http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/111218/rwanda-now-countrys-bright-future-tainted-tragic-past One of Africa's most dynamic countries is also its most haunted. Rwanda is working to overcome the 1994 genocide. Its economy is fast-growing and it has very little corruption. But President Paul Kagame's government is persistently accused of repression. An on-the-ground look at the contrasting facets of this compelling country. Rwanda Now: Country's bright future tainted by tragic pastAndrew MeldrumDecember 30, 2011 06:05President Paul Kagame's impressive achievements marred by repression. KIGALI, Rwanda — Construction cranes bristle across this city's hills, showing where high-rise towers are being built at a pace to match Rwanda's rapid economic growth. Cars, buses and motorcycle-taxis speed on smooth, divided highways while vendors sell bags of carrots, cabbages and beans. Kigali looks every inch an increasingly prosperous African capital city. Then a young man walks by with a wedge-shaped gape in his skull. A woman's warm smile cannot hide the searing scar across her face. This is Rwanda today. Bustling progress, haunted by the country's 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 Tutsis were butchered. About 10 percent of the country's people were killed during the 100 days of massacres. Most were killed by being hacked with machetes and most were of the Tutsi minority. Rwanda's sparkling advances in economic growth, health and education are impressive. Women have gained in economic and political power, with one of the world's highest rates of representation in legislature, at more than 50 percent. Yet Rwanda's impressive achivements also tainted by its legacy of horror. President Paul Kagame personifies Rwanda's duality. Intelligent, diligent and committed, Kagame has led Rwanda from chaos to order and set the country on a path toward security and affluence. Yet Kagame is also autocratic, intolerant of criticism and his government is combative toward the press. A number of government critics have been assassinated, some ot them in exile. Others have been jailed in Rwanda, such as opposition leader Victoire Ingabire who is on trial for allegedly being a genocide revisionist. Kagame's government denies any involvement in the killings of its critics. And of those jailed, the government says the law is merely following its course. Kagame's government discourages open discussion of the genocide and of Rwanda's abiding ethnic tensions between the Tutsis, who make up about 15 percent of the population, and the Hutus, who account for 85 percent. Kagame's government is dominated by Tutsis, a situation that seems to guarantee continued resentment by Hutus. Open discussion of this and any differences between Hutus and Tutsis is discouraged; those who speak about it publicly risk arrest for genocide revisionism. More from GlobalPost: Rwandan opposition leader blocked by charges "When you try to discuss relations between Tutsis and Hutus, 17 years after the genocide, you hear the same answer over and over again: 'We are all Rwandans now,'" said a longtime Kigali resident. "It's the only answer people feel safe with. It's amazing how many people stick to the Kagame line. It creates this eerie feeling that we're in a 'Stepford Rwanda' where people only say what is approved — but you know there is plenty lurking beneath." "Rwanda is a country of dueling narratives. It is a glittering hope or a repressive country run by a dictator," said a diplomat in Kigali. "These opposing views are more stark than in most African countries. … The Kagame government sees economic growth as the key way of protecting its security. But now we are starting to see some political developments. There are nine opposition parties, but will they go anywhere? The big question is whether Kagame will run for a third term in 2017. Or will he retire and let someone else take the helm?" Kagame was re-elected in August 2010 by a barely believable 93 percent. Many human-rights and democratic groups charged that the election was marred by violence and repression. Two opposition figures were killed and one attacked under suspicious circumstances. Several opposition candidates were refused permission to take part. Kagame firmly denies any election manipulation or violence. Now attention is already focusing on the next election in 2017. The crucial importance of whether Kagame runs for a third term can be understood when looking at neighboring Uganda, where President Yoweri Museveni has extended his rule to more than 25 years, and has increased repression there. Further south in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has kept himself in power for 31 years, ruining his country's economy in the process, and at the cost of widespread violence, killings and other human-rights abuses. A third term is a bad sign for a country's democracy. Related: 2 sides to Paul Kagame Kagame states publicly that he has no plans to change Rwanda's constitution so that he will be able to run for another term. "I will not be around as President come 2017," said Kagame in an interview with the International Reporting Project. But he added a qualification that suggested there might be a loophole. "Let's make judgment about 2017 when we come to 2017." But more telling may be the statements from officials of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party