Rwanda's Paul Kagame, the Reformer Despot Who Saved a Nation
Deep contradictions in leader who led Rwanda out of genocide
Kevin Knodell & Peter Dörrie in War is Boring
The president of Rwanda is either a nation-saving reformer or a despot
in disguise--or both. But figuring that out is your problem.
Because Paul Kagame doesn't give a shit what you think of him. Twenty
years ago, hundreds of thousands of his people died in one of
history's worst atrocities.
"Twenty years is short or long depending on where you stand but there
is no justification for false moral equivalence," Kagame said during
the April commemoration of the Rwanda Genocide. "The passage of time
should not obscure the facts, lessen responsibility or turn victims
into villains."
Many regard Kagame as one of the 20th century's most effective
military leaders, a commander who marched his troops on Kigali and
ended a massacre. As Rwanda's president, he rules over one of Africa's
political powerhouses, a model of effective reconciliation and
reconstruction.
Kagame is hugely popular in Rwanda.
But there is another side to Kagame and Rwanda. The country has
supported violent militias in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo
and restricted its own media. It's likely that Kagame has ordered the
assassinations of political opponents and exiles around the globe.
When Western critics speak out against Kagame, he retorts that he will
not be lectured by the same people who stood by as genocide washed
Rwanda in blood.
How does one reconcile the man who has brought peace and prosperity to
Rwanda with the man who sends assassins to kill his critics, many of
them former friends and colleagues?
Paul Kagame is, if nothing else, a complex man.
Rwandan Patriotic Front soldiers with a U.N. peacekeeper. U.N. photo
Lifetime of war
In an interview with War is Boring several years ago, Kagame said that
one of his first memories was watching his village burn as his mother
carried him out of Rwanda and into a refugee camp in neighboring
Uganda. The expulsion of Kagame's family was part of several waves of
ethnic violence, mostly by the Hutu majority against the Tutsi
minority.
Hutu and Tutsi originally weren't so much ethnic groups as different
social classes. In pre-colonial Rwanda, the Tutsi were broadly
comparable to Europe's medieval aristocracy, their wealth and
political power deriving from their large holdings of cattle.
Even today, cattle ownership is an important symbol of wealth. As a
farmer you were automatically a Hutu, but there was always the
possibility to climb the social ladder by amassing wealth and
political power.
The arrival of European colonizers overturned this feudal social
structure. Blinded by their racist ideology, first the Germans then
the Belgians refused to acknowledge the presence of a complex and
efficient socio-political system in Rwanda.
They interpreted the Hutu-Tutsi divide as being purely ethnic, with
the minority Tutsi being naturally predisposed to ruling the majority
Hutu, according to the colonizers.
As in many other places around Africa, the colonial masters ruled
Rwanda by proxy, lending their support to Tutsi. This sowed the seeds
of resentment that would bloom into genocide.
Tutsi had access to a superior education system and it's therefore no
surprise that it was mostly Tutsi intellectuals who pushed for
independence in the 1950s and '60s.
Angered by this perceived betrayal but no longer capable of resisting
the call for self-determination, the Belgians granted independence but
with a twist. They gave power not to the Tutsi elite, but to the Hutu
majority--and without doing anything to ensure that this sudden change
of leadership would be peacefully.
The policy shapes Rwanda to this day. Suddenly in power after decades
of being disenfranchised, Hutus droves tens of thousands of Tutsi,
among them young Paul Kagame, into refugee camps in neighboring
countries.
Marginalized and unable to return home, many young Tutsi grew
frustrated. Kagame and many others from the camps joined the Ugandan
National Resistance Movement rebel group, led by Yoweri Museveni. The
rebels toppled the Ugandan government in 1986.
Kagame quickly rose through the ranks, soon becoming head of the
Ugandan military intelligence. Museveni rewarded his Rwandan followers
by allowing them to establish their own rebel group on Ugandan soil to
wage war against the Hutu regime in Rwanda.
In 1990, while Kagame was in the U.S. attending military training
courses, his rebel group the Rwandan Patriotic Front launched its
assault against Rwanda, sparking a civil war. Initially unsuccessful,
the RPF made gains once Kagame took over command.
It was during this time that Kagame gained his reputation as one the
greatest military commanders of our time.
The RPF's military successes forced the government into peace talks
and a power-sharing agreement. But for the hard core of the Hutu
extremists, this was unacceptable. On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying
Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down while approaching
Kigali airport.
To this day, it's unclear who was responsible for the attack, but
evidence points to elements of the Rwandan army and politicians
associated with Habyarimana's own wife.
The Rwandan army and Hutu militias used the president's death as a
pretext to set up roadblocks and start targeting Tutsis and moderate
Hutus. Thus, the Rwandan genocide began.
More than 800,000 people in just 100 days. The world did worse than
nothing. When Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian officer in charge of
peacekeeping forces in the country, asked for reinforcements, the U.N.
instead withdrew many of his troops.
