tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/paul-kagame-18504/articlesPaul Kagame – The Conversation2023-11-27T14:01:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2162052023-11-27T14:01:41Z2023-11-27T14:01:41ZRwanda’s troops in Mozambique have done well to protect civilians – the factors at play<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Rwanda">Rwanda</a>’s involvement in <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ipi-pub-ppp-rwanda.pdf#page=1">peacekeeping operations</a> for the United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) has increased since 2004. </p>
<p>The relatively small east African nation is Africa’s most active troop-contributing country and the fourth most active worldwide. It has <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/troop-and-police-contributors">nearly 6,000 soldiers and police</a> committed to UN peacekeeping missions.</p>
<p>In recent years, however, Rwanda has deployed its army independently of the UN or AU. In 2020, it sent 1,000 troops to fight anti-government rebels in the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/central-african-republic-rwanda/b191-rwandas-growing-role-central-african-republic">Central African Republic</a>. A year later, it sent soldiers to deal with jihadist militants in northern Mozambique, and now has <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2022/03/08/military-intervention-has-not-stopped-mozambique-jihadist-conflict">2,500 troops</a> there. </p>
<p>These two missions aim to confront and eliminate armed enemies of the host state. The operations – which aren’t under the UN and AU protocols – raise questions about the conduct of Rwanda’s army and its counterinsurgency doctrine. Specifically when it comes to avoiding civilian casualties. </p>
<p>Traditional peacekeeping missions have a <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/improving-peacekeeping-and-civilian-protection/">disappointing record</a> on protecting innocent bystanders. UN and AU forces have been <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/united-nations-peacekeeping-forces-expelled-mali-drc-somalia-africa-by-adekeye-adebajo-2023-10">criticised</a> for being risk averse and under-resourced in preventing crimes and violence against civilians. </p>
<p>In 2015, Rwanda was one of several countries arguing that the UN should do more to defend civilians in conflict. It sponsored a set of recommendations eventually codified as the <a href="https://r2pasiapacific.org/files/2942/2018_kigali_principles.pdf">Kigali Principles on the Protection of Civilians</a>. They identified various shortfalls that handicap many peacekeeping missions. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=ncVlZRkAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">conflict researcher</a> who has examined Rwanda’s military intervention in Mozambique. In a recent <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2023.2261400?src=">paper</a>, I used the deployment to evaluate the Rwandan army’s commitment to protecting civilians.</p>
<p>The Mozambique mission is independent of the UN and AU. Therefore, the Rwandan military is less subject to the monitoring that guards against excessive force and abusive practices. As an offensive counterterrorism operation, the mission is also potentially more aggressive and violent than peacekeeping. </p>
<p>Conventional wisdom would predict that an <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2016/02/death-solves-all-problems-the-authoritarian-counterinsurgency-toolkit/">authoritarian government</a> like Rwanda’s would be heavy-handed in putting down an insurrection. But my findings suggest that’s not so in Mozambique.</p>
<p>The Mozambique campaign is unlike the disaster across Rwanda’s border in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). There, Rwanda’s army stands <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/4/rwanda-backing-m23-rebels-in-drc-un-experts">accused</a> of backing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/m23-four-things-you-should-know-about-the-rebel-groups-campaign-in-rwanda-drc-conflict-195020">M23 rebels</a> who have committed war crimes and accelerated a humanitarian crisis.</p>
<h2>The Mozambique mission</h2>
<p>The province of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique had been struggling with a <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/southern-africa/mozambique/303-stemming-insurrection-mozambiques-cabo-delgado">vicious jihadist insurgency</a> since <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17531055.2020.1789271">2017</a>. Efforts by Mozambique’s security forces and foreign mercenaries failed to stop decapitations, village burnings and attacks on government forces and infrastructure. </p>
<p>When militants threatened <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGB6c-gn5Fw&themeRefresh=1">oil and gas development projects</a> that once promised to lift Mozambique out of poverty, President <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/africa_mozambique-rwanda-armies-retake-key-jihadist-held-town/6209325.html">Felipe Nyusi turned to Rwanda for help in 2021</a>. The Rwandan Defence Forces began to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03932729.2022.2132046">attack</a> Islamic State-aligned militants. </p>
<p>Yet, the Rwandan army has balanced the pursuit of insurgents and the protection of the population. Operations to annihilate insurgents often kill and injure civilians as well. Strategies that focus narrowly on protecting civilians, on the other hand, tend to make <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698249.2022.1995680">counterinsurgent forces gun shy</a>. </p>
<h2>What worked</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2023.2261400?src=">My study</a> suggests how Rwanda has been able to hold down civilian casualties while battling insurgents. The Rwandan army was in Mozambique nearly a year before inflicting its first recorded <a href="https://www.caboligado.com/reports/cabo-ligado-weekly-27-june-3-july-2022">civilian fatality</a> – a single curfew breaker in a tense recovered town.</p>
<p>First, Rwandan troops actively patrol and interact with the community to collect information about the local people and the insurgents who threaten them. Rwandan soldiers benefit from their knowledge of Swahili, which enables them to communicate directly with the locals. It helps them tell friend from foe.</p>
<p>The second factor is restraint: a more disciplined use of firepower. As the experience of western armies in Iraq and <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/146/1/44/27133/Limiting-Civilian-Casualties-as-Part-of-a-Winning">Afghanistan</a> has shown, maintaining restraint under the persistent threat of ambush isn’t easy. It comes with some risk too. </p>
<p>Other conditions likely contributed to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/rwandas-military-intervention-in-mozambique-raises-eyebrows/a-58957275">Rwanda’s early success</a> in Mozambique. The insurgents don’t use suicide tactics, for instance. And at least <a href="https://adf-magazine.com/2023/08/insurgents-strike-cabo-delgado-with-remote-controlled-ieds/">until recently</a> they have lacked sophisticated explosives. </p>
<p>Also, portions of the affected area in Cabo Delgado were largely abandoned when the Rwandans arrived. This helped in sorting insurgents from innocents. </p>