calling for Kagame to stay in power. The party's faithful do not say things that Kagame does not want to hear, so many in Rwanda fear that, with Kagame's blessing, the party is starting a campaign to keep Kagame in power. Kagame has a reputation as an adroit politician and he may well choose the option of hand-picking a successor who will allow Kagame to continue calling the shots, something like the arrangement worked out between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. Rwanda has made considerable headway, especially in improving its health, education and economy. But despite efforts to put up a façade of ethnic unity, it is clear that Rwanda has daunting obstacles to strengthening its democracy. Rwanda's challenge is to build a future that transcends its tragic past. More from GlobalPost: Rwanda Now Andrew Meldrum's trip to Rwanda was part of the International Reporting Project's Gatekeeper Editors' tour. |
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Rwanda Now: Country's bright future tainted by tragic past
Understanding Rwandan future instability according to AFRICOM
Fw: *DHR* Further evidence of Paul Kagame’s destabilizing character in Eastern Congo
Tuesday, December 20, 2011Further evidence of Paul Kagame's destabilizing character in Eastern Congo
Ambrose Nizeyimana, a Rwandan blogger writes about the involvement of Rwandan troops in the DRC. While you might think this is past tense, the reality is that Paul Kagame's army is still very active in the eastern region. The story is not an easy one to understand. Alliances change very rapidly, and Rwanda often allies itself with their enemies (Hutu FDLR) in order to loot DRC's minerals. The Congolese army (FARDC) has also collaborated with the FDLR at various stages in the region's volatile history. The most important moral lesson is that, the international community needs to start shunning armed actors whether in the DRC or in Rwanda. The less legitimacy they command internationally, the close we can come to achieving peace in the region. Below is the Nizeyimana's piece. |
Fw: *DHR* Lawsuit over Rwandan genocide appealed in federal court in Denver
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19643670#.Tv3gSoU93vk.email DENVER AND THE WEST Lawsuit over Rwandan genocide appealed in federal court in DenverPOSTED: 12/30/2011 01:00:00 AM MST By John IngoldThe Denver Post A lawsuit that seeks to upend the way the world sees the Rwandan genocide has made its way to 18th and Stout streets. Last month, the widows of the former presidents of Rwanda and neighboring Burundi filed a notice of appeal with the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, challenging the dismissal of their lawsuit against current Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The widows claim that Kagame gave the order to assassinate their husbands, an allegation that Kagame vehemently denies and that has never been conclusively settled. "There is a completely different narrative about what happened in Rwanda than is commonly known," said Peter Erlinder, a Minnesota law professor who is representing the widows. The unusual court filing challenges the story of one of the bloodiest acts of genocide in recent world history — a 100-day massacre in 1994 in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed. That massacre was triggered by an April 6, 1994, missile attack that took down the plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira. The death toll over the next three months was equivalent to the combined populations of Denver, Lakewood, Littleton and Englewood. The accepted view is that many of the atrocities were committed by loyalists to the Hutu government and against minority Tutsis and their moderate Hutu supporters. By the end of the killings, Kagame — a Tutsi and the then-leader of a rebel group — was in charge of Rwanda. The lawsuit's accusation is that Tutsis provoked the genocide in order to seize power. Erlinder goes further, saying Hutus had no plans in advance to commit the killings. "These killings werenotas a result of a 'pre-planned government-led genocide' or 'conspiracy,' " the lawsuit says. That, said University of Denver law professor David Akerson, is flat wrong. Akerson was for three years the manager of the prosecution's evidence section at the United Nations criminal tribunal for Rwanda. Akerson said evidence showed ruling Hutus had weapons caches around the country in preparation for violence and lists of Tutsis to target. There is no doubt the Hutus organized in advance to commit the killings, Akerson said. An alternate theory on the assassinations of Habyarimana and Ntaryamira is that they were killed by hard-line Hutus as a pretext for the genocide. "It is very clear that it was a well-planned genocide," Akerson said. Killings, he said, sometimes went on at a rate of more than 10,000 per day. "It is statistically impossible that it erupted in such a coordinated and consistent manner across the country" without it being pre-planned, Akerson said. Genocide denial Erlinder is a controversial figure. He was jailed last year for several weeks in Rwanda on charges of genocide denial. Until earlier this year, he was a defense attorney at the Rwanda tribunal for Hutu genocide suspects. He was barred from the tribunal after he refused to appear at the court in Tanzania, saying he feared