President Paul Kagame & the triumphs and failures of Rwandese society.
When the actors Ewan Mac Gregor and Charlie Boorman visited Rwanda on their
motorcycle journey – for UNICEF – from John O’Groats to Cape Town they were, like
many visitors (generally Genocide or Gorilla tourists), both impressed and surprised by
this seemingly progressive country roughly the size of Wales, or one third the size of
Ireland with twice its population with 8 million people. His Excellency Paul Kagame
presides like a discerningly strict, authoritative and dignified headmaster. He has
outlawed plastic bags and each citizen does their community service on the first Sunday
of each month. Rwanda is indeed spotlessly clean, the pride of the East African
Community in terms of its infrastructure and Le pays de Milles Collines (the land of one
thousand hills) is, at least at a superficial level, an example to many sub-Saharan
countries. Of course what Mac Gregor and Boorman did not have enough time to see,
and what takes one several months to really fathom, is that while Rwanda’s problems
are glossed over by ambitious politics and positive noises her old divisionism, genocide
ideologies, suspicion, trauma, revenge lust and fear are woven indelibly into the
psychology of this beautiful yet fragile nation.
In Rwanda today there is no mention of the ‘H’ nor the ‘T’ words, everyone is
Rwandese, of course it does not take an anthropologist to divide the two tribes
physiognomally but it is unfathomably difficult to decipher the psychology of a nation
where only 13 years ago 85% of the population were in some way or another complicit
in a most horrendously brutal ethnic cleansing. Today the percentage of Hutu to Tutsi is
undisclosed but every-day life is unavoidably spent with and in the presence of
survivors (either mentally or physically scarred) and perpetrators.
In the spring of 2007 this author, who was employed as a consultant for a leading
Dutch/Tanzanian solar solutions company based in Dar es Salaam, was granted the
mission of visiting Rwanda with a view to establishing a distribution network there to
be supplied by the port of Dar es Salaam. This was a project indisputably viable and
worthwhile and could potentially open up a market of 100 million people in the region;
Rwanda, Burundi, Eastern DRC, Western Tanzania, Zambia to the benefits of affordable
electricity. Renewable energy solutions has nothing to do with climate change in this
part of the world – even though Africa will suffer most due to its dependence on
agriculture – it is simply about bringing electricity to rural markets and easing energy
headaches in the urban and commercial ones which not only prevents natural habitats
from being destroyed but reduces infant mortality rates and improves quality of life in
ways one ought not underestimate in the former, and eases the pressure on the grid in
the latter.
So, with some times and dates for meetings in Kigali prearranged I set out to determine
the most appropriate way to flood Rwanda with affordable solar power products. Many
meetings followed with existing energy companies, ministers, advisors, war criminals,
cowboys, consultants, entrepreneurs and crooks, all propounding flawless modus
operandis and grandiose visions of decorating the wealthy elite’s gardens with solar
lanterns and retrofitting solar water heating tanks into hotels and supplying elaborate
new housing schemes, and all aware of the EURO 500k awarded to a renewable energy
joint venture established between 2 neighbouring African nations e.g. Rwanda-Tanzania
with Tanzania as the applicant country, Rwanda as recipient.
Only one individual, who shall not be named, an American director of a solar solutions
company seemed in any way interested in helping those in the rural market who are
most in need of electricity. So it was with him that this author proceeded, and it is his
company’s co-director that this author has since become. Incidentally, the Dutch
Governmental grant offered to us required, in return, too much say and equity in the
joint venture, which we graciously declined knowing that Private Sector and a
straightforward, no-nonsense approach is the only way to get anything done in this part
of the world.
In interpreting an unfathomable and complex issue such as the psychology of Rwandese
society one cannot use a conservative approach, which would only serve to undermine
possibilities for social criticism and transformation, rather one ought to understand the
bases of the meaning of Rwandese society by shifting the focus from interpretation to a
more existential understanding in order to reveal something about the social context in
which this author’s view was formed , after all, understanding is not a process of
reconstructing the state of mind of the author but one of articulating what is expressed.
Understanding Rwanda as a whole can be established by reference to the individual
parts, how they are described and ones understanding of each individual part by
reference to the whole. Neither the whole nor any individual part can be understood
without reference to one another.
No concept of truth concerning Rwanda can have an ultimate, unequivocal meaning.
This author is all too aware that we are all only able to know the world through the
words we use to describe it, it thus follows that any notion of ‘truth’ simply amounts to
an agreement; the illustrations and speculative projections of this text can be rendered
‘truthful’ insofar as most intelligent and experienced observers in Rwanda agree them to
be.
