[dehai-news] Foreignpolicy.com: Our Man in Kigali

From: Berhane Habtemariam <Berhane.Habtemariam_at_gmx.de_at_dehai.org>
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 14:24:23 +0200

 <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/03/our_man_in_kigali> Our
Man in Kigali


For years, Rwanda's budding dictator, Paul Kagame, has gotten away with
murder, while winning praise (and billions of dollars) from the West. But is
the blind support for this strongman finally drying up?


BY ANJAN SUNDARAM | AUGUST 7, 2012


KIGALI, Rwanda - Despite years of credible accusations of repression and war
crimes leveled at Rwanda, both within the country and abroad, the United
States, Britain, and a host of Western governments have consistently looked
the other way, showering this tiny central African country with aid, touting
it as a paragon of post-conflict reform, and protecting it staunchly against
criticism. The accusations have included killing tens of thousands of people
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, supporting violent rebellions in
that country, illegally controlling Congo's lucrative mineral trade, and
running an authoritarian regime that severely represses political opponents,
journalists, and citizens in its own country.

But this summer, after a U.N. Group of Experts report
<http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/26/exclusive_un_panel_says
_rwanda_behind_congolese_mutiny> accused Rwanda of aiding a Congolese rebel
group, many of these same donors -- almost inexplicably, given the gravity
of the accusations they were willing to overlook in the past -- have
suddenly
<http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/25/has_rwanda_s_paul_kagam
e_lost_his_american_protector> begun to ask tough questions of Rwanda's
president, Paul Kagame. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iQYB7fc08PEySuI2q399EQlP
9ZWg?docId=CNG.9945fb93033ef5c0f101f42ee8c074af.1e1> said, "We have deep
concerns about Rwanda's support to the Congolese rebel group that goes by
the name M23." A number of countries have gone as far as suspending aid to
Rwanda, which, until recently, was a darling of the international
development community.

The development community is heavily invested in Rwanda's success,
<http://www.oecd.org/dac/aidstatistics/1878421.gif> providing over $1
billion annually in development assistance to this small country of 10
million people. To many, the country incarnates the hope that Africa will
rise from its poverty. The government has
<http://www.minecofin.gov.rw/library/gce/MacroeconomicVariablesPublicDataset
062812.xlsx> reported an average 8.2 percent annual GDP growth rate over the
last five years, even in the midst of the global financial crisis, and
<http://www.statistics.gov.rw/survey/integrated-household-living-conditions-
survey-eicv> claims to have lifted 1 million people out of poverty during
the same period. The World Bank unequivocally
<http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/RWANDAEXTN/0,,
menuPK:368660%7EpagePK:141159%7EpiPK:141110%7EtheSitePK:368651,00.html>
praises its progress on development. And Kagame -- along with Western
governments -- has promoted a narrative of a country rising spectacularly
from a horrific genocide in 1994, a shining example that foreign aid, if
well managed, can indeed give poor countries a leg up.

But Kagame, who relies on Western aid for about half of his country's
budget, has reason now to be alarmed. For weeks, his government has fended
off the damning accusations, not wavering from its usual strategy of
forcefully denying all criticism and claiming the evidence has been
fabricated. Rwanda generally argues that the crimes it is accused of would
be against its interests -- for instance, that a war on its border would
hurt its own economic growth and development. But the old arguments seem to
be no longer working for Kagame. While Western donors in the past seemed
content to give the president the benefit of the doubt, it appears now that
his staunchest friends no longer believe his repeated denials.

Kagame lashed out in late July,
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19010495> dismissing America's aid
cut as stemming from ignorance and
<http://www.africanliberty.org/content/rwanda-president-kagame-lashes-out-we
st-after-aid-cut> saying the international community -- once his unwavering
ally -- has "twisted everything" and is not listening to him.

The U.S. government, Rwanda's staunchest ally and largest donor, began its
surprising about-face with a July 22 announcement that it was
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jpCoMn2RZcUZKiWfXyjlLpOM
dEWQ?docId=CNG.2ba0cfd31856f1fdefa2f2e345789d93.851> suspending military aid
to Rwanda. The amount of aid cut was minuscule -- only $200,000 -- and is
unlikely to apply to the full extent of U.S. military support to Rwanda,
which includes training Kagame's son at the West Point military academy, but
analysts saw the announcement as deeply symbolic.