<p>Still, these considerations shouldn’t discount the Rwandan army’s achievements. Its record in the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/central-african-republic-rwanda/b191-rwandas-growing-role-central-african-republic">Central African Republic</a> is also consistent with its conduct in Mozambique. There as well, Rwandan forces have attained impressive battlefield results without inflicting substantial civilian harm. </p>
<h2>Rwanda in DRC</h2>
<p>The story is different in the DRC. <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/central-africa%E2%80%99s-strategic-balance-crumbling-206022">A case has been made</a> that Rwanda’s destabilising activities there are motivated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-and-drcs-turbulent-past-continues-to-fuel-their-torrid-relationship-188405">strategic interests</a> that don’t apply in Mozambique or the Central African Republic. </p>
<p>This doesn’t explain the mentality of rank-and-file soldiers, though. The army’s record in Mozambique and the DRC suggests instead that Rwandan battlefield behaviour may be conditioned by cognitive framing and service culture. </p>
<p>Studies of the way foreign armies approach missions in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon have found that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09636412.2017.1306393">culture and framing</a> often shape how troops perceive their environment, interpret threats and understand their role.</p>
<p>Fighting in eastern DRC may be perceived differently by Rwandan soldiers because it’s so intimately tied to the traumas of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Rwanda-genocide-of-1994">1994 genocide</a>. They may worry about spillover violence affecting stability in Rwanda, or about ethnic discord tearing the army itself apart. </p>
<p><a href="https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/46/4/48/111176/Soldiers-Dilemma-Foreign-Military-Training-and">Armed forces elsewhere</a> have demonstrated a tendency to prize their own cohesion above human rights concerns in high-stress scenarios.</p>
<h2>The civilian factor</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2023.2261400?src=">My research</a> suggests the Rwandan army’s actions in Mozambique have been consistent with the core promises of the Kigali Principles. </p>
<p>In response to <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/southern-africa/mozambique/winning-peace-mozambiques-embattled-north">persistent militant raids</a>, Rwandan troops in Cabo Delgado have conducted pursuits across district boundaries. Troops have gone further afield at Maputo’s request. </p>
<p>The presence of Rwanda’s soldiers has also helped to curb the mistreatment of local inhabitants by Mozambique’s police and armed forces. These forces have a history of <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/publication/ad687-amid-increasing-insecurity-mozambicans-fault-police-for-corruption-lack-of-professionalism/">corruption</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/12/04/mozambique-security-forces-abusing-suspected-insurgents">abuse</a>. </p>
<p>The Islamist insurgency in Mozambique, however, has yet to be defeated. A long-term solution will require more fundamental political and social measures, as well as reform of Mozambique’s security services. </p>
<p>Rwandan army operations have demonstrated what a competent African force can do when properly resourced and committed to the mission. It also suggests that soldiers are more effective when empowered to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDsIPgJGKQU">exercise discretion</a> in applying force.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ralph Shield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rwandan forces have been able to keep civilian casualties low in Cabo Delgado despite carrying out a counterterrorism operation.Ralph Shield, Conflict researcher, US Naval War CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2182632023-11-24T15:44:52Z2023-11-24T15:44:52ZUK’s failed asylum deportation plan puts Rwanda’s human rights and refugee struggles in the spotlight<p>The UK Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2023-0093-press-summary.pdf">ruled on 15 November 2023 that</a> sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful. The plan would have seen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/14/tens-of-thousands-of-asylum-seekers-could-be-sent-to-rwanda-says-boris-johnson">tens of thousands</a> of asylum seekers sent from the UK to Rwanda, which would then process and host such refugees indefinitely.</p>
<p>Along with countless <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/uk-abandon-rwanda-asylum-transfer-plan">refugee and human rights groups</a> – including <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/what-we-do/uk-asylum-and-policy-and-illegal-migration-act/migration-and-economic-development#:%7E:text=UNHCR%20believes%20the%20UK's%20announced,established%20international%20refugee%20protection%20system.">the United Nations</a> – I raised <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-plans-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-raise-four-red-flags-182709">red flags about the plan</a> and welcome the decision to halt it. My <a href="https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/people/evan-easton-calabria">research and work</a> over more than a decade has focused on the livelihoods and survival of refugees in east Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-rules-rwanda-plan-unlawful-a-legal-expert-explains-the-judgment-and-what-happens-next-217730">UK court’s decision</a> is grounded in the view that Rwanda is unsafe for asylum seekers because it might force them to return to their home country. Forced return is against <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rights-of-refugees-in-africa-are-under-threat-what-can-be-done-182892">international human rights law</a> as refugees and asylum seekers may be persecuted again in their country of origin. </p>
<p>Much of the recent media focus has been on what the ruling means for the UK and its migration policy. But it’s also important to understand the implications for Rwanda itself and for the refugees already residing there. </p>
<p>Rwanda currently hosts <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/rwa">more than 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers</a>. Most are from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. It’s one of the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/rwanda/#people-and-society">most densely populated</a> countries in Africa and has a <a href="https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/ddpext_download/poverty/987B9C90-CB9F-4D93-AE8C-750588BF00QA/current/Global_POVEQ_RWA.pdf#page=1">high poverty rate</a>, which matters for its ability to host refugees. In the UK’s effort to deter irregular migration, it sought to outsource the asylum-seeking process and ultimately refugee hosting to Rwanda. The east African nation would in return <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9568/#:%7E:text=In%20return%2C%20the%20UK%20has,around%20%C2%A312%2C000%20per%20person">receive development funds</a>. Neither side of this deal was taking the needs of asylum seekers into account. </p>
<p>The recent UK court ruling highlights two things that Rwanda and its development and humanitarian partners need to consider:</p>
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<li><p>the east African nation’s human rights record</p></li>
<li><p>international support for refugees and asylum seekers. </p></li>
