Rwanda's real challenge

As predicted by friends and foes alike, Paul Kagame has been re-elected by a landslide. This is no surprise as the opposition was silenced. Some critics assume that because Kagame and his RPF did not allow the opposition to register as formal political parties that the major crisis facing Rwanda is its weak political opposition. I have never thought this was a major consideration as there is very little chance of political power to pass democratically. The opposition is divided, has no meaningful or even distinct platform, and likely has little support among elites and peasant folks alike (we don't actually know because no one has asked Rwandans themselves what they think).

The real issue now that the elections are over is the undeniable emergence of a power struggle within the ruling RPF. This has not been reported upon in any meaningful way. Partly, I'm sure, because critical academics and journalists have yet to interview the main actors. We are working with newspaper interviews, and Kagame's reaction to these public offerings in campaign speeches and during his monthly meeting with journalists based in Kigali.

What we do know is that since the RPF took power in 1994, it has continued to consolidate power in its own hands. We don't know the political intentions or power base of those that have fallen out with Kagame.

Most significant is Kagame's sidelining of much of the RPFs military elite. These include several senior officers who were in the bush with Kagame, and who arguably had a role in forming the then-rebel RPF. These include, among others, General Sam Kaka and General Frank Rusagara. In 2001, General Kayumba Nyamwasa also fell out with Kagame, as well, and in 2005 the head of external intelligence Colonel Patrick Karegeya was arrested on allegations of insubordination.

This much is widely known. The divisions with the RPF came to a head when General Kayumba fled into exile in South Africa. In addition, two other generals (Karake and Muhire) were arrested, accused of masterminding the grenade attacks that happened in the spring. In sum, most of the senior RPF military brass from 1994 have fled into exile or have been arrested (a few have retired and have been relieved of their duties).

There are two possible explanations -- one from the government camp, and the other from the dissidents themselves. First, senior government officials are on the record saying that senior military officers have been pushed to the sidelines because they do not share Kagame's development vision. Senior bureaucrats, in keeping with the party line, explain the divisions as the result of the moral weakness of these generals. They are not interested in a peaceful, stable and secure Rwanda like Kagame; instead they are interested in only their own wealth and political power. This explanation is hardly rocket science to analysts as each of these generals have been marginalized on accusations of corruption, embezzlement or insubordination (to Kagame himself, I suppose).

The explanation from the dissidents is that their grievances are political. Kagame has consolidated power in his hands to such an extent that even a whisper of disagreement is considered treason. Both Nyamwasa and Karegeya say that Kagame is incapable of listening to their opinions.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. One thing is more certain: the power struggle among the RPFs inner circle could signal the end of Kagame's reign. It would also like happen at the end of a gun rather than through the ballot box.

For those of that care about peace and security in Rwanda, the question now becomes does Kagame command the respect of his peers within the RPF? If he doesn't, under what conditions will Kagame begin to loosen his presumed grip on political power?

In addition, can those senior military officials that have fled the country mount a real threat to Kagame's power?

Kagame will win the elections. Then what?

This post was originally published by the website Op-Ed News on 3 August 2010.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has called upon Rwandan President Paul Kagame to investigate the politically motivated killings of opposition politicians and critical journalists in the run-up to the country's 9 August election. American Secretary of State Clinton recently encouraged the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front not to act against opposition politicians. These calls, however, are too little too late, as Kagame will handily win.

This raises the question of how international actors can work with the incumbent President knowing that he is a predator of political and press freedoms. It is now opportune for Western donors to revisit their support for Kagame as well as their role in Rwanda's reconstruction and reconciliation processes.

Rwanda's donors, including the US, the UK, the European Union and the UN, must continue to nudge the RPF towards a real democratic opening. This must include more than investigations to the RPFs pre-election campaign of intimidation and harassment of its opposition and calls for free and fair elections. Rwanda's donors must press Kagame to create space for national dialogue, meaning an open and safe space where Rwandans of all ethnicities and from all walks of life can meet to discuss what happened to whom during the genocide, and to strategize ways forward from the hurt of the past. The donor community must encourage Kagame to adopt inclusive policies that will create a common future of economic security and political stability for all Rwandans. Such a space could be framed in patriotic terms of being Rwandan -- rather than in the language of ethnic unity as is currently the case - as love of country is more salient for many of the Rwandans I've consulted over the years.

There are three things that western donors can do to encourage President Kagame to create a more open and peaceful political culture once he is re-elected.