One needs look no further than the classroom to see that ethnic divisionism and
genocide ideology are alive and virulent today. This is the result of decades of colonial
rule, with preference allocated to whomever the Belgians (who were first to divide Hutu
and Tutsi with identity cards) or the French rather arbitrarily deemed worthy of power.
Nicolas Sarkozy has a difficult diplomatic mission to undertake before French
governmental officials might feel welcome after a ruling Judge in Paris accused Kagame
of shooting down the plane carrying the then Rwandan and Burundian presidents
which sparked the war in 1994. In fact only recently the French ambassador was given
24 hours to pack his bags and get out of the country and his staff 72 hours.
As with any all-encompassing act of war, brutality and barbarism in human history, the
Genocidal Holocausts of the 20th century created countless untold stories of suffering,
death and survival, betrayal, sacrifice, and all other attendant pains of hell. Rwanda
withholds them all but what is triumphant about Rwanda lies in the myriad cases and
tales of overcoming tragedies, the reluctance to discuss pain in a self-pitying manner
and in the dignity and ‘strength in the things that remain’ attitude of many Rwandese
victims of genocide. Many of us living privileged lives in the western world simply
don’t have the imagination to empathise with the horrors of genocide but occasionally,
on the ground in Kigali, one encounters personal tales of suffering so tangible as to
afford a glimpse into what trauma must lie beneath;
Camille is Rwandese Tutsi, 28, a single mother of a 5 year old boy. She imports clothes
from France and is quietly admired in Kigali society. With her younger sister she
witnessed the brutal massacre of her 5 brothers and both parents in their family home in
April 1994 near the end of the last war, she carries herself with regal dignity, her Nilotic
beauty attracting many admirers, even those men who know she is infected with HIV
(frozen with fear she was raped by Hutu militiamen after they had killed her family)
revere and desire her. Camille’s attentions are fixed on raising her young son, and
helping her younger sister, who has – like many Rwandese – never recovered from the
traumas of the 100 day genocide, (April – July 1994) which saw Government-backed
Hutu Interahamwe militia murder more than 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in
the most unimaginable period of horror in recent times. Her sister, Louise, has shown
positive signs in the past year or two but when one of the Interahamwe militiamen who
murdered her family was freed in July of this year he quickly sought out Camille and
Louise to tell them he was sorry he didn’t get to finish them off and that he eventually
would. Back to square one for Louise.
The key to understanding the failure of Rwandan society is in understanding its
divisions. The following list is an over-simplified example of the different sub-divisions
of Rwandese society; it is probably better to replace “wealthy” with “middle-class” and
this is in no particular order of status;
Wealthy Anglophone Ugandan Rwandans (Ruling group)
Wealthy Anglophone Tanzanian Rwandans
Impoverished Francophone Hutus
Impoverished Francophone pre-1994 Tutsis.
Wealthy Francophone Congolese Rwandans
Wealthy Francophone Burundese Rwandans.
Power is in the hands of the wealthy Ugandan- Rwandese city dwellers, with the poor
anonymous farmers overlooked by Government and all other aspects of society.
Another remarkable aspect of the community is a 30-something elite who were able to
flee Rwanda in the late eighties and early nineties to seek refuge and a University
education in Belgium, France, the UK and Canada and are now skimming the cream of
Rwanda’s steadily growing economy, reaping the benefits of millions of dollars of aid
and generally behaving as arrogantly as default settings. The real survivors of Genocide
try to get through their lives as best they can without making a fuss, thankful to be alive,
but this young elite will use Genocide to further themselves and for (moral) selfaggrandizement
at any opportunity.
Whether conducting business and aid affairs in the public or private sector one quickly
learns to Google the names of potential clients and associates for any allegations of war
crimes, and indeed on occasion this author would find an official indictment from the
Belgian Government or some other justifiable or licentious accusations against
seemingly well-meaning associates. The truth is that you simply never know who you
are talking to in Rwanda, whether they have survived indescribable acts of evil or have
perpetrated them, they do not wear it on their sleeves.