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<p>Failing to address the current gaps in these two areas reflects a disregard for human rights that falls on the international community’s shoulders, too.</p>
<h2>Rwanda’s human rights record</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2023-0093-press-summary.pdf#page=4">evidence</a> considered in the UK ruling adds to ongoing documentation about Rwanda’s poor human rights record. Refugees and citizens in the country have experienced political repression, including being <a href="https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/refugees/articles/2018/04/04/please-tell-us-where-we-belong-a-deadly-refugee-protest-in-rwanda">killed during protests</a>. A recent <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/rwanda-global-playbook-abuse-silence-critics">Human Rights Watch report</a> documented Kigali’s use of threats, kidnapping and even killing of Rwandan refugees and migrants abroad who undertake or are affiliated to political activism. </p>
<p>Worrying past evidence of the treatment of asylum seekers includes the outcome of a <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/israel-secret-deal-over-deporting-african-migrants-reckless-and-illegal">secretive deal between Israel, Rwanda and Uganda</a> to receive African asylum seekers (mostly from Eritrea and Sudan) between 2014 and 2017. A majority of those deported from Israel to Rwanda immediately left, some through <a href="https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2018/10/moving-under">dangerous migration routes</a>. </p>
<p>In its recent ruling, the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2023-0093-press-summary.pdf#page=2">UK court concluded</a></p>
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<p>there were substantial grounds for believing that there were real risks that asylum claims would not be properly determined by the Rwandan authorities. There were, therefore, real risks of refoulement {forced return}.</p>
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<p>The evidence provided by the UN Refugee Agency highlighted <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/sites/uk/files/legacy-pdf/631f52a84.pdf#page=3">serious issues in Rwanda’s asylum system</a>. This included a lack of adequate legal representation, the risk of bias by judges and lawyers in politically sensitive cases, and current practices of forced return. A failure to comply with international law suggests Rwanda may well continue to benefit from development funding while sending asylum seekers home or <a href="https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2018/10/moving-under">pressuring them to leave the country</a>.</p>
<p>To rectify these failings, the government of Rwanda must commit to eliminating forced return. In the absence of enforcement mechanisms in Rwanda to do so, the international community – including the UN Refugee Agency and activists in the region – must continue to document evidence of human rights violations and speak out. If these violations don’t cease, Rwanda should no longer be funded as the “<a href="https://www.devex.com/news/q-a-new-book-puts-fresh-scrutiny-on-donor-darling-rwanda-99584">donor darling</a>” that it has been. </p>
<h2>Areas for improvement</h2>
<p>At the same time, the UK court ruling illustrates the need for humanitarian and development partners to support Rwanda to improve its conditions for refugees and its asylum-seeking process. In its written evidence for the case, the UN Refugee Agency <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/sites/uk/files/legacy-pdf/631f52a84.pdf#page=3">assessed that</a></p>
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<p>long-term and fundamental engagement is required to develop Rwanda’s national asylum structures to fairly adjudicate individual asylum claims.</p>
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<p>This statement is both a critique of the limitations to the existing asylum infrastructure in Rwanda and an important call for action. </p>
<p>As of 31 October 2023, the UN Refugee Agency’s Rwanda operation was only <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda-funding-2023">38% funded</a>. This means that refugees within Rwanda <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda-operational-update-6137">lack healthcare support and have limited access to legal counselling</a> and assistance.</p>
<p>These figures demand a closer look at the treatment of refugees in Rwanda and the region. These funding deficits restrict the rights of those refugees most in need.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-rules-rwanda-plan-unlawful-a-legal-expert-explains-the-judgment-and-what-happens-next-217730">Supreme court rules Rwanda plan unlawful: a legal expert explains the judgment, and what happens next</a>
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<p>Efforts to improve the asylum system can and should build on the promising practices within Rwanda that relate to refugees. These include <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda-operational-update-6137">over 90%</a> of children born as refugees having their birth registered, and a provision on the <a href="https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs/turning-policy-into-reality-refugees-access-to-work-in-rwanda/">right to work</a>. Urban refugees and refugee students can also <a href="https://globalcompactrefugees.org/good-practices/community-based-health-insurance-urban-refugees-and-refugee-students-rwanda">access</a> the national community-based health insurance scheme. </p>
<p>Non-legal barriers – such as lack of access to capital for businesses and poor camp infrastructure, including limited electricity – still play a role in impeding access to these services for many refugees. However, these are important rights to continue to actualise – and ones that many other refugee-hosting countries don’t offer at all. </p>
<p>The court’s attention to Rwanda’s human rights violations may lead to restricted development funding or wider repercussions for the country from the international community. But there’s a need for more – not less – investment in refugee assistance in Rwanda. </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>There are two best possible outcomes of the UK-Rwanda migration deal being deemed unlawful. </p>
<p>First is that it leads to commitments by the government of Rwanda to improve its treatment of refugees, including Rwandan refugees abroad. Second is that it encourages the UK and other countries to examine their own unlawful practices, such as the <a href="https://www.redcross.org.uk/stories/migration-and-displacement/refugees-and-asylum-seekers/scared-confused-alone-the-dark-truths-of-immigration-detention">indefinite detention of asylum seekers</a> and ongoing attempts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/outsourcing-asylum-seekers-the-case-of-rwanda-and-the-uk-180973">externalise asylum</a>. </p>
<p>Just as Rwanda’s human rights record should not be brushed under the rug, neither should the international community’s limited support for refugees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evan Easton-Calabria receives funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Research conducted through these grants is unrelated to the contents of this article.</span></em></p>The government of Rwanda must commit to eliminating the forced return of refugees and asylum seekers.Evan Easton-Calabria, Senior Researcher at the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, and Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2182822023-11-24T11:26:29Z2023-11-24T11:26:29ZSouthern African troops versus M23 rebels in the DRC: 4 risks this poses<p>The security situation in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to deteriorate. The region comprises North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces. It’s about seven times the size of neighbouring Rwanda. </p>