First is to question the government's ability to manage Rwanda's natural resources -- its people and its land. The US State Department estimates that by 2020, Rwanda will be home to some 13 million people. This gives Rwanda the highest population density in Africa with 225 people per square mile. Some 90% of Rwandans seek out their existence as subsistence farmers and are the first to suffer when the central government is unable to respond to their daily needs. The government requires rural farmers to grow coffee and tea instead of the crops needed to feed their families. A new land policy has decreased peasant holdings to less than a half-acre. The RPF does not allow peasant farmers to voice their concerns with its agriculture and the inequitable distribution of land into the hands of government loyalists.


There is no room for debate on appropriate technologies to build sustainable agriculture in the country. An underfed and disaffected local population is hardly the way forward to sustainable peace and democracy. Donors must continue to work with the RPF to ensure their agriculture and land policies are aimed at developing long-term peace and security, not quick gains for party loyalists.

Second is to encourage open dialogue and a culture of constructive criticism and debate about government policies amongst the political class. Foreigners write most of the academic and policy literature on Rwanda. Why? Because Kagame does not allow for thoughtful analysis that strays from the RPF's official rhetoric that only Tutsi died during the 1994 genocide. This may appear counter-intuitive to those donors who have visited Rwanda's universities -- indeed they are flourishing thanks to foreign aid dollars. Donors can use their already existing relationship with Rwanda's Ministry of Education and other institutions of higher learning to sponsor intellectuals whose ideas differ from those of the government as a way to spur openness and dialogue.

Third is to encourage Kagame to engage the diverse political views of the Rwandan Diaspora. This is not to suggest that he engage the extremist views of those that advocate the thesis that the RPF organized and implemented the genocide and other negative views. Instead, he needs to acknowledge that such negative opinion exists along side with the positive involvement of the Diaspora in Rwanda's economic development. Because the Diaspora contributed almost $130 million to Rwanda's economy in 2008 (second only to tourist receipts), Western donors have failed to seriously push Kagame to engage dissident opinion within the Diaspora. Fueled by the internet, sincere dissidents who criticize RPF policy exist alongside political extremists such as the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda) rebel group, making it easy for Kagame to justify not including them in the Rwandan political sphere. Western donors must encourage Kagame to engage with all sectors of the Diaspora, good and bad, as part of the broader strategy of political openness and dialogue.

Paul Kagame will be Rwanda's next President. Now is the time to reassess donor policy in the country to push for meaningful democratic.



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Push for Political Openness in Rwanda

Rwanda's Sham Elections: First published in The Mark

As voting time approaches, President Paul Kagame's RPF continues to practise zero-sum politics that could lead to more political violence.

(Co-authored by a Rwandan academic based in the U.S. who survived the 1994 genocide and wishes to remain anonymous. The authors of this piece run the blog The Cry for Freedom in Rwanda.)

For many western observers – Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, and Bill Gates among them – Rwanda’s economic growth is the foundation of its democratic transition. Yet, as Rwandans head to the polls next month to elect a president, Paul Kagame’s ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has perverted the very democratic ideals it claims to uphold.

Kagame’s RPF emerged victorious from and gained credit for ending the 1994 genocide in which ethnic Hutu killed at least 500,000 ethnic Tutsi. Foreign leaders, feeling guilty for not having done enough to end the genocide or for having a direct role in the massacres, pumped money into Rwanda in the hope of rebuilding a new society – a society free from ethnic division. From ashes, the Rwandan people quickly started showing signs of recovery. Still, the RPF continues to practice zero-sum politics that could return the country to the abyss of 1994.

Over the last 16 years, the RPF has centralized power into a one-man dictatorship. A tiny English-speaking Tutsi elite, most of whom grew up as refugees in neighbouring Uganda, surrounds the dictator, Paul Kagame. The politics of exclusion that marked the pre-genocide years remains intact despite the official policy of ethnic unity. The Hutu community, making up some 85 per cent of the population, is largely excluded from most positions of power. Even more insulting, politics, business, and the civil service are all dominated by military personnel or former members of the RPF.

In advance of the upcoming presidential elections, many “friends” of Rwanda have remained supportive of its so-called “democratic transition.” They ignore the repeated arrests of journalists and opposition politicians, the closing of independent local newspapers, the ejection of a Human Rights Watch researcher, an assassination attempt against exiled general Kayumba Nyamasa, who fell out with President Kagame earlier this year, the murder of journalist Jean-Leonard Rugambage, who attempted to report on Nyamasa’s assassination attempt in the online version of a Rwandan newspaper the print edition of which the government closed down, and the murder of Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, vice-president of the opposition Democratic Green party. While diplomats from some countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, have cut their aid, the U.S. and the U.K. continue to publicly support Kagame. Canada’s position is vague as it encourages Rwanda to adopt policies that promote a pluralist society.