At a recent Investment conference in Kigali visitors were amazed by the opulence, pomp
and ceremony propounded by the hosts. This author could not help but marvel at the
absurdity of a heavily guarded President Kagame with his intense, manipulative glare
echoing that most abstract of nouns “truth” around the conference room. Cabinet
ministers proffering their lust for foreign investment with sycophancy and self-restraint,
trumpeting the genuinely rich natural resources and potential of this lush and fertile
land. Coffee, Tea, Flowers, Peat (limited) Methane (vast reserves), Tourism. Such
promise…but no mention of the trained and armed Hutu Militia waiting at the borders
with Eastern DRC for the slightest chink in her armor, no mention of the RPF (Rwandan
Patriotic Front- Kagame’s army assembled in Uganda, comprising of mostly Tutsi
refugees, who were famously depicted in a 1994 newspaper illustration marching into
Kigali via a thoroughfare of coffins) launching cross-border attacks unbeknownst to her
greatest donors. No mention of the unpaid soldiers in Eastern DRC using their weapons
to seize their food and material wealth, no mention of Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi despot
commanding these unruly mobs and doing his utmost to destabilize the region. No
mention of the rift between Kagame and his counterpart and close friend President
Museveni of Uganda.
It is unsurprising that Kagame is reticent about these issues, and of course about the
supposed ‘rift’ between him and his counterpart President Museveni of Uganda.On a
personal level, the two Presidents remain friends. Kagame recently attended Museveni’s
daughter’s wedding and it is widely acknowledged that Museveni is Rwandese rather
than the proclaimed tribal Banyankoli. The occasional diplomatic spats seem more like
an old married couple barking at each other than anything poisonous and deep-rooted.
Museveni insulted President Kagame and Rwanda by referring to him as “that boy” in a
speech and one could be forgiven for thinking that Museveni is jealous of some of
Kagame’s achievements and of the recovery in Rwanda.
President Kagame’s successes and healthy PR with the international community
irremediably casts Museveni’s achievements in a lower light, rendering him irritable and
envious, picking fights to which Rwanda reacts.
Rwandans generally keep a close eye on events in the Rwandan community in Uganda -
they’d be foolish not to as the current regime’s bid for power was mostly financed by
Ugandan Rwandans. There are far too many family and economic ties for Uganda and
Rwanda to have a serious falling out. At least not one that affects their countries directly
(i.e. they’ll keep to proxy wars elsewhere to display their feathers)
Crossing the Rwandese border at Gatuna into Uganda seemed to this author to be
analogous to walking from a wake into a wedding, The Ugandan officials eager to
congratulate the visitor and inform him that he is privileged to now be in Uganda, and
to offer condolences for whatever he may have experienced in Rwanda, as a loving Aunt
might greet her wayfaring nephew into her homely warmth after his long march across
the wet and unforgiving marshes.
True enough, there is a tangible sense of openness and genuine friendliness, a lighter,
breezier atmosphere in the nearby town of Kabale, Uganda, where wide-eyed locals
beam smiles and indulge their Ugandan eccentricities in a jovial, unintrusive and
refreshing manner.
In a recent interview with an ex-patriate Lady Director of a reputable NGO with 7 years
experience in Rwanda, hereby to be referred to as Miss M, we spoke in-depth about
Kagame and what follows is her insightful and refreshing take on the man:
Miss M;
“What do I think of Kagame? Hmm that’s complex. He’s the kind of smart, straight,
visionary & purpose driven (as opposed to power driven) leader that many western
interests don’t like to have in Africa. He’d probably have been assassinated by now if
Rwanda had any mineral wealth. A British ambassador once explained to me that the
British are here because “the stability of Rwanda, affects the stability of the region”.
Which I think was diplomatic code for, the buggers could have taken over Congo and
interfered with the incredible cash flows (out of Africa) coming from it! The US and
Israel have lent considerable aid to bump up the already reasonably capable Rwandan
army. I wonder what Paul Kagame had to promise for that aid?
On the other hand he is ruthless, brokers no opposition and has a well acknowledged
disregard for the welfare or consent of the unwashed masses. Much of the
transformation he wants to bring about can’t be done with moves which will be seen, in
the short run, as human rights abuses and need an authoritarian type power structure to
implement. But Rwanda has never been run any other way – this place has always run
on fear, why should it change now?
…He’s as good a person as any to continue running the country – the main weakness in
his plans are not taking account of the present reality (for instance the serious lack of
human capacity) when planning for a rapid transformation. The top level management
in the country is great and very hard working but after that the place has no one that can
think! The dilemma is that if you teach people to think, your autocratic rule will soon
disappear. And in regard to education and civil service pay, he is towing the World
Bank and IMF very well – he has cut public spending, leaving an incompetent and under
funded civil service incapable of driving reform. The smartest people in Rwanda – for
the most part – work for private industry and NGOs.”
The same question posed to a Gentleman who has been working in the private sector in
Rwanda for 5 years, hereby to be referred to as Mr. K;
Mr K; “To me Kagame is a philosopher king in the platonic sense: apparently benevolent
but really backward in his understanding of modern societies and economies. Most
major corruption and cronyism is driven by his badly selected entourage of former
comrades in arms.