<p>The violence in North Kivu has drawn most of the attention of the DRC’s neighbours and the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/11/21/readout-of-director-of-national-intelligence-avril-hainess-travel-to-democratic-republic-of-congo-and-rwanda/">international community</a>. This close attention is aimed at preventing <a href="https://medafricatimes.com/32898-un-fears-direct-confrontation-between-drc-and-rwanda.html">possible confrontation between Rwanda and the DRC</a>. </p>
<p>Since late 2021, North Kivu has been confronted by <a href="https://theconversation.com/m23-four-things-you-should-know-about-the-rebel-groups-campaign-in-rwanda-drc-conflict-195020">M23 rebels</a> who have executed people and forcibly displaced thousands within the province and outside the DRC. The <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/un-again-accuses-rwanda-of-backing-m23-rebels-4281916">DRC and UN officials have accused</a> Rwanda of supporting M23 rebels. Kigali denies this.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/east-african-troops-hope-to-bring-peace-in-the-drc-but-there-may-be-stumbling-blocks-195937">mid 2022</a>, the East African Community sent <a href="https://www.eac.int/eac-regional-force">a regional force</a> into the DRC to halt the military advancement of M23 in an effort to address rising tension between the DRC and Rwanda. The DRC shares a <a href="https://www.trademarkafrica.com/democratic-republic-of-congo/">2,500km border</a> with five east African countries: Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. </p>
<p>Since this deployment, however, DRC president Felix Tshisekedi and residents of North Kivu have <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/tshisekedi-gives-ultimatum-to-eacrf-4229574">criticised the east African force</a>, accusing it of deferring to the M23. The East African Community heads of states <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/it-s-official-the-eac-troops-are-leaving-eastern-dr-congo-4445094">recently agreed</a> to withdraw the force starting in December 2023.</p>
<p>The DRC’s leadership is now seeking <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/drc-signs-an-agreement-for-the-deployment-of-sadc-troops--4437868#:%7E:text=Saturday%20November%2018%202023&text=The%20Democratic%20Republic%20of%20Congo,ceremony%20in%20Kinshasa%20on%20Friday.">support</a> from another regional bloc, the Southern African Development Community (SADC). SADC <a href="https://www.sadc.int/latest-news/communique-extra-ordinary-summit-sadc-heads-state-and-government">has pledged</a> to deploy a military unit to North Kivu <a href="https://www.voaafrica.com/a/drc-announces-deployment-of-sadc-troops/7362075.html">in the coming days</a>. The DRC is a member of SADC, as are its neighbours Tanzania, Zambia and Angola.</p>
<p>The SADC mission will <a href="https://www.radiookapi.net/2023/11/19/actualite/securite/la-rdc-signe-laccord-de-deploiement-des-militaires-de-la-sadc-dans">support the Congolese army</a> in its quest to root out M23 and other armed groups operating in eastern Congo. It’s still unclear if these troops will replace the east African force, or cooperate with it. Either way, this deployment comes on the heels of the gradual planned <a href="https://monusco.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/pr-the_government_of_the_democratic_republic_of_the_congo_and_monusco_sign_a_disengagement_plan_for_the_withdrawal_of_the_mission.pdf">exit of UN peacekeepers from DRC starting in December 2023</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-and-drcs-turbulent-past-continues-to-fuel-their-torrid-relationship-188405">Rwanda and DRC's turbulent past continues to fuel their torrid relationship</a>
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<p>As a researcher on micro-level violence, I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4SlemykAAAAJ&hl=en">studied</a> the drivers of conflict in eastern DRC since 2017. In my view, there are four risks to the proposed SADC mission. These are: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>it would primarily target M23 rebels, leaving out the other armed groups in eastern DRC</p></li>
<li><p>it could give Rwanda more room to exploit the M23 rebel force</p></li>
<li><p>it could antagonise the East African Community, which the <a href="https://theconversation.com/drc-is-set-to-become-7th-member-of-the-east-africa-trading-bloc-whats-in-it-for-everyone-179320">DRC joined in 2022</a></p></li>
<li><p>the SADC force could end up being outnumbered in a vast region. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>The focus on M23 rebels</h2>
<p>The primary mission for the SADC force would be to stabilise and contribute towards peacebuilding in eastern DRC. The danger is that this mission, especially if deployed under the banner of the Congolese national army, could end up condoning the army’s perspective. </p>
<p>This perspective tends to concentrate on the danger posed by M23 and disregards the <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/countries/democratic-republic-of-the-congo/#:%7E:text=More%20than%20120%20militias%20and,against%20humanity%20and%20war%20crimes.">armed groups (more than 120)</a> operating in eastern Congo. Further, it tends to accommodate other armed groups that commit atrocities against civilians. In countering M23 attacks, <a href="https://ipisresearch.be/weekly-briefing/m23-crisis-flares-again-in-north-kivu-context-dynamics-and-risks/">the army has co-opted foreign and local militias</a>, providing them with <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/conflict-in-eastern-dr-congo-flares-again/a-67203737">guns and ammunition</a>. </p>
<p>The SADC mission in the DRC may end up trapped in the Congolese army’s approach. This would be dangerous for the stability of the region. Some of these local and foreign <a href="https://www.genocidewatchblog.com/post/addressing-the-banyamulenge-s-plight-in-dr-congo-part-1">militias have vowed to wipe out</a> ethnic communities whom they believe are not “real Congolese”. </p>
<p>Any regional force aiming to stabilise eastern Congo should remain neutral in its actions and be alive to the ways the <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/countries/democratic-republic-of-the-congo/">Congolese army has fanned violence and committed atrocities against civilians</a>.</p>
<h2>Rwanda and the M23</h2>
<p>Efforts to stabilise eastern DRC should dissociate Rwanda’s grievances from those of the M23. </p>
<p>The rebel group claims to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/m23-four-things-you-should-know-about-the-rebel-groups-campaign-in-rwanda-drc-conflict-195020">fighting for the rights of Congolese Tutsis and other ethnic communities</a> in the Kivus. Rwanda, on its part, <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-and-drcs-turbulent-past-continues-to-fuel-their-torrid-relationship-188405">accuses the DRC</a> of working with a rebel force, the FDLR, that seeks to overthrow the Rwandan government and operates out of Congo. In a 2022 report, a group of UN experts on the DRC <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/06/dr-congo-atrocities-rwanda-backed-m23-rebels">claimed that Rwanda armed M23 rebels</a> to enable them to go after FDLR combatants. Rwanda has dismissed such allegations.</p>