Obama's ambassador at large for war crimes, Stephen Rapp, then issued an
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/25/rwanda-paul-kagame-war-crimes>
astounding warning, reported on July 25 by Britain's Guardian newspaper,
that Kagame could be charged with war crimes for "aiding and abetting"
crimes against humanity in a neighboring country. The Dutch government
followed by
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5irXQJFkRUGnkDmvNQ8gmtHpy
PJdQ?docId=CNG.dbacd35b5162729fa3f62e1dbda6526d.7d1> suspending aid to
Rwanda. Britain -- one of Rwanda's largest donors and strongest allies,
which had facilitated the country's entry to the Commonwealth --
<http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501710_162-57482411/dutch-british-suspend-some-
aid-to-rwanda/> did the same.
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/07/20127281579389961.html>
Germany also held back payments, with Development Minister Dirk Niebel
<http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16129347,00.html> saying, "The suspension of
aid is an unmistakable signal to the Rwandan government." Even the African
Development Bank -- usually apolitical, and headed by a Rwandan, Donald
Kaberuka, who is sometimes mentioned as Kagame's successor (the president,
who has run Rwanda for almost two decades, insists he will step down in
2017) -- has been forced by its Scandinavian board members and India to
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d139394-d724-11e1-8c7d-00144feabdc0.html>
suspend aid payments.

The U.N. Group of Experts' late-June
<http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2012/348/Add.1> report
that led to this surge of defection from Rwanda's camp alleged that the
country had violated a U.N. arms embargo by providing troops and weapons to
M23, the Congolese rebel group. The embargo, in place
<http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/sc10096.doc.htm> since 2003, was
designed to help bring peace to a volatile region that the world has tried
to secure for years. The United Nations' largest peacekeeping force, at a
cost of $1.5 billion annually, has been deployed in this effort. The report
laid out credible evidence that officials at the highest levels of the
Rwandan government -- in Kagame's immediate entourage -- were involved in
supporting the rebels.

M23 is made up of soldiers who defected from the Congolese army this year,
and the group appears to be trying to carve out an area of eastern Congo for
itself. It is composed of ethnic Tutsis who have been historically
marginalized in Congo but also count among their ranks powerful politicians
and wealthy businessmen, with ties to Rwanda, who are supporting the
rebellion. Kagame -- and much of the elite in his government -- is also
Tutsi. The rebellion has caused great turmoil, displacing more than 260,000
Congolese in the last four months as it has seized territory and
successfully fought off Congolese government troops backed by U.N. forces.
The U.N. report suggests not only that Rwanda has been subverting the
world's attempt to bring peace to Congo, but that it seems, according to the
report, to be helping the rebels take control of a part of its neighbor.

The charges are grave. But then again, Kagame has been accused of far worse
in the past. And donors have been more than happy to ignore those
transgressions. With few exceptions, they never withdrew their aid or even
criticized his government.

* * *

When Rwanda invaded Congo in 1996 and 1998, deposing Congo's longstanding
dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, and installing a new leader, Laurent Kabila,
Kagame's forces were accused of systematically killing tens or hundreds of
thousands of people, including unarmed women and children living in refugee
camps. The invasions left a
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/12/congo-forensic-scientists-hutu-
genocide> trail of mass graves across Congo. The Rwandan government has said
it was pursuing the perpetrators of its 1994 genocide, in which 800,000
people were killed. But a 2010
<http://www.ohchr.org/en/Countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/RDCProjetMapping.aspx>
U.N. report mapped the killings -- in which Rwanda was not the only foreign
country involved -- and raised the question of whether Kagame's forces might
have themselves committed crimes of genocide. Two
<http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N97/183/03/PDF/N9718303.pdf?Open
Element> previous U.N.
<http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/%28Symbol%29/S.1998.581.En?Open
document> reports had concluded that genocide might have been committed.