Dallaire and a cadre of a few hundred peacekeepers refused to
leave--and remained behind to protect refugee sites. They saved
thousands but were powerless to actually end the violence.
It fell to Kagame and the RPF to end the genocide. With practically no
outside help save for that of Uganda, Kagame's forces dealt a decisive
blow to the Rwandan government. As RPF soldiers marched into Kigali,
the war came to an end.
With the country in ruins and thousands of Tutsis dead, observers
expected Kagame and the RPF to exact revenge on the Hutus. And in some
cases, RPF troops did exactly that. But reprisals were rare. Kagame
wanted the war to end once and for all. That meant finding a way to
live together.
Kagame talks to a class at Harvard about Rwanda's economy. Rwandan
government photo
Rwanda's rebirth
After the war, Kagame assumed the role of statesmen, first serving as
vice president before being elected president in 2001.
Although the government prosecuted top war criminals like Col.
Theoneste Bagasora, forgiveness was the main policy. Many Hutu's
remain in prominent positions of authority throughout the country in
both the private and public sector.
The government has banned the terms "Hutu" and "Tutsi" in an attempt
to spread a post-racial ideology.
A huge challenge has been the sheer number of perpetrators. By 2000,
about 120,000 alleged genocidaires were still in prison in Rwanda,
completely overwhelming the judicial system. Inspired by traditional
forms of arbitration, the Rwandan government introduced local Gacaca
courts.
Chaired by the villagers themselves, these courts offered forgiveness
to perpetrators who faced their victims. The Gacaca named other
perpetrators, located mass graves and documented acts of violence.
Critics claimed the Gacaca court system "enforced" forgiveness by
pressuring victims to absolve perpetrators if the perps confess their
crimes. At the same time, the system encouraged suspects to confess to
crimes they may not have committed in order to avoid prison.
Gacaca courts didn't offer legal counsel, making them incompatible
with Western judicial standards. The Gacaca courts may not have been
perfect, but they were probably the best solution available to Rwanda
at the time.
The Rwandan education system has also played an important role in
reconciliation, encouraging integration of pupils from all
backgrounds. It's illegal to distinguish between Hutu and Tutsi
students. Education reform has been one of Rwanda's crowning
achievements. The country boasts Africa's highest primary-school
enrollment rates--97 percent.
As a class, women too have benefited from Kagame's reforms. Women
arguably suffered the most during the genocide. Today they play an
instrumental role in reconciliation, business and politics.
"Gender equality in every sector is not a favor, it is your right,"
Kagame told a group of Rwandan women in a speech last July. Today
women hold 51 out 80 seats in the nation's parliament--the greatest
proportion of women representatives of any country in the world.
Kagame and the RPF have overseen incredible economic growth. Reforms
made it incredibly easy to start businesses. As Rwanda is land-locked
and lacks abundant of mineral resources, the government has pushed for
the country to become Central Africa's services and IT-hub.
It didn't hurt that Kigali received huge sums of cash from foreign
governments trying to make amends for not intervening in the genocide.
For years, Rwanda posted eight percent GDP growth, easily
outperforming the world average as well as other developing countries.
In recent years, the Rwandan army has played a huge role in regional
peacekeeping and security. In no small part spurred by their own
experiences, Rwandan troops are often among the first to intervene in
mass killings in nearby countries.
They were among the first troops to go to Darfur, initially with the
African Union mission then as members of the A.U.-U.N. mission.
Rwandan troops protected refugee camps, kept tabs on Sudanese troop
movements, patrolled for bandits and militia and escorted aid convoys.
Seventeen Rwandan soldiers have died in Darfur.
Rwandans also deployed to South Sudan and Central African Republic. In
South Sudan, Rwandan troops have helped protect internally displaced
civilians, maintained camp security and have escorted civilians to
safety through hostile areas.
In the Central African Republic, where the international response has
been indecisive and uncoordinated, Rwandan soldiers with the African
Union force have been singled out for praise. But they're also spread
thin. It's obvious that many of the other A.U. troops are struggling
to keep pace with the Rwandans.
Kagame at an African Union meeting on the security situation in
Democratic Republic of Congo. U.N. photo
Dark side
But beware the overblown celebration of Rwanda's post-genocide
renaissance. Kigali has received more development aid than other
countries, giving it a development edge. Its economy has also profited
enormously from the spoils of Rwanda's involvement in the Congo Wars.
And while the government has generally been a champion of economic
freedom and open corruption is rare, many of the larger businesses are
directly or indirectly controlled by the military and political
establishment. World bodies still consider Rwanda a developing
economy--and rightly so.
Rwanda's international engagement and Kagame's personal political
success have come at a cost. While many people are better off
economically than before the genocide and everyday life in Rwanda is
orderly and secure, these achievements have occurred within a
burgeoning police state.