<p>The M23 cause shouldn’t be <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/06/dr-congo-atrocities-rwanda-backed-m23-rebels">exploited</a>. Instead, preference should be given to enabling peaceful negotiations between the rebels and the Congolese government to address grievances. </p>
<p>However, the Congolese army and Tshisekedi’s stance <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/m23-rebels-fight-on-in-eastern-drc-despite-truce-/6850531.html">against the M23</a> – particularly ahead of the DRC’s general elections in December 2023 – could push SADC forces to opt for a military solution to the rebel group’s offensive. SADC should be careful not to back a stance that would end up forcing M23 to remain a rebel force that regional countries could manipulate for their own agenda. </p>
<p><strong>DRC and its neighbours</strong></p>
<iframe title="" aria-label="Locator maps" id="datawrapper-chart-8iMZR" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/8iMZR/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="600" data-external="1" width="100%"></iframe>
<h2>Antagonising the East African Community</h2>
<p>The East African Community’s force is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67239214">largely criticised</a> by Kinshasa and residents of North Kivu for failing to attack M23 rebels. The public – under the influence of Congolese political figures – tends to see the threat posed by M23 and disregards other forms of violence in the region. </p>
<p>Kinshasa has demonised the rebel force and its links to Rwanda for political mileage. Calling the east African troops’ efforts to root out M23 a failure after less than two years is premature. Particularly since the UN peacekeeping mission, <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-against-un-in-eastern-congo-highlight-peace-missions-crisis-of-legitimacy-187932">Monusco</a>, has been in the DRC for more than two decades. </p>
<p>The upside to the East African Community’s intervention is that it <a href="https://www.eac.int/communique/2660-communique-of-the-consultative-meeting-between-the-chairperson-of-the-summit-and-the-facilitator-of-the-eac-led-eastern-drc-peace-process-on-the-security-situation-in-eastern-drc">combines</a> political consultations and dialogue among different belligerents. It is unclear what will happen to the peace talks initiated by <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/kenyatta-says-drc-peace-restoration-talks-to-resume-4185714">former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta</a> should the SADC mission replace the east African one. </p>
<h2>Limited force strength in a vast area</h2>
<p>Eastern DRC contains at least 120 armed groups, and borders Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi. The SADC mission in the DRC will, therefore, be taking on multiple rebel forces in a vast area with complex politics. It runs the risk of having its efforts criticised just like those of the East African Community because of its limited capacity to tackle the [underlying causes of violence <a href="https://theconversation.com/conflict-in-the-drc-5-articles-that-explain-whats-gone-wrong-195332">in eastern Congo</a>. </p>
<p>The SADC force could choose to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-democratic-fighting-idUSBRE97M0WA20130823/">focus on attacking</a> M23 rebels – which is how the group was first rooted out in <a href="https://theconversation.com/m23-four-things-you-should-know-about-the-rebel-groups-campaign-in-rwanda-drc-conflict-195020">2012-2013</a>. Or it will get lost in the vast jungles of eastern Congo. Either scenario won’t bring lasting peace. </p>
<p>Many of the drivers of violence in eastern DRC are linked to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-un-is-under-attack-in-eastern-congo-but-drc-elites-are-also-to-blame-for-the-violence-187861">the state’s absence</a> in the daily life of ordinary Congolese. This is largely driven by the political elites’ focus on their own survival. A purely military approach to addressing the violence would, therefore, be ill-advised.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to reflect the East African Community’s decision to withdraw its regional force in the DRC.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Delphin R. Ntanyoma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The international effort to address three decades of violence in eastern DRC has drawn in the UN, east African troops and now a southern African force.Delphin R. Ntanyoma, Visiting Researcher, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2172012023-11-10T09:18:21Z2023-11-10T09:18:21ZVisa-free travel for Africans: why Kenya and Rwanda have taken a step in the right direction<p>President William Ruto of Kenya recently <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67254349">announced</a> that Kenya’s borders would be open to visitors from the entirety of Africa, with no visas required, by the end of 2023. He said</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When people cannot travel, business people cannot travel, entrepreneurs cannot travel, we all become net losers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A few days later, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda <a href="https://apnews.com/article/rwanda-visa-africans-actfa-africa-09edb93691babd5e0cebd2e131fd7ecb">followed suit</a>, saying all Africans would be able to enter Rwanda without visas.</p>
<p>Neither Kenya nor Rwanda will be the first. By the end of 2022, <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/documents/africa-visa-openness-report-2022#page=38">Benin, The Gambia and Seychelles</a> had already implemented a system of visa-free access for all Africans. Perhaps more will follow soon. Some regions, some sub-regional groups and some bilateral arrangements have also resulted in visa-free access and even passport-free access in certain cases. </p>
<p>Within the broader East African Community, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya <a href="https://immigration.go.ug/services/interstate-pass">allow</a> cross border travel without passports. Botswana and Namibia recently <a href="https://www.tralac.org/blog/article/15940-botswana-and-namibia-concluded-an-agreement-on-the-movement-of-persons.html">signed</a> a similar agreement. </p>
<p>Despite this progress, by the end of 2022 <a href="https://www.visaopenness.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/VOI%E2%80%932022_final2_9dec22.pdf#page=12">only 27%</a> of African routes allowed Africans to travel visa-free. </p>
<p>Actions such as those of Kenya and Rwanda take the African Union’s agenda further. Regularising freer movement of people across African borders is one of the continent’s great developmental challenges. It is one of the flagship projects of the African Union’s <a href="https://au.int/agenda2063/flagship-projects">Agenda 2063</a>. </p>
<p>But even if all African countries no longer required visas from Africans, this would not necessarily give the visitors a right to apply for jobs, establish a business or build a home in the receiving country. The 2018 African Union Free Movement of Persons protocol <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2021.2007788">aims</a> for full free movement, through three phases – entry, residence and establishment. This includes full economic rights, including employment. It has not been widely ratified, however. </p>