Under the watch of a sympathetic and supportive international community, Kagame has done everything within his power to ensure that the August elections consolidate his political power.

First, he appointed all the members of the National Electoral Commission, staffing it with former and current members of the RPF. Although members of the political opposition have protested, Kagame shows no sign of accepting reform. Such an arrangement will make it possible for him to manipulate, rig, and control the elections.

Second, the RPF revised the constitution in 2003. Many of its provisions endanger democracy. The most damning is the ill-defined law on genocide ideology. Its official purpose is to identify individuals who wish to kill ethnic Tutsi. In practice, the law is invoked against political opponents or critics of the government who question its reconstruction or reconciliation policies or who suggest that the RPF committed war crimes before, during, and after the genocide. Instead of erasing the ethnic hatred that the RPF believes lives in the hearts and minds of some Rwandans, the genocide ideology law is crystallizing dissent among some sections of the military while weakening the opposition and journalists who criticize the government’s application of the law.

Lastly, Kagame abolished real opposition and manufactured a shadow opposition that serves only to sing the praises of the RPF. This “opposition” is active only during election season and is otherwise unknown to the general public. None of the three actual opposition parties – the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, FDU-Inkingi, and PS-Imberakuri – can take part in the elections because their respective leaders are either in prison or banned from registering their candidates on allegations of harbouring genocide ideology.

While much of the diplomatic community acknowledges these democratic shortcomings, most western donors continue to highlight Rwanda’s economic growth as the necessary stimulant to inch the country towards democracy. What these actors overlook is the fact that the benefits of economic growth accrue largely to urban elites. The post-genocide policies of the RPF neglect the rural peasantry, which comprise 90 per cent of the population.

The international community widely praises Kagame’s liberal economic policies without due regard to the restrictions they have placed on what peasants produce and how they sell it. The government requires rural farmers to grow coffee and tea instead of the crops needed to feed their families. A new land policy has decreased peasant holdings to less than a half-acre. This means that few families are able to grow enough to subsist, let alone take any excess to market. The United Nations Development Programme reported in 2008 that Rwanda’s Gini coefficient has increased since the RPF came to office, and that the socio-economic disparity had increased from its 1990 levels. As one rural farmer in Northern Province lamented, “If the RPF doesn’t allow us to trade freely, we will join the FDLR rebel group … otherwise, how will we feed our children?”

The suppression of democratic ideals under President Kagame cannot guarantee continued economic growth in Rwanda. The latest attacks on basic human freedoms could be but the tip of the iceberg. Before Rwandans go to the polls next month, western friends of Rwanda – the diplomats, policy-makers and academics that extol the country's democratic virtues – must press for meaningful democratic change by encouraging free speech and political dialogue with a viable opposition. Without meaningful change, the country could be headed for another round of mass political violence.

But you can't get blood from a stone

In advance of August's presidential elections, the ruling RPF is bragging about its fiscal and monetary policy. One of the key factors that keeps international donors giving the necessary funds to keep Rwanda moving economically forward is the government's management of the economy. (Note however there are few critical voices. Witness this recent policy statement from the US Department of State).

This recent posting from Allafrica.com on the further decentralisation of the Rwandan Revenue Authority begs the question, how do you get blood from a stone?

Most Rwandans are more poor under the leadership of the RPF. True, Kigali gleams with new buildings, shiny streets and internet cafes. But some 87% of Rwandans are peasants. They own less land than they did before the genocide because of new agricultural and land policies put in place in the name of economic growth. Starvation is up, even as Rwanda reports bump crops. Bumper crops of coffee and tea do not feed people! The same people that the RPF bases its legitimacy upon and who are being told (in sensitisation speeches, radio announcements and presidential pronouncements) "to vote for the right ones this time".

Democracy without a citizenry is not democracy at all....

Kagame and Amanpour

On Monday night, Rwandan President Paul Kagame agreed to be interviewed by CNN journalist Amanpour. You can download the entire interview on ITunes.

