Rwanda's foreign adventures test West's patience
BY EDMUND BLAIR AND JENNY CLOVER
KIGALI Sat Apr 5, 2014 8:25am BST

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame addresses the 68th United Nations
General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, September 25, 2013.
CREDIT: REUTERS/ADAM HUNGER
(Reuters) - Rwandan President Paul Kagame may dress in the sharp suits
of a company CEO, but his language can be more like a drill sergeant
when he grills his cabinet on its performance.
"When you speak I find myself becoming impatient, almost to the point
of being annoyed," the former military intelligence commander publicly
berated a minister last month at an annual meeting of top officials on
modernising the tiny African state.
Western nations offer only modest remonstrations over what they see as
democratic shortcomings in Rwanda, thankful for the oasis of order
that has replaced the genocide they failed to prevent 20 years ago
this month.
But they quietly express concern that Kagame's assertive style at home
is being translated into brazen meddling in a volatile region and
threatening a potential model for Africa.
In 2012, a U.N. report accused Kagame's government of backing a rebel
group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, prompting the West to
halt some aid; economic growth took a hit.
Now Rwanda is blamed for sending hit squads to assassinate opponents
in South Africa, killing one of two alleged targets.
"It seems to me that they are getting less risk averse," said one
senior Western diplomat, who asked not to be named so he could speak
more openly. "The risk they run is sowing the seed for rupture with
the international community."
Rwanda, which insists the government that has reformed the still
aid-dependent economy is democratically accountable, vigorously denies
both accusations of foreign meddling.
Public comments from Kagame and other officials have done little to
change Western views of Rwanda's complicity, but criticism has
remained muted, and more so with the anniversary of the genocide that
Kagame is credited with ending.
"There is an upswing of international guilt about 1994," the diplomat
said. "There is pressure. I don't think it is increasing and this year
there is a dip."
EXILED OPPONENTS
After exiled former spy chief Patrick Karegeya was found dead in a
Johannesburg hotel in January, Kagame said "traitors" should expect
consequences. A Rwandan website quoted Defence Minister James Kabarebe
saying: "When you choose to be a dog, you die like one."
In March, armed men broke into the Johannesburg home of former Rwandan
army chief General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, another exiled critic.
Nyamwasa, who survived an attempt on his life in South Africa in 2010,
was not in his house at the time.
Diplomats and analysts said the killing and attempted assassination in
short succession showed Kagame feared exiled opponents were trying to
unseat him using links inside Rwanda.
"His number one threat is potential military dissidents in his own
party," said central Africa expert Jason Stearns.
South Africa, a regional superpower, expelled three Rwandan diplomats
over the attacks. Kigali, which said South Africa had produced no
evidence, reciprocated by throwing out six.
The U.S. special envoy to the region, Russ Feingold, said in a brief
statement he was "very concerned about the tension", but was
unavailable for further comment when asked by Reuters.
Rwanda lives in an unstable neighbourhood, next to war-ravaged east
Congo and politically troubled Burundi, which endured decades of
ethnic massacres into the 1990s. Nearby are South Sudan and the
Central African Republic, both mired in conflict.
Behind closed doors Western feathers have been ruffled. Diplomats, who
have described Rwanda's foreign policy as "reckless", worry Kigali
could target opponents in exile in Europe or elsewhere, action that
would draw tougher sanction.
"On the security side, there are more and more countries warning them
off," said another diplomat, He said the private U.S. message was:
"Don't do anything like this in the States."
Critics of Western policy say such warnings are too little, too late.
Rwanda is assertive abroad because the West has not reined in the
president's authoritarian ways at home, they say.
"There hasn't been much reaction to things that happened inside
Rwanda," said Filip Reyntjens, a Rwanda expert and professor at the
University of Antwerp, who says he has been banned from travelling to
Kigali. "That emboldened the regime."
HEALING RIFTS
Rwanda dismisses such criticisms. Shyaka Anastase, head of the Rwandan
Governance Board, a state agency that licences political parties and
assesses everything from civil liberties to corruption, said Rwanda's
system was based on consensus.
That helped Kagame win re-election in 2010 with 93 percent of the
vote, he said, while Western critics were too conditioned by their
politics where parties often win just 40 percent.
"We feel there is a lot of unfairness," he told Reuters, adding
Rwanda's system was healing ethnic, religious and regional rifts which
fuelled the ethnic slaughter in 1994 of 800,000 people, mostly
minority Tutsis but also moderates from the Hutu majority.
Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo denied a Rwandan role in the South
Africa cases but, via Twitter, said Pretoria harboured "dissidents
responsible for terrorist attacks in Rwanda".