When he goes, the place will fall apart, and everyone will say, “Weren’t things great
under Kagame?”, when in actual fact he sowed the seeds for much instability, violence
and chaos.”
Kagame is perhaps the lesser of all possible evils, and does not readily accept all the
back-slapping from an international community riddled with guilt about Rwanda, he
doesn’t appear to accept all his plaudits and openly brushes them aside ‘while poverty
reigns we cannot celebrate ourselves’. He is right to promote Rwanda’s plenipotentiary
assets. He openly complains about the lack of action following all the positive noises of
his people, and having worked in Rwanda for some time this author can identify with
his frustrations. Any progressive or positive idea is greeted with triumphant optimism
but when the time comes to act there is all too often a reticent shying-away.
In November 2007, during his state visit to Senegal, President Kagame reiterated threats
of an intervention in Congo Kinshasa, where he wants to root out Rwandan rebel
groups. Consequently, the UN peacekeepers in the Congo, MONUC, in December 2007)
strengthened their presence at the Congolese-Rwandan border.
The Rwandan government holds that the rebel groups in Eastern Congo are a major
threat to Rwandese stability. The Rwandese rebels are said to belong to those military
units who organized the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi people, and these
have been trained and equipped by the Kinshasa government.
Rwanda and the Great Lakes region is far from stable and the ‘truth’ in Kagame’s
diatribes do not match the alarming reality.
I posed the question to Mr. K;
Do you think Rwanda will invade The DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) in the
foreseeable future?
Mr. K; “Very unlikely as long as Nkunda is successful. For that it would require the
Americans to withdraw support from the Congolese (distinctly possible) and/or Nkunda
to be driven across the Rwandese border (likely). Nkunda’s strength derives from the
Rwandese, and I have even heard of security guards in Kigali going to join him in battle.
He is the biggest threat to peace here. At the moment it is a Rwandan proxy war that
risks escalating if the Congolese ever get their act together. God help us if the Congolese
ever find a serious ally against Nkunda.
He remains a major liability to the region, but a major asset to the Rwandese. “
The same question posed to Miss M;
Miss M; “Unlikely, he has too much weighing on his good PR now. He won’t officially
invade but is likely to unofficially be present in Eastern Congo for a long time, plus I
don’t see him condemning Nkunda anytime soon…
…I think a good solution for the people of Eastern Congo would be if Kinshasa were to
agree that Rwandan forces ensure peace in the Kivus – a kind of regional security
outsourcing – in return for some share of profits from mining or Hydro-electricity or
some such, but that’s unlikely to happen.”
Non Governmental Organizations also like to justify their displacement with a heroic
sense of martyrdom, ‘the bigger the car – the poorer the country’ is an adage that can
ring true in African aid circles. Of course we all know that the world is a better place
with the UN and other development organizations but all too often the incompetence,
overheads and mismanagement are inexcusable.
(See the shocking cases of Anastase Gasana http://www.inshuti.org/agasana2.htm
And Callixte Mbarushimana; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l44lQxMSvdw ).
The absurdly Orwellian world of the UNHCR is surely the most ludicrous example. The
Human Rights Commission has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, a country not
even on the Security Council, its bank vaults stuffed with Nazi gold, far removed from
the victims of human rights abuse in every sense. The UNHCR is arguably the most
entrenched, pampered and impotent workforce ever assembled. It is the epitome of
cumbersome bureaucracy where due process triumphs over decisive action. Its
preposterous new members include such Human Rights beacons as China, Viet Nam,
Algeria, Syria and the DRC who act as arbiters of human rights. Take China as the
extreme example, who uses their political, economic and military clout to bully,
manipulate and buy-off the rest of the world. Resolutions highlight the impotence of the
system, where fence-sitters abstain and cowards back the Chinese regardless of their
horrific and well-documented Human Rights record. One needs look no further than
Denmark who immediately received trade sanctions for voting against the Chinese. The
US has now lost its seat on the Security Council, leaving precious little in the Security
Council through whom a resolution might be passed against China if necessary in
future. What we have is a farcical entity where Dracula is in charge of the blood bank
and the bad guys win, prompting a woman of great integrity and influence, Mary
Robinson to step down in frustration and turn her attentions to the non-governmental
sector to ‘try to make a difference for the victims’ – a damning indictment of the
shambolic mess that is the UNHCR.