Since these invasions, Rwanda has
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/30/us-congo-democratic-un-idUSTRE7BT
14R20111230> plundered tens of millions of dollars annually -- by
conservative estimates -- through control of lucrative tin, coltan, and gold
mines in Congo. Rwanda has always denied these claims, and the plundered
wealth does not appear on the national budget. But diplomats say Rwanda uses
the Congo profits to finance the country's formidable army. Kagame's
government has long
<http://www.congoplanet.com/download/UN_Report_Congo_Rwanda_12122008.pdf>
supported proxy armies on Congolese territories, and his immediate circle
has enriched itself immensely from these wars, as well as through
corruption. The wealth is visible in Rwanda's capital. A newly developed
boulevard in Kigali -- housing many of the government's elite, along with
well-off expatriates -- is informally called "Congo Street" by residents who
are well aware that it was funded with this illicit money.

Six years ago, Rwanda supported a rebellion almost identical to M23's. That
rebellion was <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3786883.stm> accused of
multiple war crimes -- including incidents of mass rape -- for which Congo
issued an international warrant for rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. The
Rwandan-backed rebellion acted with impunity, attacking and capturing cities
almost at will, taking control of vast swaths of Congo, and displacing
several hundred-thousand people. Nkunda eventually became a bit too hot for
Kagame to handle, and Rwandan forces arrested him in 2009. He has been held
in secret detention in Rwanda ever since.

Kagame has also been accused of ruthless repression and human rights
violations in Rwanda -- charges he has denied. In the run-up to Rwanda's
2010 presidential election, which was funded by Western donors, his
government
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/08/02/rwanda-attacks-freedom-expression-freedo
m-association-and-freedom-assembly-run-presi> imprisoned a number of
political opponents. Some were said to have been tortured; one was found
beheaded. A defector from Kagame's government was
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10358171> shot at and nearly killed in
Johannesburg. Worse, the journalist who reported that Kagame's men were
responsible for the Johannesburg shooting
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10413793> was killed in Kigali hours after he
filed his story. Other reporters were arrested on charges of threatening
state security and
<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i5kUIbrZWI-cs1LB4d2SSur-
PVyQ?docId=CNG.ece3e53648ded978749d9b29e939c905.4f1> insulting Kagame.
Several journalists and political opponents fled the country. But exile is
no guarantee of safety: Journalists critical of Kagame abroad have
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16012659> also been killed.

Kagame subsequently won the election with 93 percent of the vote. By the end
of the election,
<http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2011/rwanda> according to
Freedom House, "the government no longer allowed any independent media
capable of criticizing it to function in Rwanda."

Rwanda has denied deploying assassins against its opponents abroad, though
Scotland Yard has
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/africa/20rwanda.html?_r=1&ref=genoc
ide> issued letters to critics of Kagame living in Britain, stating that the
Rwandan government posed an imminent threat to their lives.

Remarkably, none of these transgressions led to any serious international
penalties for Rwanda. Indeed, despite the gravity of the accusations and the
degree of available evidence, the dominant narrative from the West has been
not one of criticism, but of stunning praise for Kagame as a new breed of
African leader.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/25/paul-kagame-rwanda-us-britain>
called him "one of the greatest leaders of our time"; former British Prime
Minister Tony Blair has
<http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/tony-blair-meets-with-visionary-l
eader-paul-kagame-during-latest-two-day-vi/> described him as a "visionary."
In fact, Clinton was in Rwanda with his daughter on July 19 to inaugurate a
new cancer hospital and
<http://www.presidency.gov.rw/speeches/674-speech-by-former-us-president-cli
nton-when-he-and-president-kagame-visited-eastern-province> issue more
praise for "the strong national leadership . from His Excellency President
Kagame." (There are no reports that Clinton discussed the M23 allegations
with Kagame.) Visiting U.N. supremos regularly say that Rwanda has much to
teach the world about good governance. On June 23, 2010, the day before the
journalist was killed in Kigali, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
<http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35116&Cr=mdg&Cr1=> named
Kagame co-leader of a prestigious panel of development experts, dubbed the
Millennium Development Goals "superheroes."