Rwandan officials have in the past blamed sporadic grenade attacks,
often fatal, in the capital and elsewhere on exiled and other
opponents. One former presidential bodyguard, who lived in Uganda, is
now on trial in Kigali over involvement in such assaults. Exile
opposition deny any role in such attacks.
When asked for further comment on the South Africa attacks, the
president's office again denied any role and said Rwanda "cannot be
expected to mourn the death of someone actively involved in carrying
out violence against innocent citizens".
It added that talk of "extrajudicial assassinations on foreign soil is
both outlandish and false".
Even as diplomats express private frustrations, public Western
criticism is muted, tempered by genocide guilt and Rwanda's role as an
example for Africa on the efficient use of the West's aid.
Achievements are plain to see. Residents describe jumping over corpses
in the capital in 1994 but now few, if any, African cities can rival
the order and tidiness of Kigali, where small groups of women trim
grass verges on the sides of new roads.
Rwanda is pitching to be a regional financial hub, an idea
unimaginable a few years ago, while the World Bank assesses the tiny
nation of 11 million people as the easiest place to do business in
continental Africa. Ranked No. 32 globally, it is above some European
nations such as its former colonial power Belgium.
www.doingbusiness.org/rankings
It still relies heavily on aid for two-fifths of government spending.
When aid flows stopped in 2012, growth in 2013 tumbled sharply to 4.6
percent, down from the 7 to 8 percent it had averaged in previous
years, even though aid resumed in 2013.
POLITICAL CREDENTIALS
Britain's overseas aid department DFID, one of Rwanda's top
benefactors, talks of "impressive and fast-improving public financial
management system" but notes political restrictions.
To burnish Rwanda's political credentials, Anastase's governance board
now produces a scorecard on issues from rule of law to transparency -
ticking boxes that win allies in the West. Rwanda, says one diplomat,
is "obsessed with indicators".
Swayed in part by visible development, the West also worries about
upsetting the fragile balance maintained by Kagame - president since
2003 and power behind the throne since his Rwandan Patriotic Army
marched into Kigali in 1994 to halt the killings that mainly targeted
Kagame's own Tutsi group.
The government wants to bury the idea of ethnic loyalties, saying
everyone is "Rwandese". But tensions sometimes emerge including during
the "I Am Rwandan" campaign that began last year and which urged Hutus
to apologise for the killings.
"It encourages people to feel guilty because of their ethnicity," said
a middle-aged Hutu, asking not to be named and commenting on the
voluntary countrywide meetings. "But what can you do? We still go
along (with the idea)."
Hutus accept their group is to blame for the genocide, but grumble
that Hutus who were also massacred are often ignored.
Such concerns give Western nations pause. "The worry at the back of
Western minds is you end up with an ethnic bloodbath," said the senior
diplomat. "That is why people in the West are prepared to put up with
the political situation as it is."
Some politicians now talk of changing the constitution to allow Kagame
stand for a third term in 2017. The West murmurs disapproval, while
opponents in Rwanda struggle to be heard.
"We do not have a personal problem with the president but we would not
wish that the constitution is changed," said Frank Habineza, head of
the Democratic Green Party, which registered last year and is the only
party not aligned with the government.
"Kagame is not naturally a democrat," said a regional Western
diplomat. "We just wish he was embracing a little bit more of the
concepts of democracy."
(Writing by Edmund Blair; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
http://www.google.ca/gwt/x?gl=CA&hl=en-CA&u=http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/05/uk-rwanda-politics-idUKBREA3406O20140405&q=Rwanda's+foreign+adventures+test+West's+patience&sa=X&ei=-QtAU4-2IKif7AbO1IGQDQ&ved=0CB0QFjAB
--
SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
Google+: https://plus.google.com/110493390983174363421/posts
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9B4024D0AE764F3D
http://www.youtube.com/user/sibomanaxyz999
***Online Time:15H30-20H30, heure de Montréal.***Fuseau horaire
domestique: heure normale de la côte Est des Etats-Unis et Canada
(GMT-05:00)***
| Reply via web post | Reply to sender | Reply to group | Start a New Topic | Messages in this topic (1) |
.To post a message: RwandaLibre@yahoogroups.com; .To join: RwandaLibre-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; .To unsubscribe from this group,send an email to:
RwandaLibre-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
_____________________________________________________
More news: http://www.amakurunamateka.com ; http://www.ikangurambaga.com ; http://rwandalibre.blogspot.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-SVP, considérer environnement avant toute impression de cet e-mail ou les pièces jointes.
======
-Please consider the environment before printing this email or any attachments.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsors:
http://www.afriqueintimites.com; http://www.afriqueintimites.com;
http://www.eyumbina.com/; http://www.foraha.net/
-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.