Among the broader public relations machine that is the Kagame presidency, I only have this comment. He appears very nervous and basically admits that he is losing control of the country. This is a man who has total disdain for peasant Rwandans (his policies benefit urban elites, not rural peasants) ; to now invoke them in the name of his oppressive tactics is disingenuous. The reason why no journalist, human rights activist or academic has been able to talk to ordinary people is because Kagame's regime makes it all but impossible. There is no freedom of action or thought at the moment.

This is very serious for all Rwandans -- urban, rural, elite, peasant alike. I hope that the international community will begin to encourage Kagame to allow the political opposition to register and campaign. There is no outlet for popular frustration and anger in the country and that is exceedingly worrying....

Rhetoric and the politics of genocide

It has again been a very intense few weeks in Rwandan politics. I have been on the road for various speaking and research engagements and have had little time to reflect on all that is going on, and what has been published.

One piece that I wanted to recommend is Geoffrey York's piece in Canada's Globe and Mail. He writes about the political manipulation of Rwanda's blood soaked history. His article is exceptionally well done as it strikes to the politics of manipulation of the history of the genocide and the ideology of genocide that characterises RPF rule at the moment. It is also critically important because York responds to the government's claim that democracy leads to genocide. Presidential advisor Jean-Paul Kimonyo is the mouthpiece for this line of thinking and is what I want to respond to in this post. Kimonyo writes in The Huffington Post in a fashion that is typical of the PR machine of the current regime.

A few points of context and analysis bear comment:

First, Kimonyo's assertion that the 1994 genocide is in part a product of "long-term economic, social and political bankruptcy" is nothing more than political rhetoric designed to justify and legitimise the oppressive rule of the RPF. Analysts and observers who understand that the genocide is not the starting point (either forward to current forms of repression or backward to explaining events in 1959) to understand contemporary Rwanda. The mechanisms of power of the RPF are virtually identical to the forms of power that pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial government's have used to control the Rwandan political landscape. There is little "new" about the new Rwanda (meaning Rwanda under RPF rule).

Kimonyo situates the backward policies of the previous regime to imply that these unequal policies had a role in precipitating the genocide. I don't think this is an accurate depiction of the root causes of the genocide. The RPF government itself lacks the rural legitimacy (which makes up almost 90% of the population) that the Habyarimana government enjoyed. That rural legitimacy meant that when the order to commit acts of genocide came down from the highest levels of the Hutu Power state in 1994, it found resonance in the hearts and minds of ordinary Hutu. They understood that this was a kill or be killed situation Many chose to kill, some because of hatred, others because of fear, some for score-settling... Kagame does not enjoy this rural legitimacy, and that means he cannot accurately predict that Rwandans will voluntarily consent to policies. This explains in part his great nervousness about the presence of opposition politician Victoire Ingabire in the country. Kagame needs to eliminate her as a political opponent lest rural and urban ordinary Rwandan vote for her as a vote against Kagame himself.

Second, Kimonyo writes that the RPF has allowed for consensus democracy. This is misleading to the average reader because the RPF has not allowed for any form of plural politics. Instead, Rwandan 'democracy' operates at the behest of President Kagame, and is subject to his personal whims. True political power exists in the hands of a few elite politicians who are loyal to Kagame. He rules with an iron-fist and is allergic to criticism. Political allies and opponents alike, journalist and human rights activists who question or challenge Kagame's rhetoric are dealt with harshly. The most recent example is Godwin Agaba. See also York's article on Didas Gasana and the stresses and strains of independent reporting in contemporary Rwanda.

We also need to hear more about the possible arrests of senior military officers, including General Karenzi Karake, General Nzaramba and Col. Zigira. Kagame is systemically removing any possible, real or perceived, threat to his authoritarian rule. Political opponents continue to be harassed and intimidated. The most recent example is the case of Deogratias Mushayidi who was brought into policy custody on 5 March. As far as I know, he is being detained without charge. This is not, as Kimonyo asserts, the basis for a consensual democracy.

When the RPF government can possibly eliminate political opponents from within its own military and harangue opposition politicians, this sends a message to the population that fear and insecurity is the order of the day. This has been reinforced with recent bombings in Kigali. The available evidence points to the RPF as the organisers of these attacks. Such incidences of insecurity feed into the rhetoric of senior RPF officials and President Kagame himself that the country is not ready for democracy.

Indeed, it may not be. But not because of Rwandans are not ready to engage pluralist politics (evidenced, according to Kimonyo, in mass political violence and genocide when the country seeks democracy) but because elites (whether Hutu or Tutsi) manipulate the local population to engage in violence as the sole option as power politics (and elite claims to political power) shape their everyday lives.