While all this was happening, aid to Rwanda kept steadily increasing, and
more and more of it was channeled directly to Kagame's government. The
adulation and money gave Kagame an aura of invincibility. If the president
was seen as doing no wrong, it gave him the ability to act with impunity,
whether overseeing repression in his own country or pursuing his opponents
and interests in Congo and the world.

Such was the
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/01/rwanda-drc-why-washingt
on-lost-patience> level of support for Rwanda that the United States has
reportedly for many years <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18538997>
helped block investigations into the crimes in Congo. The 2010 U.N. mapping
report was issued more than a decade after the massacres and only as a
result of an investigation conducted with an unusual level of secrecy -- to
prevent Rwanda from mobilizing its allies to block the inquiry yet again,
investigators have said in private.

Academics, diplomats, and journalists observing the region have long been
intrigued by such total support from the West for Kagame. Adam Hochschild,
author of a
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618001905/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=17
89&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0618001905&linkCode=as2&tag=fopo-20> book on
Congo, has
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/books/review/book-review-dancing-in-the-g
lory-of-monsters-the-collapse-of-the-congo-and-the-great-war-of-africa-by-ja
son-k-stearns.html?pagewanted=all> written about Kagame: "How this
media-savvy autocrat has managed to convince so many American journalists,
diplomats and political leaders that he is a great statesman is worth a book
in itself." Some have said it was due to Western guilt for not intervening
in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, during which the Clinton administration in
particular refused to act. Others have cited Rwanda's contribution of troops
to foreign peacekeeping missions, relieving the burden of military
intervention from the West.

There was also Rwanda's efficient autocratic state, which appeared to carry
out foreign aid programs to their last details. Prominent development
experts like Columbia University's Jeffrey Sachs
<http://humanosphere.kplu.org/tag/jeffrey-sachs/> champion Rwanda's
programs. This led to Rwanda's emergence as a poster child for a global
movement that believed in the power of foreign aid to turn around Africa.
And Kagame has used his influence with astuteness, both to consolidate
political power within his country and to make Rwanda the region's most
formidable military force.

This is why the recent about-face was so unexpected. Few foresaw such change
in Kagame's fortunes so quickly.

At a news conference in Kigali, the Rwandan president cut off a foreign
journalist, ordering her not to even mention Human Rights Watch, which had
been among the first to
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/06/03/dr-congo-rwanda-should-stop-aiding-war-c
rimes-suspect-0> accuse Kagame of complicity in the Congo rebellion. It was
a typical display of defiance -- and irritation -- from the president.

Rwanda must have assumed that it would be able to block or dismiss this
report, as it had all the other accusations in the past. The U.N.
investigative team has claimed that Kagame's government refused to engage
with it on its findings, despite the team's efforts, as far back as this
May.

After the team first presented its findings -- orally -- about one month ago
at the U.N. Security Council, every member state, including China, Russia,
and Britain, voted in favor of publishing the findings that were damaging to
Rwanda, according to diplomats who witnessed the meeting and spoke with me
under condition of confidentiality. But the United States blocked the
release.

Under pressure from the other council members, the United States finally
agreed to allow publication of the U.N. report, under the condition that
Rwanda be allowed to add its response before publication. The concession was
one that countries accused of war crimes are rarely allowed -- another
example of favoritism to Rwanda. This was not news.

Then, suddenly, the U.S. government announced that, for the first time, it
was suspending military aid -- to the tune of $200,000, which had been
earmarked for a military training academy -- to its longtime ally. In an
emailed statement, Hilary Fuller Renner, a State Department spokeswoman,
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/21/us-congo-rwanda-usa-idUSBRE86K0AY
20120721> wrote, "The United States government is deeply concerned about the
evidence that Rwanda is implicated in the provision of support to Congolese
rebel groups, including M23."