for his safety. Erlinder said a trove of suppressed evidence files supports his version of events, and he pointed to several acquittals and sentence-reductions at the tribunal as proof that the prosecution's version of the genocide is flawed. Erlinder said he was approached by the former presidents' widows to take on the lawsuit. He filed Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and his wife, Agathe, attend an official meeting in April 1977 at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Agathe Habyarimana and Sylvana Ntaryamira, widow of former Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira, claim current Rwandan President Paul Kagame ordered their husbands' deaths. (STF/AFP/Getty Images file) Leader's immunity After the lawsuit was filed, Kagame's attorneys argued he should be immune under a head-of-state exemption. The U.S. government concurred that Kagame can't be sued while in office. Based on that concurrence, the federal district judge in Oklahoma dismissed the case. Erlinder is asking the 10th Circuit to re-instate the lawsuit, saying the court shouldn't merely defer to the executive branch. Oral arguments aren't expected until mid-2012 at the earliest. According to the Justice Department, no judge has ever gone against an executive branch head-of-state determination. But Ved Nanda, a professor of international law at the University of Denver, said Erlinder isn't automatically sunk. Nanda said the Alien Tort law might allow lawsuits against heads of state who commit human-rights atrocities. The 10th Circuit "cannot ignore the head-of-state immunity from the executive," Nanda said. "But they are permitted under the Alien Tort Claims statute to bring cases against heads of state." John Ingold: 303-954-1068 orjingold@denverpost.com Read more:Lawsuit over Rwandan genocide appealed in federal court in Denver - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19643670#.Tv3gSoU93vk.email#ixzz1i2CecFyy Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse |
Fw: *DHR* Rwanda Now: Betting on economic growth
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/111218/rwanda-economy-growth One of Africa's most dynamic countries is also its most haunted. Rwanda is working to overcome the 1994 genocide. Its economy is fast-growing and it has very little corruption. But President Paul Kagame's government is persistently accused of repression. An on-the-ground look at the contrasting facets of this compelling country. Rwanda Now: Betting on economic growthAndrew MeldrumDecember 30, 2011 06:05Rwanda tames corruption and uses radical business reforms to boost its economy. KIGALI, Rwanda — The two-year-old stock market in this small central African backwater is not exactly bustling with billion-dollar deals. But stock brokers here have earnest ambitions to become a financial powerhouse, and not everyone thinks they're crazy; on the contrary, they're actually making real progress. The country synonymous with genocide is aiming to become the economic powerhouse of East and Central Africa. For now, Rwanda's stock exchange resembles a middle-school classroom more than Wall Street. It consists of a white board where a young man occasionally writes up an offer with a black Sharpie. Above the whiteboard is a portrait of President Paul Kagame. Nearby is a wooden-handled bell, used to open and close trading. David Mitali, 28, snaps open his cell phone and advises a broker about Bralirwa Brewery. An "operations manager" at the exchange, he knows Bralirwa well: it is one of only four listed stocks; the exchange also handles government bonds. "The Rwanda Stock Exchange aims to become the financial center in east Africa," says Mitali, who has worked here since it opened. He enthusiastically lists reasons why Kigali may succeed. "We're developing a good reputation for being user friendly," he says. "No tricky, tricky business here. No corruption. We are becoming a market where investors like to do business." "The security of the country is good. Our economy is fast developing. Investors are coming here to invest in the wider region," he adds. There is some truth to Mitali's assertions. Seventeen years ago, the genocide here killed some 800,000 people, leaving most of the country's 11 million people deeply traumatized. But now, its determined president, former army general Paul Kagame, is working hard to transform Rwanda into the most business friendly country in East Africa. More from GlobalPost: Rwanda's unspoken history Kagame is making real progress. GDP growth has averaged 8 percent since 2004. In 1995, 100 percent of the government budget came from foreign aid. In 2011, it has fallen to 40 percent. The government aims to get that to zero. If there were a "most improved player" award for business cultures, Rwanda would be a contender. Just three years ago, in the World Bank's list of best places to do business, Rwanda ranked a dismal 150th. This year, it has leaped to 58th. One innovation that has helped this: Rwanda changed its official language from French to English last year, to accommodate commerce from neighboring countries Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. More remarkably, Rwanda now ties the United States as the ninth-easiest country in which to start a business, according to the World Bank's 2011 Doing Business Survey. That's up from 71st in 2008. That 'can-do' business