Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2014 19:01:35 +0200
Twenty years on: the enduring paradox of Rwanda
* Kim Harrisberg
* Africa <http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/section/africa/>
* 06 Apr 2014 09:54 (South Africa)
On this date, twenty years ago, the Rwandan Hutu militia were taking to the
streets to murder, rape and torture their fellow Rwandans. 7 April is the
official beginning of what would become known to the world as the Rwandan
genocide, where mass murders resulted in an estimated 800,000 deaths in 100
days, mainly carried out by Hutus against Tutsis.
I spent a month writing for a Rwandan government newspaper last December.
This was a strange place to be in a country where media freedom is
increasingly considered a rarity. I learnt about both the tumultuous history
of the country, as well as the contentious politics that have both aided and
stifled the country’s development.
Twenty days before South Africans would line the streets to vote in the
country’s first democratic elections, the streets of Rwanda were being lined
with bodies. American journalist Philip Gourevitch wrote about the “selling
of cabbages”, which was the term used for the selling of Tutsi’s heads on
the side of the road. They went for the equivalent of R0.80 in today’s
currency.
It was the vicious climax of years of colonial indoctrination, tribal
prejudice, poverty, corruption, nepotism and desperation.
That 1994 genocide was actually the second major bloodletting in Rwanda. The
first one took place in 1959, referred to by some as the first genocide. It
took place after years of both German and Belgium favouritism towards the
minority Tutsi elite, whom they believed to be superior due to their fairer
complexion and stereotypically slender noses and faces.
Much like the dompas during apartheid, the Tutsi, Hutu and the Twa, a
minority indigenous group, were forced to carry identification to further
entrench the hierarchy between the different tribes.
The Hutu rebellion in 1959 meant that hundreds of thousands of Tutsis fled
to neighbouring countries, predominantly Uganda. Amongst those fleeing was
the family of current Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, who would later lead
the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) back across the border to save the
remaining Tutsis from complete annihilation by the Hutu militia in 1994.
Kagame is both president and saviour to genocide survivors and returning
Rwandan refugees. He is the one who ended the bloodbath that the
international community both misunderstood and neglected. From conversations
I shared with colleagues and friends in Kigali, it is this indebtedness to
Kagame that inhibits objective criticism of his party’s failures.
It took the 2004 Hollywood film
<http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-04-06-twenty-years-on-the-endur
ing-paradox-of-rwanda/>
HotelHotelhttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png
Rwanda to bring the genocide to the public eye ten years later, and despite
contested factual mishaps, this film left an after-image of flying machetes
and screaming children.
But when I arrived in Kigali last December I was met with tall buildings,
impeccably clean streets, punctual public transport and roads so safe that a
young girl could walk them alone late into the night. I had been expecting
hot, chaotic, quintessential African mayhem. What I found was cool, orderly,
and peaceful.
On paper, Rwanda is an African success story, a benchmark to the outside
world when it comes to economic development, anti-corruption, education,
social welfare and conflict resolution.
Rwandans and the international world speak proudly of the ‘Gacaca’ courts
set up to accommodate the large number of genocide perpetrators awaiting
trial. These courts are based on traditional village courts and have acted
as transitional, participatory justice systems towards reconciliation in the
country.
It has the
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/26/AR200810260
2197.html> highest ratio of female ministers in government in the world and
it is one of the few countries expected to achieve almost all of the
<http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/successstories.shtml> 2015 Millenium
Development Goals.
>From an economic angle, Rwanda
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2014/apr/03/rwanda-g
enocide-growth-political-repression-data> boasts an annual economic growth
of 8% since 2000, with a growing GDP that has only improved since 1994. In
2012, GDP per capita was said to be at almost $1, 170.
Rwanda has also pioneered revolutionary social practises, such as the
‘Umuganda’: a mandatory community service, on the last Saturday of every
month, where everyone is expected to help out by cutting grass, repairing
buildings and sweeping the roads.
However, scratching beneath the surface reveals that there is more to Rwanda
than a growing capital city, clean streets and an egalitarian government.
In Kigali, suburban mansions exist across the road from mud houses with
straw roofs. Supermarkets stock a mixture of basic local products or
expensive imported goods. The signs of humanitarian organisations line the
roads like street lamps. There are no beggars on the streets, but that’s
only because they’ve been shipped off to islands on Lake Kivu (or so the
rumours go). There is also very little media freedom and an omnipresent
feeling of fear among many people.
I was in Rwanda during an interesting time for South Africans. Patrick
Karageya, Kagame’s former head of intelligence chief-turned-critic, was
found murdered in a room in Sandton’s Michelangelo hotel after fleeing to
South Africa for political asylum. Karageya’s story only made it on to page
8 of the newspaper for which I was writing, and consisted of a
<http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-04-06-twenty-years-on-the-endur
ing-paradox-of-rwanda/>
singlesinglehttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png
paragraph with no mention of possible ties to the Rwandan government. And
why would it, being a government paper and all. (This was despite anyone at
the newspaper ever admitting to being even remotely affiliated to the
government).
Karageya was said to be working closely with Kayumba Nyamwasa, a Rwandan who
had once held Karageya’s former position as head of intelligence. Nyamwasa
had fled to South Africa in 2010, and escaped two attempted murders, one
involving a bullet to his stomach.
These events were reported in Rwanda by a local journalist
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10413793> Jean-Léonard Rugambage, who was found
murdered soon after in Kigali.
The assassination attempts
<http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-04-06-twenty-years-on-the-endur
ing-paradox-of-rwanda/#.U0Bw2_mSySo> caused great tension between the two
countries. The final straw was an alleged attack on a safe house in
Johannesburg by Rwandan diplomats; the three accused diplomats were expelled
from South Africa, and Rwanda expelled six South African diplomats in
retaliation.
These contradictions – the economic development coupled with political
repression, the peaceful streets of Kigali contrasted against the violence
employed by the Rwandan government abroad – illustrate the paradoxes of
modern-day Rwanda.
I have heard Kagame being called a “benevolent dictator” whose heavy hand
exudes the type of “tough love” unruly children sometimes need from parents
in order to mature. A visit to the genocide memorial may almost convince one
of this. But when will this ‘heavy hand’ end, if at all?
My short time spent in Rwanda left me feeling both impressed with how far
the country has progressed and afraid of where it is potentially going. My
own dichotomous perceptions pale in comparison to the mixed emotions of
loyalty and anxiety felt by those who call this place home.
Perhaps the best tribute to the victims of the futile and ruthless murders
twenty years before would be the surety that no further subjugation will
take place on Rwandan soil again, in any shape or form. And if this cannot
be achieved, then speaking honestly and openly about both the successes,
failures and ominous threats faced by this resilient African country is the
next best step. DM
(image/png attachment: image001.png)