<p><a href="https://nsi.org.za/publications/analysis-trends-patterns-migration-africa/">Our new study of migration trends</a> underscores the potential contributions of migration to economic development in the countries of origin and destination. This is realised through the transfer of skills, knowledge and remittances. The study also shows that intra-African migration is firmly rooted in geographical, social and economic ties. Movement is predominantly within regions, and moderately between them.</p>
<h2>Free trade and movement of people</h2>
<p>African Union policies support freer intracontinental trade, investment and movement of people to promote the continent’s economic, social and political development. The continent has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2021.2007788">made progress</a> on the aspects of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement that deal with trade and investment. There hasn’t been much progress on the free movement of people. And yet the success of the trade agreement requires freer movement of people.</p>
<p>This interdependence between trade and free movement of people was the focus of the recent <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20231031/8th-pan-african-forum-migration-pafom8-kicks">Pan-African Forum on Migration</a> held in Gaborone, the Botswana capital. The forum brings together African Union member states, the continent’s regional economic communities, UN agencies and intergovernmental organisations <a href="https://www.iom.int/pan-african-forum-migration-pafom">to deliberate on migration and human mobility issues</a> in Africa. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/free-movement-of-people-across-africa-regions-are-showing-how-it-can-work-197199">Free movement of people across Africa: regions are showing how it can work</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The conference noted that most African countries had failed to ratify the African Union’s <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/36403-treaty-protocol_on_free_movement_of_persons_in_africa_e.pdf">Free Movement of Persons protocol</a>. At the same time, there was evidence of improvements in policies and practices at national, bilateral and multilateral levels that facilitate the freer movement of Africans.</p>
<p>Apart from recent announcements by Rwanda and Kenya, other instances would be a growing number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-movement-of-people-across-africa-regions-are-showing-how-it-can-work-197199">reciprocal</a> arrangements between countries.</p>
<h2>Regional migration a norm</h2>
<p>The history of African statehood, with strong social ties across national boundaries, makes regional mobility a norm rather than an exception. This can be seen from the migration routes, mostly found within the same regions and which proceed in both directions. </p>
<p>For example, Burkina Faso to Côte d’Ivoire is the largest migrant route in the continent and within the Economic Community of West Africa (<a href="https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/africa/regional-economic-communities-rec/economic-community-west-african-states">Ecowas</a>) – the economic bloc of 15 west African states. Côte d’Ivoire to Burkina Faso is equally popular. This trend is ubiquitous throughout the continent, except within the <a href="https://www.sadc.int/">Southern African Development Community</a> region, where most migrant routes tend to lead to South Africa.</p>
<p>Among the major regional economic communities, Ecowas has the most intense regional migration. It is followed by the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community. By contrast, Ecowas has the least inter-regional migration while the East African Community has the most.</p>
<p>Variations in development across Africa mean that some countries experience contrasting patterns, particularly in extra-continental migration. While most African migrants migrate to and from other parts of the continent, in middle income countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria extra-continental emigration is greater.</p>
<p>Immigration and emigration are generally <a href="https://nsi.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/An-analysis-of-trends-and-patterns-of-migration-in-Africa.pdf#page=6">low in low income countries</a> and higher in middle income countries. In rich countries, people tend not to emigrate. The relatively low level of migration in Africa follows this pattern.</p>
<p>Only <a href="https://nsi.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/An-analysis-of-trends-and-patterns-of-migration-in-Africa.pdf#page=11">14% of total world emigrants</a> come from Africa. The average migrant density, or percentage of migrants living on the continent, is 1.89% compared to a global average of <a href="https://nsi.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/An-analysis-of-trends-and-patterns-of-migration-in-Africa.pdf#page=6">3.6%</a> where Europe and North America are at 12% and 16% respectively. African migration is thus not only comparatively low compared with the global averages, but characteristically depicts low income.</p>
<p>High income countries tend to have more immigrants than emigrants. The converse is true for low income regions. Africa as a whole has more emigrants than immigrants, confirming the link between migration and development. </p>
<h2>Legal restrictions matter little</h2>
<p>Much migration in Africa is impervious to legal constrictions or definitions of national boundaries, and even to logistical constraints. Government dictates succeed in making much of this migration irregular but fail to stop it. Though regional integration and liberalisation of migration rules are helpful, they do not yet solve this challenge.</p>
<p>The main migrant sending country to Kenya is Somalia, despite not being in the same regional economic community. And despite efforts by the government of Kenya to deter Somali migrants to Kenya. The main destination country for Nigerian emigrants in Africa is Cameroon, even though it does not belong to Ecowas.</p>
<p>While African migration governance reforms are making <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-movement-of-people-across-africa-regions-are-showing-how-it-can-work-197199">considerable progress</a> it will still be a while till they catch up and are able to deal fairly and rationally with the reality of migration patterns in Africa.</p>
<p><em>Michael Mutava of the New South Institute authored the report on which this article is based.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Hirsch is employed as a research fellow at the New South Institute where he supervised some of the research on which this article is based.</span></em></p>Regularising freer movement of people across African borders is one of the continent’s great developmental challenges.Alan Hirsch, Research Fellow New South Institute, Emeritus Professor at The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2048342023-06-21T14:58:31Z2023-06-21T14:58:31ZRwanda: Paul Kagame is a dictator who clings to power but it’s not just for his own gain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524433/original/file-20230504-25-9wocho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Kagame at a commemoration of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in April 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mariam Kone/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cwlw3xz0zdet/rwanda">recently said</a> he was looking forward to his retirement after 23 years in power. Speaking to the press in April 2023, he claimed he “may join journalism in my old age” – a somewhat surprising choice, given the poor <a href="https://rsf.org/en/country/rwanda">state of the freedom of the press</a> in Rwanda.</p>