It was the first sign of a change in policy. And though Kagame
<http://www.rnanews.com/politics/6268-president-kagame-dismisses-suspended-u
s-aid-as-nothing> dismissed the cut as "nothing," he was obviously
concerned. A team of French journalists reporting on the president
<http://www.france24.com/fr/20120720-reporters-rwanda-Genocide-rwandais-1994
-hutus-tutsi-Paul-Kagame-rdc-france24> noted how much of Kagame's time was
spent dealing with the M23 accusations -- and his government's denial has
been swift and strident. But it seems the West's patience for Kagame's
interference in Congo has run out. A Human Rights Watch director has
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/01/us-support-rwanda-wanes-congo?n
ewsfeed=true> claimed that the United States is "sick of being lied to."

The U.N. team responsible for the report traveled to Rwanda last week to
present its findings to Kagame's government. Donors are waiting to see how
Rwanda will respond before deciding whether to continue sending aid to
Kagame.

Yet it seems likely that Rwanda's government will continue its pattern of
angry denials, no matter the evidence presented. Rwanda's shrewd foreign
minister, Louise Mushikiwabo,
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/64a68d8a-da38-11e1-b03b-00144feab49a.html#axzz22H
t8kIK9> claimed on Aug. 1 that she had successfully rebutted, point by
point, the United Nations' accusations and had shown them to be false. She
said Rwanda's response had been officially submitted to the U.N. Security
Council on July 30.

Kagame has also upped the ante,
<http://www.africanliberty.org/content/rwanda-president-kagame-lashes-out-we
st-after-aid-cut> accusing the West and the international community as being
the cause of Congo's current crisis, and repeating that his government had
not supplied the rebels with even "one bullet." On July 28, Mushikiwabo
<http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE86R03B20120728> accused
Western governments of treating aid recipient countries in paternalistic
ways -- trying to reignite Western guilt for colonialism and inaction during
the genocide that has worked so well to Rwanda's advantage in the past.

Kagame is the region's most powerful figure, and his army could neutralize
the M23 rebels if he ordered it. Additionally, if the alleged Rwandan
support for M23 were to end and Rwanda offered the rebels no escape route,
the rebellion would quite likely be beaten into submission by Congolese and
U.N. forces. But there's no indication yet that Kagame intends to exercise
either of these options.

Why? He's still got more than enough support from other quarters. Some of
Rwanda's Western and multilateral donors have not cut funding to Kagame: The
European Union, Belgium, the World Bank, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria <http://www.oecd.org/dac/aidstatistics/1878421.gif>
provide over $400 million in aid to Rwanda each year, according to the OECD
-- with significant portions going directly to the Rwandan government or to
government-led projects. At this time, none have suspended their payments or
expressed any intent to do so. The United States has still not suspended
nonmilitary aid, some $240 million, meaning its action so far amounts to a
slap on the wrist for Rwanda.

China, too, will likely continue its support for Rwanda and may well be
<http://allafrica.com/stories/201207290095.html> increasingly courted by
Kagame's regime. Chinese companies are already
<http://www.rtda.gov.rw/newsevents/news/more/Western-Province-highway-gets-$
166m-China-funding/index.php> involved in a host of infrastructure and
related projects in the country -- in deals shrouded in great secrecy --
including the construction of roads and extensive hotel complexes, as part
of a Rwandan government plan to transform the capital into a tourism and
conference hub modeled on Singapore. The Chinese are, however, profiting
from both sides: They are also friendly with the Congolese government and
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/7343060.stm> involved in
major infrastructure projects in Congo.

The bottom line is that there's a long history of support for Rwanda despite
evidence of human rights violations. The regime that Kagame toppled back in
1994, which was responsible for the genocide, also received large amounts of
aid and support from the West. And that government was also praised for
maintaining peace and stability in a troubled region and for managing
foreign funds effectively. Kagame has been equally effective in casting a
spell over donors and extricating himself from tight diplomatic situations.
But one judges by the increasingly bitter tone of Kagame's
<http://www.presidency.gov.rw/speeches> public pronouncements, it seems that
the Rwandan autocrat is tiring of constant Western scrutiny. And the West
may be getting tired of him as well.

 
Received on Tue Aug 07 2012 - 10:20:57 EDT