Kagame has personalized Rwanda

By Expression Today
23.06.10

On the face of it, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda is the most media-friendly head of state in East Africa. He holds press conferences in Kigali and has no problem calling reporters to express his views. Mr. Kagame has spoken to many journalists, the latest being Daniel Kalinaki, Managing Editor of The Monitor newspaper of Uganda, whom the president granted a wide-ranging exclusive interview in May. Presidents Mwai Kibaki (Kenya), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania) and Pierre Nkurunziza (Burundi) can claim no such record of openness with the media.

But as we report extensively in this issue, President Kagame’s seeming friendliness to the media is merely a clever ploy. He is playing to the gallery. While there is no doubt that Mr. Kagame has presided over a remarkable recovery of Rwanda from the ravages of genocide 16 years ago, and that Rwanda has needed a firm hand to restore order and peace, the president has in the process personalized the state. Mr. Kagame wants to be seen as an open-minded and progressive leader, but he is actually covering up serious democracy and governance issues. Only he or his henchmen and women should speak for Rwanda and anyone who contradicts his view of things is an enemy of the state.

While the president shrewdly uses the media to sell his story, Rwanda is the only member of the East African Community where journalists and other government critics have fled into exile after what they thought were credible threats to their lives or persecution by agents of the state.

Indeed international media freedom monitors have expressed their disapproval of Rwanda’s suppression of free speech, with Reporters Without Borders listing Kagame among the world’s media “predators.” A controversial media law that limits media freedom has become the bane of free speech, besides an overzealous statutory regulatory organ, the Media High Council, that is daily conceiving new strictures to suffocate the alternative media after starving them of government information and advertising. Because major businesses in Rwanda are owned by or associated with the Rwanda Patriotic Front regime, it is impossible for media investments to establish if they are seen to be opposed to Mr. Kagame’s administration. Some media owners have buckled under this pressure and tweaked their editorial line appropriately to curry favour with the government.

President Kagame’s word is more or less law in Kigali. In April, two vocal tabloids were suspended for six months by the Media High Council just hours after the president severely castigated them. The Council is supposed to be an independent body, yet it has been turned into a kangaroo court that ensures journalists and media houses that are critical of Mr. Kagame are reigned in or completely put out of business with endless operational requirements.

The Council has just issued another raft of stringent regulations that make Rwanda the most difficult place to practice journalism in East Africa. The cost of a press card has gone up from RwFr 300 to 7000! Applicants have also to get expensive and lengthy clearance from various government agencies, including a clean record of criminality. The target is obvious — the critical publishers — who have already faced a slew of criminal offences. Moreover, those conditions for publishing and practicing journalism are not applied to other businesses or professions, so why the discrimination?

The new regulations follow an earlier order requiring media houses to register afresh with the state.

All this is happening as the country gears up for elections in August. The restrictions compliment an ongoing crackdown on dissent to smooth the way for Mr. Kagame’s resounding re-election, which will give him another seven years in office. Although he has said he intends to retire thereafter, it is not unlikely that Mr. Kagame would orchestrate constitutional changes to gun for another term in 2017.

Disturbingly, all these things are happening in Rwanda while the East African Community watches in silence. Media organizations in the region are not spotlighting Mr. Kagame’s excesses and are only too happy to provide him with forums to toot his achievements. Even when former allies fall out and flee into exile, when the media are shut down and editors flee into exile, the East African media do not see anything wrong. When will they begin to look past Mr. Kagame’s polished eloquence to see the perilous state of fundamental rights and freedoms in Rwanda?

The time to speak out is now.