Two weeks before the massacres in Rwanda in April 1994 Rwanda won a seat on the
security council even though the UN knew of the impending genocide, (dismissed by
John Major and Bill Clinton as ‘black-on-black violence’ rather than labeling it genocide),
whom numerous informants provided ample evidence of it being. ( see Shake hands
with the devil: The failure of humanity in Rwanda. Romeo Dallaire. Knopf, Canada.
2003).There can be no justice for Rwanda, not by stringing Francois and Nicolas
Mitterrand up by the neck, nor by holding Madeleine Albright or Boutros Boutros Ghali
accountable.
Although there have been sporadic and brutal massacres since 1959 Rwanda has been
relatively peaceful and moving in positive directions since Kagame took power after the
1994 war. Poverty is still rife, regardless of the Hummers and SUV’s proudly pumping
thick black smoke into the Kigali hills. People still queue to drink filthy water, the
energy headache has led to a chronic denuding of the verdant countryside and progress
is achieved at a tediously slow rate. Drinking any water, even bottled water is associated
with poverty. The Bralirwa bottling factory uses 15% of the country’s electricity. The
consumption of Coca-Cola, Fanta and beer not only serve to alleviate status anxiety but
arguably lead to the outrageous lethargy and slow pace of development. Rwanda needs
all the help it can get in establishing the appropriate mechanisms required to educate
her children and wean out the dangerous ideologies that threaten to undermine all the
good work Kagame and his seemingly uncorrupt government have overseen. If we must
insist upon throwing money blindly at Africa – since 1990 the cost of war has cancelled
out the amount of aid money in Africa – and for all the inherent difficulties in recovering
from genocide no other country will appropriate our generosity as honestly as Rwanda,
whatever issues his many detractors may have with him, this author included, President
Kagame has the best interests of his people at heart.
Some believe that there is indeed no Rwandan state, that there is only the Government
of Rwanda, which serves only to provide the Akuzu, a mafia clan permeating all aspects
of the country with the singular goal of accumulating wealth from donor countries and
rooting out the Hutu militia in The Congo. There seems to be no evidence of this
although the fact that Rwanda exports more Coltan, Gold and Diamonds than it
produces ought to raise questions for its donor countries. .Such talk of mafia clans
controlling the country’s finances and blithering inanities about her statehood are
unfounded and frankly bamboozling in the face of contrary evidence, but when it
comes to stability in the region one gets the feeling that something will eventually give
and the fallout will be catastrophic, besides, who exactly are Kagame’s people? All
Rwandans? Tutsi and moderate Hutus? One may be forgiven for thinking that those
exiled Rwandese Hutu militia waiting to finish the ‘work’ of the Genocide are not in this
bracket, and it is they who may indeed prove to be the catalyst for Kagame to invade
Eastern Congo for- officially- the first time since 1998.
One thing is for certain though, and that is that the old regime/political opposition are
somewhat mobilized outside of Rwanda and plotting to enter the fray for the 2017
elections.
To paraphrase Poul Engberg-Pedersen (27 March 2001), Director of the Danish Centre
for Development Research;
“Of course one has to be selective when one as a donor allocates aid, but one must not
look at the political reforms but on the need for help and on where poverty is greatest
[…] It is wrong to distinguish and favour those countries whose regimes conduct a
policy that we like here in the West. One should rather distinguish according to the
criteria of poverty and give to the poor. If you exclude countries on the basis of their
form of governance, these countries will after all be hurt twice as hard […] All
experience shows that things go wrong when the donor countries force reforms on the
development countries. It is better to show trust in and respect for the country and let it
decide speed and the direction for itself. Then the donor country can act as supporter
and adviser”
The region is far from stable, aid must be closely monitored but we ought to rest assured
that President Kagame is taking the necessary and sufficient measures to keep Rwanda
afloat, for the time being at least.
Perhaps there is truth in the notion that the more cynical one is about Rwanda; the closer
one gets to the reality. Recovery is slow, Kagame’s ‘truth’ may belie the Nietzschean
staple that {sic} convictions are more dangerous enemies to truth than lies are, but what
is the alternative when such a devastating state of entropic madness reigned so recently
and threatens to return? Blame is a natural reaction to and an intrinsic part of the
recovery from trauma and ought to be tolerated within reason but, sadly, bitterness and
paranoia will continue to stifle and negate all the positive propaganda emanating from
this tragic nation. The truth and the political situation are fluid and complex entities in
Rwanda. Those who know how it works will never talk about it and it is a brave and
naïve outsider who tries to get a handle on it. As the former Canadian ambassador, a
resident for the past 30 years remarked – “if you come here for a few months, you can
probably write a book. If you stay for a few years you can write about a paragraph”.

Neil Goodwin.