<p>But the chances that Kagame will actually step down seem rather small. After a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-rwanda-politics-idUKKBN0U209D20151219">controversial referendum</a> in 2015, Rwandans voted to extend presidential term limits, allowing Kagame to rule potentially until 2034. More recently, Kagame was <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/video/20230404-paul-kagame-re-elected-as-head-of-rpf">re-elected to head the ruling party</a> – the Rwandan Patriotic Front – for another five years. And last year he suggested that he might <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBIiz0PJgQ">run for president again</a> in Rwanda’s 2024 elections. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would consider running for another 20 years. I have no problem with that. Elections are about people choosing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the 65-year-old leader seems to be open to the idea of retirement, he continues to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cwlw3xz0zdet/rwanda">feel duty-bound</a> to serve his country, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have been having this discussion within our (ruling) party since 2010 but circumstances, challenges and the history of Rwanda tend to dictate certain things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/5982/chapter-abstract/149350840?redirectedFrom=fulltext">research</a> suggests Kagame is not only acting out of self-interest. For the past decade, I have studied dictators – broadly defined as leaders who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26798255?casa_token=H1VtUP6OXN4AAAAA%3ACN4ZMpqRQLjTVWADVkXNAy7DkihYbR37keo8XMMpN6KUdqpLTa1nJyH40iUKhIp-ZKKCl_xcF_PWJnL83ej-Sf_QMuCsg95AIYSyk3X67O8ptoy1N_AH">cannot be removed through elections</a>, or where political opposition doesn’t operate on a level playing field. I have tried to <a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/289/289">nuance the assumption</a> that all dictators are <a href="https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/the-rationality-of-dictators-towards-a-more-effective-implementat">power hungry</a>. Some dictators are. But often their motives to rule their countries are more complex.</p>
<p>In my view, this is the case with Kagame. While staying in power is necessary to attaining his vision for Rwanda, it isn’t a goal in itself. Kagame’s end goal seems to be a safe and prosperous Rwanda, but not one that’s meant to benefit all Rwandans equally. </p>
<p>Although it’s prohibited by law to differentiate among Hutu and Tutsi, ethnic differences <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/abs/recycled-rhetoric-examining-continuities-in-political-rhetoric-as-a-resilience-strategy-in-preindependence-and-postgenocide-rwanda/CED46BA1D5DD5615E259DDDA4F5412E5">still matter in Rwanda</a> – <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/abs/rhetorical-legacies-of-leadership-projections-of-benevolent-leadership-in-pre-and-postgenocide-rwanda/916F556DD2CFAB34AEF40A509E4D9229">favouring</a> <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2021/11/from-ethnic-amnesia-to-ethnocracy-80-of-rwanda-top-officials-are-tutsi/">Tutsi refugees</a> who were driven out of their country in pre-1994 episodes of genocidal violence. Former refugees like Kagame.</p>
<p>Kagame is indeed a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/5982/chapter-abstract/149350840?redirectedFrom=fulltext">dictator</a> who <a href="https://vu.on.worldcat.org/oclc/714811956">restricts</a> serious political opposition, independent media and civil society. But he doesn’t rule only for the sake of being in power. I argue that he’s motivated by more than innate self-interest, which is likely to make him more <a href="https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/the-rationality-of-dictators-towards-a-more-effective-implementat">persevering</a> in the pursuit of his goals.</p>
<h2>Kagame’s Rwanda</h2>
<p>The circumstances, challenges and history of Rwanda are intertwined with Kagame’s own life story. Following a genocidal killing spree that began in 1959 and targeted his ethnic community, the Tutsi, Kagame and his family <a href="https://vu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/56058176?queryString=waugh%20kagame&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false">were forced to flee to Uganda</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/919559500">Life as a refugee</a> was difficult. Kagame was confronted with discrimination and became politically conscious as he grew older. This culminated in his role as the leader of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rwandan-Patriotic-Front">Rwandan Patriotic Front</a>, which fought in Rwanda’s civil war in 1990, and eventually to end the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506">1994 genocide</a>. </p>
<p>Throughout his ascent to Rwanda’s highest office in 2000, Kagame has been <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/5982/chapter-abstract/149350840?redirectedFrom=fulltext">pragmatic and ruthless</a>. </p>
<p>The Rwandan Patriotic Front’s <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/rwanda-progress-or-powder-keg/">invasion of Rwanda from Uganda</a> in 1990 sparked a civil war. Kagame was <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Kinzer-Thousand-Rwandas-5-2-2008/dp/B00HTKBBR0">realistic</a> about what his forces were able to do and was <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/919559500">more open to the eventual peace talks</a> than many others in his ranks were. </p>
<p>Yet, when mediation failed and the 1994 genocide needed to be ended, Kagame didn’t shy away from <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/gsi.12.2.03">perpetrating mass atrocities</a> to <a href="https://vu.on.worldcat.org/oclc/714811956">attain this end</a>. After he got into power, his <a href="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/4876.htm">ruthless tactics</a> targeted anyone he believed to be an enemy at home and abroad <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/586476/summary?casa_token=fIZfzS2BSB0AAAAA:e79DaDyhEhWY5BqB4gCoA-JyMoDKnyGaFnrdv2tyHkX-ugS8M9lCzRfu5M7CRfhKic3IeK3iU6k">in the Democratic Republic of Congo</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paul-kagame-could-be-president-of-rwanda-until-2035-whats-behind-his-staying-power-204051">Paul Kagame could be president of Rwanda until 2035 - what's behind his staying power</a>
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<p>Kagame is also idealistic. He has consistently worked towards the same goal, against all odds, for most of his adult life. He sees the end as justifying the means – whether this entails sacrificing innocent lives to save others during the genocide, or sacrificing freedom for prosperity in post-genocide Rwanda. But for Kagame, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/919559500">idealism</a> goes hand in hand with pragmatism: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you are driven by the ideal, but you are able to recognise and work with reality, then managing this reality will help you to embrace it and get there. So, the marathon is the long journey we take towards development, it is reality. But we are driven by an ideal, and this ideal allows us to sprint forward; it motivates us; it helps us to achieve our goals and manage reality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kagame has <a href="https://vu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/828735733?queryString=rwanda%20crisafulli%20redmond&stickyFacetsChecked=false&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false&format=Book&subformat=Book%3A%3Abook_printbook&subformat=Book%3A%3Abook_digital&changedFacet=format">received</a> credit for the manner in which Rwanda prospered after the genocide into a clean, modern country with a growing economy. </p>
