagine anyone saying there is a prouder achievement than this.
Yet there the President was, talking of the relatively easy business of handing over power to a successor as the moment he will be most proud of.
On the other hand what Kagame may be weighing that future goal against is the tendency of African leaders to cling to power, and do so at all costs even long after their sell-by date. In the Sub-Saharan context it truly is an achievement for a leader to oversee a peaceful transfer of power and having done that for him to then retire from office.
The sad history of this continent is that such leaders can be counted on the fingers. Perhaps Kagame has an eye on history, wanting to join the pantheon of the likes of Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere (and his successors), Seretse Khama and Quett Masire of Botswana and a few others? Time will tell.
Kagame's first term as the elected president of this country ends in 2010. He is eligible to stand for another seven-year term. He is emphatic he will leave at the end of his constitutionally mandated time.
The President plays it close to his chest however about whether he already is grooming a successor and who that might be or whether he has multiple candidates in mind and who those may be. He didn't get into that during the interview.
We can devise the best government for us
President Kagame exercises close control of his government. Many, especially abroad, describe his style of governance as authoritarian in nature.
But others look at it and see a close resemblance to the Chinese model whereby you have a strong central state that at the same time grants citizens many freedoms (in China's case the Communist government retains close control of political power and may even regulate people's choices, for example how many children they may have; but the regime maintains a laissez faire attitude in other areas of life notably in business and commercial life).
Kagame maintains the Western world shouldn't be so negative about the Chinese. "Even the Americans who are China's biggest critics did not jump straight to where they are today; they underwent a lengthy process," says the President.
"The Chinese too are achieving more individual freedoms; as they many of them become wealthier their money will give them leverage to demand even more freedoms for themselves but this will have been a homegrown process, not an order imposed from abroad."
The government of Kagame has little time for pluralist politics. The opposition in this country can hardly be recognized as such though it has representatives in parliament who every now and then come down hard on poorly performing government appointees.
Mostly the activities of our political parties are regulated by the RPF under the Forum of Political Parties. The opposition works hand in hand with the ruling party on most policy issues and governance decisions.
Kagame sees no reason why anyone should find this arrangement wrong.
"We will devise the best means to govern ourselves; I am not a believer in this notion propagated for years that only ideas developed elsewhere work," says the President. "All these people in Europe who preach their brand of democracy to the world, you will realize none of their systems are identical."
Kagame uses the metaphor of an item of clothing to illustrate his point. "It is as if the Europeans and Americans have designed one suit for all Africans, regardless of whether different people have different heights and sizes and shapes, and expect that one suit they have designed to fit us all! Yet for themselves, they wear suits tailored to their different needs."
He argues that you cannot expect to build a country by giving poor people such as Rwanda's every imaginable freedom straight away. "In no time at all they will be abusing all these freedoms," he remarks.
"Even the Americans, if you look at their history when they were starting out, the ordinary people-the majority of whom could not read or write or did not own property-were not allowed to vote.
"What they were doing was they were strengthening the center first, making it abuse proof, while at the same time the ordinary people's lives were being improved. Only then could you have responsible pluralist democracy. It really beats me why anyone would expect the majority of our African people to take a path different from this."
Our history since independence from Belgian colonialism in the early 60s amply buttresses Kagame's argument. Multi party politics have taken on a tribal us-against-them identity whereby most poor, illiterate citizens have been led by demagogic politicians to internalize the thinking that to gain political power is a zero sum game during which all members of the other ethnic group have to be massacred.
"You can see what past politicians have done to this country," Kagame says, slowly shaking his head at the thought. "Since 94 we have been picking up the pieces and trying to put everything back together and it is not by swallowing foreign ideas wholesale that we shall find a lasting solution to our problems."
This President clearly won't be deterred from pursuing the objective of finding homegrown solutions to homegrown problems and having a forum of political parties where the opposition works with the ruling party for the greater good of all Rwandans clearly is part of the experiment.
Closer cooperation with other Africans
If President Kagame had it his way, African countries would be doing much more to forge stronger political and economic regional blocs that speak with one voice than currently is the case.
The obvious advantage he sees in this is that we simultaneously reduce our dependence on aid from rich countries and we do something about changing our situation from being perpetual supplicants to better respected partners in world affairs.
"It is hard for people who always go to Western capitals to beg for aid to shake off the indignities heaped on them daily," remarks the President. He adds: "but if we have big regional blocs then you will have a situation where more businesses from rich countries come looking for opportunities, which direct investment means less reason to go looking for foreign aid.
"This is why for instance we have to do more to strengthen our East African Community-it would be hard for anyone, either from the West or elsewhere to ignore this market and its opportunities."
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