August 12, 2010
In addition, Rwanda has been at the receiving end of military support in terms of equipment, training and intelligence skills from the US. Kagame has also been promised a $431M Global Fund package this year (more than any other African country). However, with Rwanda’s ever-increasing human rights violations that reached unprecedented levels as the country gears up for presidential elections this month, the US policy on Rwanda has come under attack by international rights organisations, US Senators and other leading global personalities.
Last week, African Faith and Justice Network (AFJN), an international NGO that advocates for justice on the African continent, criticised US’s ever-increasing support to Kagame’s regime.
“Violence, imprisonment, intimidation, killing, assassination plots within Rwanda and across Africa and Europe, have been the methods used by the regime in Kigali to deal with those with a different opinion on Rwandan politics. Accusation of genocide, genocide ideology, incitement to genocide and divisionism are common charges against the opposition,’ the NGO states.”
Sanctions
John Karuranga, a Rwandan politician based in London, UK, chipped in asking the US and UK to slap sanctions on Kagame. In an open letter to President Obama and UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, Karuranga wrote: “We are very concerned that your governments have continued to support the ruthless Kagame regime even as the list of his crimes grows. The opposition politician warned of another bloodhed in Rwanda before adding; "Please help us stop this possibility by ending uncritical support to a brutal dictatorship whose violent actions are getting worse every day.”
Such voices of discontent towards the US policy to Rwanda, mainly from the opposition, international media and human rights watchdog groups, come at a time when the Kigali regime has dominated news pages all over the world, for mainly the wrong reasons.
These include attacks on the opposition and journalists over the last seven months, culminating in the murder of a leading opposition leader, Andre Rwisereka and independent journalist, Leonard Rugambage. Others include blocking opposition parties from participating in the presidential elections slated for August 9, and persistent attacks on their members.
‘Don’t recognize elections’
After, what human rights activists see as persistent violations, calls to halt the attacks and reverse the situation have intensified, with AFJN asking US President Barack Obama on August 3 in Washington, not to recognize the forthcoming Rwandan elections ‘due to the lack of respect for human and political rights as evidenced by the incidents that have occurred in the run to the elections’.
Re-enacting Liberian ‘Cold War’ policy
Meanwhile, there is also growing rage against the US policy inside Rwanda. Officials and members of PS-Imberakuri marched to the US Embassy premises in Kigali on June 24 to protest against the Electoral Commission’s lack of independence.
In characteristic show of intolerance by police, Ntaganda, the party Spokesman Sylivian Mwizerwa and other peaceful protestors were reportedly arrested and tortured, scaring most other members into silence.
But one of them, who preferred anonymity citing the hostile environment in Kigali, likened the US policy toward Rwanda to that carried out in Liberia about two decades ago.
“It’s the same as what we saw in Liberia when they supported Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor,” he said. According to analysts Liberia, which endured years of turmoil, serves as a case-study of how the US policy in Africa has supported dictatorships. They argue that in Rwanda, like in Liberia earlier, calls for a halt to US’ kid gloves approach towards repression, anarchy and instability are unheeded while people continue dying, killed by a regime funded by the US in millions of dollars.
US Congressman Donald M. Payne, an ardent follower of African affairs says that much as there is a shift in the US approach, mostly practiced during the Cold War era, its consequences are retrogressive and continue hanging over the African continent, with dire consequences for the common man in Africa.
“The U.S. has moved away from a policy in Africa hinged on containing the Soviet sphere of influence during the Cold War, a policy which too often led to U.S. support for dictatorial regimes on the continent with disastrous results which are still felt today,” Payne, said. But, AFJN, is not convinced that there has been much change. FDU-Inkingi President, Victoire Ingabire, also believes, the policy is still more or less the same in reference to Rwanda’s case as she elaborates that the US has kept aloof in regard to the Rwandan deteriorating situation. “Those working in Rwanda are like Ambassadors of Kagame, not Washington,” she said an interview with The Newsline. Interestingly, her statement was echoed by an African diplomat serving in Rwanda, who also doubted the sincerity of the US’ approach towards the situation in Rwanda.
“While holding discussions (diplomatic), sometimes, we wonder whether the US Ambassador in Kigali represents Washington or Kagame,” the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Interests, strongmen
There is also of course, the case of ‘guilt-ridden policies’ from the donor community in Rwanda, with US leading a host of big nations. And through this the Kigali regime easily ‘blackmails’ them about their silence and passiveness when genocide against the Tutsi was underway in 1994, claiming nearly a million Tutsis. However, both analysts and critics of the US policy believe, there is something more than what meets the eye.
“Rwanda has its soldiers in Darfur, in a peace keeping mission funded by the US. Such missions form part of the interests that the US has in Rwanda. However, I also think, it’s about the broader view of the US getting Rwanda under Kagame and the RPF as an English-speaking ally, as opposed to its French orientation before 1994,” a political analyst in the region told The Newsline.
Also, Rwanda’s mineral spectre is of concern to analysts.
‘Rwanda has no gold and oil, though but it has in the past been reported as a major exporter of some precious minerals, allegedly stolen from Congo (DRC), mainly to the US markets,” one analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
“Further, the silent war on terrorism which to some (people) has replaced the Cold War against Communism, is also one area in which the US needs allies like Kagame in the region,” he added.
And, linking the Congo (DRC) minerals to US support for ‘African strongmen’, Maurice Carney,Friends of Congo, said: “The U.S. policy has been to support strongmen. And at the head of the class is Paul Kagame, who has received military support, weapons, training and intelligence and as a result has been able to invade Rwanda’s neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and sustain proxy militia fighting there to rob the Congolese people of their natural resources. He has contributed to the death of over 6 million people in Congo and to the destabilization of Africa’s whole Great Lakes region.”
Carney’s’ organization joined others in Washington on August 3, to request Obama not to recognize Rwanda’s elections.
Several other countries in the West like Britain, The Netherlands and Belgium have also been criticised for their approach towards the repression and anarchy by the regime in Kigali. The former is by far Rwanda’s largest bilateral donor giving around £380m since the genocide in 1994, while the latter two also contribute huge sums of money to Rwanda’s national budget and humanitarian aid.
US officials are well aware of the current situation in Rwanda. On the website of the US Embassy in Kigali, the 2009 human rights report details a catalogue of violations including attacks on the opposition, crackdown on the media amongothers in Rwanda. And in Washington, some are equally critical of the super power’s policy toward Rwanda,“We fail to be true friends to the Rwandan people if we do not stand with them in the fight against renewed abuse of civil and political rights. In the next few months in the run-up to the elections, it is a key time for international donors to raise these issues with Kigali”, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, said early March.
But, in what many believe was a mixed reaction, on June 14, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, stood by the US official view of Rwanda as a success story.
“We really don’t want to see Rwanda undermine its own remarkable progress by beginning to move away from a lot of the very positive actions that undergirded its development so effectively. We still are very, very supportive of Rwanda. The kind of development that has taken place in Rwanda is really a model in many respects for the rest of the continent. But we are concerned by some of the recent actions and we would like to see steps taken to reverse those actions,” Clinton said.
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