In Kagame's Rwanda, the government tightly controls public life. Local
media is either directly owned by the government or toes the RPF party
line and the reach and prowess of the intelligence services is
legendary.
In 2011, the country's police commissioner told War is Boring that if
something as small as a laptop were stolen from a Western
visitor--itself unlikel y--the security services would be able to return
the item within days. The security services have made the protection
of visitors one of their top priorities and have established an
intricate system of snitches and spies.
Far from being benign, Rwandan leaders employ this system to undermine
any sign of organized political opposition. While rival parties to the
governing RPF do exist, they almost unanimously supported Kagame in
his latest bid for re-election, which he won by over 90 percent of the
vote.
While the professionalism of Rwanda's army makes it a prime candidate
for peace missions, there's also a sinister edge to it. Rwanda has
twice invaded its western neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The first conflict in 1996 was triggered by the presence of
genocidaires in refugee camps across the Congolese border.
Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko supported these armed groups.
Again the international community proved unable or unwilling to help,
and Rwanda took matters into its own hands.
The intervention may have been justified, but this doesn't change the
brutality of the Rwandan attack. Rwandan soldiers and their local
allies overran refugee camps, killing thousands. The offensive
culminated in the march on Congo's capital Kinshasa, hundreds of miles
from the Rwandan border.
Rwanda succeeded in ousting Mobutu and installing its allies, but the
arrangement didn't last.
Fighting flared again in 1998 and this time it drew in the whole
region. The second Congo War involved 12 armies and a plethora of
local armed groups. Including deaths caused by starvation and illness,
the two wars are thought to have killed more than five million people,
making them the deadliest conflicts since World War II.
Rwanda, like other factions, profited immensely from the mineral
riches of the territory it controlled, laying the foundations of a
network of economic interests that remains in place today. The second
Congo War officially ended in 2003 with the Sun City peace treaty, but
Kigali wasn't ready to give up its foothold in the eastern part of the
DRC.
Remnants of the Genocidaires were still present in the Congo and they
still posed a limited military threat to the RPF and Rwanda in
general. But economic reasons were important, as well. Rwanda relied
heavily on its profits from the Congolese mining sector.
To secure its interest, Rwanda backed a succession of Tutsi-dominated
armed groups in eastern Congo. While the Rwandan army officially
withdrew, Kagame consistently held a knife to the throat of the
Congolese government by financing and arming the military opposition
in the impoverished country.
As a result, the violence of the second Congo War has dragged on until
this day, leaving eastern Congo in a state of perpetual low-intensity
conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
In February 2008, a Spanish court issued an arrest warrant for Rwandan
Lt. Gen. Emmanuel Karenzi Karake, then serving as the deputy commander
of peacekeeping force protecting civilians in Darfur.
Karake, a former intelligence chief, has been implicated in a series
of assassinations and other crimes, including civilian deaths in the
bloody battle for the Congolese town of Kisangani in 2000. When Kagame
threatened to withhold support for the Darfur mission, Karake was
allowed to stay.
Then in 2010, Kagame announced a shakeup of military leadership.
Rwandan authorities arrested Karake for "immoral behavior." Former air
force chief and civil war hero Charles Muhire was also arrested and
charged with corruption.
The arrests shocked colleagues. Some Rwandans have alleged that it was
disagreements with Kagame, not the generals' corruption, that
motivated the arrests. In recent years, Kagame has shown a ruthless
impatience with dissent.
Regime critics and and opposition politicians have a nasty habit of
getting violently killed. Human rights organizations have detailed at
least six successful and attempted assassinations of opposition
members over the last years, not counting targeted killings of leaders
of armed groups hostile to Kagame's government.
And while the government officially denies having any hand in the
murders, Kagame himself has frequently proclaimed sympathy for the
killings. The South African and British government have found proof
that Rwandan diplomats were involved in organizing hit squads.
These transgressions have not gone completely unnoticed. Some American
politicians have voiced displeasure at Kagame's antics. But for now
the West, and much of Africa, seems willing to look the other way.
Many still view Kagame as a forward-thinking reformer and crusader
against corruption--as Africa's rising star.
His efforts to end ethnic strife in his homeland and improve life for
women are real enough. And compared to some other African leaders, his
indiscretions seem miniscule.
And Rwanda's willingness to step up militarily, particularly in places
like Sudan and CAR where Western nations would rather not risk lives,
has made Kagame an indispensable partner.
So who is Paul Kagame? A soldier? A statesmen? A reformer? A tyrant? A hero?
Maybe all of the above.
Peter Dörrie is a freelance journalist and writes about security and
resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on twitter at
@peterdoerrie. Kevin Knodell is a freelance writer and
photojournalist. He writes about war, history and comics. You can
follow him on twitter at @KJKnodell. Sign up for a daily War is Boring
email update here. Subscribe to WIB's RSS feed here and follow the
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