Politics of convenience and hardball political games live in harmony
Frank Kagabo
Posted Friday, February 21 2014 at 16:55
BBC Gahuza Miryango, the Kinyarwanda- Kirundi service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), has a popular Saturday morning programme known as Imvo n'Imvano.
Certainly, to any Rwandan interested in the current affairs of his country, it needs no introduction. It is informative, entertaining and its host Ally Yusuf Mugenzi, an old hand in Rwandan journalism, adds to the flavour of the popular show.
Those who have tuned into the programme regularly over the past four years should know the name Evode Uwizeyimana. In a way, he had become the go-to legal expert for the programme hosts on a number of cases — ranging from genocide trials, issues of genocide denial and the many cases involving journalists, military men and political activists who have fallen foul of the laws of Rwanda.
His legal interpretation of many such cases, to my layman's understanding of the law, have been over the years scathing and an indictment of the Rwandan government's alleged use or "misuse" of the law to curtail civil rights and freedoms in the country.
To cement his anti-establishment credentials, Uwizeyimana had joined the Rwanda Dream Initiative, a political organisation led by veteran politician Faustin Twagiramungu, the former prime minister.
Apparently, Uwizeyimana, a former judge, had fled to Canada after allegedly being too vocal in his opinions about alleged interference by the Executive in judicial matters.
While in exile, he upped his rhetoric, railing against the government in power in many of the legal issues it has been involved in over time, even outside the country, like in cases of French and Spanish indictments of top military officials.
So when a few days ago the same gentleman showed up in Rwanda, now speaking in defence of Kigali and also as a consultant in the Ministry of Justice, those not accustomed to the speed at which some people change sides or their views in this country's politics were surprised.
However, for many accustomed to the politics of the country, there is a crop of political actors who are willing to switch sides at any time provided there is enough incentive. Before Uwizeyimana, there was former premier Pierre Celestine Rwigema, who returned to Rwanda singing praises for the same government from which he had fled a decade before.
Occupy visible position
We have also witnessed a number of politicians who were vocal members of the discredited government of the period before and during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi come to occupy visible positions in the current order, even displacing some who had fought against them in the bitter civil war! Though their actual ability to have real influence in the current system is open to debate, they at least occupy important formal positions in government!
Recently, we have seen an increase in the mobilisation by foreign-based exile groups. An unusual momentum seems to have risen. People close to the ruling party in Kigali have, in fact, accused a neighbouring country of being behind activities aimed at bringing together the exiled groups in order to cause a regime change!
The defections in some of the political groupings in exile back to Kigali is evidence that the authorities are also on a charm offensive aimed at, apparently, isolating the highly determined former members of the ruling party from the wider exiled community. Some have been lured back home and rewarded with political and civil service appointments.
Distinctions in exiled community
Among Rwanda's exiled community, there are some distinctions. There are those who fled Rwanda for the first time after 1994. Then there are those who returned in 1994 following RPF's victory and then fled again after falling out with their former allies in the party. The fact that we see almost none in the latter group returning home while those in the former continue to head back is telling.
Clearly, Kigali has devised different approaches for neutralising these categories of oppositionists. Certainly, those who previously were inner-circle members of the ruling elite in Kigali cannot be treated in the same way as the likes of Uwizeyimana and ex-PM Rwigema. For theirs was, and still is, a bitter divorce — and the rhetoric from both the exiled former RPF members and the Kigali elite tells it all.
Frank Kagabo is an Erasmus Mundus graduate student of journalism, media and globalisation at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Swansea University, the UK, specialising in war and conflict reporting. E-mail: frank2kagabo@yahoo.com; Twitter: @kagabo
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