climate is evident at the offices of the Rwanda Development Board. There, one recent morning, about 50 Rwandans sat in rows, each clutching papers to register new companies. Large posters proclaim "1-Day Business Registration." From the sound of stamps thumping on papers and the flow of smiling people leaving the room, the office is keeping its promise. "When we started in January 2009, eight different institutions were needed to approve investments. Now we have one," said Clare Akamanzi, chief operating office of the Rwanda Development Board. "Our main objective is to spur economic development through the private sector. Every year we look at what needs to be improved to get more economic development." And they implement their ideas. One example: Just across the hall from the business permit office, Rwandans can apply for business loans. These days, construction permits require just one application, and approvals take less than 30 days. That innovation is having a tangible impact on Kigali. Outside the stock market, the streets clang with the construction of shiny office towers that are fast becoming the city's defining feature. The stock exchange is in one of the new towers. Nearby skyscrapers house the Bank of Kigali, Ecobank, the Rwandan Central Bank and Ernst and Young. The city's business men and women in suits and carrying briefcases are aiming to make Kigali the rival of Nairobi for East African business. Rwanda still has a long way to go. A majority of Rwandans still live on less than 50 cents per day, according to the CIA World Factbook, with 77 percent on less than $1.25 daily. With a population growth rate of 2.7 percent, Rwanda needs annual GDP growth of 8 percent to sustainably reduce poverty and increase revenues. Despite Rwanda's fertile soils and abundant rainfall, food production often does not meet demand, requiring imports. Rwanda continues to receive substantial aid money and obtained IMF-World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative debt relief in 2005-06. The country does not have oil or other significant resources or major industry. It's a mountainous territory about the size of Maryland, and has the highest population density in sub-Saharan Africa. This is particularly problematic because 86 percent of the population subsists on traditional agriculture, according to the United Nations. The scarcity of land means the country must rapidly develop its economy to give Rwandans an alternative to tilling the soil. To transform Rwanda into a linchpin for regional trade, the country has opened 24-hour border operations, to promote the flow of cargo and people. Rwanda joined the East African Community, whose other members are Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi. The government is aligning Rwanda's budget, trade, and immigration policies with its regional partners. Although Rwanda is looking East, it is also reaching West. It is angling to become the trade conduit for eastern Congo's wealth of minerals and also to provide goods and services for that country. "There is lots of trade between Congo and Rwanda, and it's growing," said Aloys Tegera, director of research for the Pole Institute of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Standing by the teeming border of between Gisenyi, in Rwanda, and Goma, eastern Congo, Tegera points to trucks lined up to transport minerals into Rwanda. And nearby he shows pedestrians streaming from Rwanda into Congo, carrying fruits, vegetables and freshly butchered meat. In dramatic contrast to the order and neatness on the Rwandan side of the border, eastern Congo is chaotic. It is easy to see why businessmen say that going from Rwanda to Congo is "like going from Switzerland to Somalia." "Across the border we don't have a functioning state. Congo's banking system is not good, and many Congolese are setting up bank accounts here in Rwanda," said Tegera. "Many Congo teachers come over to teach in Rwanda, and many people prefer to use the Rwanda postal service." Leveraging its position between East and Central Africa is an important strategy the Kagame government is using to boost Rwanda's economy, said Tegera. "Rwanda's reputation for little corruption and good business services is making the country attractive," he said. "Many Congolese are coming to Rwanda to do business." Andrew Meldrum reported this article under a "Gatekeeper Fellowship" from the International Reporting Project. More from GlobalPost: Rwanda Now |
-“The root cause of the Rwandan tragedy of 1994 is the long and past historical ethnic dominance of one minority ethnic group to the other majority ethnic group. Ignoring this reality is giving a black cheque for the Rwandan people’s future and deepening resentment, hostility and hatred between the two groups.”
-« Ce dont j’ai le plus peur, c’est des gens qui croient que, du jour au lendemain, on peut prendre une société, lui tordre le cou et en faire une autre ».
-“The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.”
-“I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.”
-“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
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- Fw: *DHR* Lawsuit over Rwandan genocide appealed i...
- Fw: *DHR* Rwanda Now: Betting on economic growth
- Fw: *DHR* Exiled Green Party chief sure of Kagame’...
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