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Kigali scores highly on growth, but hurdles remain

Saturday April 05 2014
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Rwanda Genocide commemoration: The victories, challenges and looking to the future.

As it marks the 20th anniversary of the genocide against Tutsi, in which nearly a million people were killed, Rwanda scores highly on its human development indices, but must confront accusations of human rights abuses and intolerance.

Rwanda has been praised for its successful reconstruction, prudent economic policies and ambitious fight against poverty.

READ: Rwanda ranked Africa's most enticing market for retailers

President Paul Kagame, who has led the country to make this progress, is seen as an astute and modern-day African leader.

Rwanda’s zealous fight against corruption and its ICT vision have received global plaudits. The capital Kigali has transformed from a dusty town littered with bodies and streams of blood in 1994 to one of the cleanest and safest cities in Africa and the world.

But while the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) party has been credited with turning things around in the past 20 years, it has been accused of reducing the political space. Both President Kagame and RPF have received as much praise as criticism.

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The country’s leadership has also come under scrutiny for what the United Nations has described as meddling in the affairs of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as its human rights record, democratic credentials, clamping down on the media and being intolerant to dissents, accusations the ruling party dismisses as unfair.

Instead, ruling party stalwarts say Rwanda’s democracy and its political path have been shaped and carved out of its past, forging a country that is not built along ethnic lines or confrontational politics similar to those that led to the 1994 genocide.

In an interview with The EastAfrican, two senior RPF cadres, Tito Rutaremara and Dr Joseph Karemera, said the ruling party and the current leadership had surmounted impossible challenges to put the country where it is today, notwithstanding the criticism.

“No other government in the world has done what the RPF has been able to do in a space of 20 years … rebuilding a country that was completely torn apart, returning millions of refugees and resettling them and getting them out of abject poverty,” said Mr Rutaremara.

“We built a country out of impossibilities. Rwandans are now one, can access social services, such as health care, education and credit facilities, and have the infrastructure that allows them to carry out their development activities. These are the fundamental rights you give people first,” he added.

Dr Karemera, a retired senator and the first Minister of Health after the genocide, defended RPF’s record, saying some of the accusations levelled against Rwanda are in conflict with what Rwandans want.

They cite political space as one of the areas where Kigali has been wrongly accused. He gave the example of Opposition politician Victoire Ingabire, whose imprisonment for crimes related to the genocide has been criticised.

“This is someone who came here, uttered statements that were likely to set people back into ethnic divisions. Leave that alone, there was incriminating evidence, not from us, some of it obtained from other countries showing that this woman was working with FDLR, a recognised terrorist organisation. How is RPF responsible for (her tribulations)?” Dr Karemera asked.

The RPF maintains that there is adequate “political space” for those who want to engage in constructive politics, and cites the close to a dozen political parties that are operating in the country.

READ: (Commentary) When is it appropriate to open up ‘political space’? Here’s my take

However, the country’s major opposition groups mainly operate from outside the country, most of them led by former RPF stalwarts who went into exile after falling out with the system or with President Kagame.

The ruling party has been accused of targeting and hunting down its perceived enemies, mainly those in exile.

The recent murder of Patrick Karegeya, the former head of external intelligence, in South Africa at the end of 2013, as well as an attempted attack on former Army Chief of Staff Kayumba Nyamwasa, have been blamed on the government.

The ruling party’s leadership has also been accused of sidelining some of its historicals who disagree with President Kagame.

However, Mr Rutaremara insists the party is still guided by its original principles, adding that those who left after disagreements had gone against these principles.

“The likes of Kayumba Nyamwasa and Theogene Rudasingwa have themselves to blame because they strayed from the same principles they fought for,” said Rutaremara.

Mr Rudasingwa, who is the Rwanda National Congress co-ordinator and former RPF secretary-general, accuses President Kagame and the RPF of implementing a “strategy to marginalise or eliminate real or perceived enemies, and transform the party into a rubber stamp of the President.”

He said the only political parties allowed to legally exist and function in Rwanda are those that are allied to RPF and that opposition leaders who have dared to exercise the right to participate in Rwandan politics independently are jailed, killed, or end up in exile.

Mr Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, the country’s youngest party, says he wishes to see “wide opening of political space, grassroots democracy and poverty reduction. We believe that if the political space is widely opened and more energy is put into poverty reduction, the country would move to great strengths”.

READ: Wrangles, division weaken Rwandan opposition

He acknowledged that political participation is “slowly by slowly improving, though we still need to do more as the journey is still long”.

Rwanda has also made great strides in the search for justice, with the Gacaca courts — the traditional justice system for genocide cases — having completed their work two years ago, while the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is expected to wind up its work later this year.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has been Rwanda’s foremost critic, acknowledges that the country has made significant progress made in national and international courts to bring to justice those responsible for genocide.

Terrifying episodes

In a 20-page paper, Justice After Genocide: 20 Years On, the rights group focuses on the achievements of courts in Rwanda, at the ICTR, and in other countries, in holding to account those who planned, ordered, and carried out the genocide.

“The Rwandan genocide was one of the most terrifying episodes of targeted ethnic violence in recent world history,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at HRW.

“On the 20th anniversary of these horrific events, Human Rights Watch stands in solidarity with the victims and with those who survived,” he added.

The paper also highlights the Gacaca courts for leaving a mixed legacy: “The speed with which they processed almost two million cases was remarkable, and the participation of local communities across the country was important. However, many Gacaca hearings resulted in unfair trials and were marred by intimidation, corruption, and flawed decision-making,” it says.

READ: Rwandans grapple with reconciliation

The group also notes that few members of the RPF have been prosecuted in Rwanda, and none by the ICTR.

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