Nairobi — Rwanda's President Paul Kagame's denunciation of international critics who are faulting his government's record on matters of freedom, raises more questions than answers.
President Kagame has for a long time been upheld - by the same international forces - as one of the best example of the new breed of African leader who have held their countries together after a turbulent past. Indeed, he has done a great job putting his country back together, rebuilding the society, developing infrastructure, and expanding health and education.
Rwanda is now a great example of a country that rose up from the ashes of its own self-destruction to become a favourite foreign investment destination. It has also attracted a great deal of aid from, mostly, those same Western powers which were indifferent as the country was engulfed in genocide of horrifying dimensions in 1994.
But though the country's economic policies should be emulated by many in the continent, it is not clear whether the criticism levelled at him by the critics - that he is demonstrating all the intolerant tendencies of his strongman peers in Africa who started out well but lost their way - does not have some truth in it.
Some of Kagame's disenchanted Western critics believe that the slow, even modest, progress towards greater freedom of expression, that many countries in the Third World have made in the last 20 years is not happening in Rwanda, despite all the aid and goodwill lavished on Rwanda.
The upshot of this is that African leaders must learn to accommodate dissent and some tenets of democracy while at the same time striving to wean themselves away from total dependency on donors.
That is the only way they can stand on a podium and harangue the international community against interfering in the internal affairs of their countries.
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Indeed, Rwanda is a country glued together by repressive laws that instil fear to ordinary Rwandese. The genocide ideology laws promote denial other than true healing and cohesion. Am a Kenyan who visits Rwanda regularly and to the ordinary Rwandese there is no genuine integration in the society. There are no Hutus or Tutsi's according to the law. Mentioning of ethnicity is a crime in itself. Kagame cannot open up this country lest he loses political power because he comes from the minority Tutsi and with Africa being the way it is in an open democratic poll he will lose to a Hutu opponent. What is he to do to counter this? Clamp down on dissent and do away with political opposition.
For all of Kagame's economic development, there is a history of millions of innocent deaths that he wants to write out of history. You cannot do that in the modern era of information. He is just setting up a stage for further tribal violence. Ifs a shame. The fact that we now have third independent UN look into the selective killings of Hutu innocent people by the RPF is further proof that his deny of the past only brings Rwanda to a worse situation. Now, he is threatening the UN that he will remove his troops from Darfur. The U.S. and UK has embolden him and in Africa that is dangerous when one man feels invincible, he loses moral consciousness. That is where Kagame is, a great General and task master but a horrible moral ethical figure in a region which has lose over 5million people. I mean you can't lead in such a region unless you have moral character and willing to acknowledge, I mean just simply acknolwedge your role in the immoral situation and seek redemption. That is what makes a leader in such a situation of peril. Unless such acts are done, the people themselves can never find redemption and all this economic development will come to nothing when the next crisis of genocide and social upheaval comes.
J1. ust to thank the auhor for his/her balanced comment.
2. Kagame has to remember that his ascendance to power was facilitated by the very powers he is castigating and they still pay his bills. His forces did not have the financial resources and the diplomatic clout to win a government also suppiorted by one of those powers.
3. He need to remember that the chaos was triggered by his 4 year war that displaced more than a million people and his military tactics included blowing up national infrastructure.
4. Man does not live on bread alone. Saying ithat his concern is to fill the stcomacs of rwandans and not giving them freedom to express their views is a sign of arrogance. Himself and his fellow tutsi were well off in Uganda and ellsewhere. He was himself a high ranking Ugandan officer and the leader of the RPF was Deputy MInister of Defence in Uganda. Yet they felt they did not have the freedom to exiercise their full rights in those countries. Human rights cannot be exchanged for food.