<p>These achievements are <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/rwanda/overview">impressive</a> in many respects. But as various <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/abs/recycled-rhetoric-examining-continuities-in-political-rhetoric-as-a-resilience-strategy-in-preindependence-and-postgenocide-rwanda/CED46BA1D5DD5615E259DDDA4F5412E5">studies</a> have <a href="https://vu.on.worldcat.org/oclc/714811956">shown</a>, this growth hasn’t benefited all Rwandans equally. </p>
<p>This is because the president’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23018900">allegiance</a> <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2021/11/from-ethnic-amnesia-to-ethnocracy-80-of-rwanda-top-officials-are-tutsi/">lies with</a> his fellow Tutsi.</p>
<h2>Kagame’s mission</h2>
<p>In my view, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/5982/chapter/149350840">Kagame’s goal</a> is to create a home for the Tutsi population that was chased out of Rwanda before the 1994 genocide. </p>
<p>The president launched a project of social engineering where, on the surface, ethnicity <a href="https://vu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/714811956?lang=nl&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false&queryString=remaking%20rwanda&stickyFacetsChecked=false">no longer matters</a> and the economy is thriving due to extensive modernisation. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-rwandas-annual-genocide-commemoration-fans-the-flame-of-ethnicity-186244">ethnicity continues to matter</a>. An example of this is that, for nearly 10 years, the Tutsi have come to be recognised as the only genocide survivors in the country. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-rwandas-annual-genocide-commemoration-fans-the-flame-of-ethnicity-186244">2014</a>, Kagame officially renamed the genocide “the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-rwandas-annual-genocide-commemoration-fans-the-flame-of-ethnicity-186244">How Rwanda's annual genocide commemoration fans the flame of ethnicity</a>
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<p>The name change suggests that only the Tutsi are victimised. Consequently, the Hutu are perceived as either <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/abs/recycled-rhetoric-examining-continuities-in-political-rhetoric-as-a-resilience-strategy-in-preindependence-and-postgenocide-rwanda/CED46BA1D5DD5615E259DDDA4F5412E5">culpable bystanders or perpetrators</a>. It obscures the fact that moderate Hutus were targeted as well in 1994. </p>
<p>In addition, some scholars have <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Political-Chronicles-African-Region-French/dp/9057187574">questioned the extent of Rwanda’s economic progress</a>. An Ansoms, a professor in development studies, states that the country’s apparent modernisation hides “<a href="https://vu.on.worldcat.org/oclc/714811956">the true extent of poverty and inequality in the countryside</a>”. </p>
<p>For as long as Kagame believes he hasn’t <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/5982/chapter/149350840">fulfilled his goal</a> of creating a prosperous and stable Rwanda that can be home to former Tutsi refugees like himself, he will continue to seek power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204834/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maartje Weerdesteijn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The circumstances, challenges and history of Rwanda are intertwined with Paul Kagame’s own life story.Maartje Weerdesteijn, Assistant Professor, Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074232023-06-12T14:51:41Z2023-06-12T14:51:41ZRwanda genocide accused Félicien Kabuga is ruled unfit to stand trial: this will further erode trust in international justice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531219/original/file-20230610-107201-wj7ibu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals recently <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65826274">concluded</a> a two-year court hearing on Félicien Kabuga. Kabuga is accused of crimes against humanity during the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. The court ruled that he was <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/07/africa/felicien-kabuga-trial-incapable-intl/index.html">not mentally fit for trial</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>The court proposed that the tribunal judges find an “alternative procedure that resembles a trial as closely as possible, but without the possibility of a conviction”. What this “alternative procedure” will look like is still not fully known. Rwanda’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Olivier Nduhungirehe, <a href="https://twitter.com/onduhungirehe/status/1666435782435905538">has suggested</a> a court case would still occur, but without Kabuga. Questions will be raised about how this falls within international legal procedures. Jonathan Beloff, who has <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/jonathan-r-beloff-phd">researched post-genocide Rwanda</a>, explores the implications of the tribunal’s decision for genocide victims.</em></p>
<h2>Who is Félicien Kabuga?</h2>
<p>Kabuga, who <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-rwanda-kabuga-idUSKBN22W1L9">claims to be 90</a>, was a <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/rwanda/News/The-humble-social-man-who-grew-to-be-rich-and-influential-/1433218-1459342-91ulchz/index.html">successful businessman</a> before and during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. </p>
<p>He gained considerable wealth from tea production during the presidency of Juvénal Habyarimana between 1973 and 1994. </p>
<p>In 1997, Kabuga was accused by the <a href="https://www.irmct.org/en/cases/mict-13-38">International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda</a> of seven criminal charges. These included providing funds to <a href="https://www.ktpress.rw/2022/11/ex-militia-says-felicien-kabuga-supplied-ak47-rifles-to-commit-genocide/">import weapons</a> used to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506">kill an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus</a> over 100 days in 1994.</p>
<p>He was also accused of <a href="https://www.irmct.org/en/cases/mict-13-38">funding</a> a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354894105_The_Role_of_Radio-Television_Libre_Des_Mille_Collines_in_The_Rwandan_Genocide_An_Analysis_From_The_Theoretical_Perspectives_of_Intergroup_Threat_and_Aggression">radio station</a> that broadcasted anti-Tutsi messages. </p>
<p>Kabuga fled Rwanda during the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno15-8-03.htm#:%7E:text=The%20Rwandan%20Patriotic%20Front%20ended,April%20and%20ended%20in%20July.">operation</a> to end the genocide.</p>
<p>He was named among <a href="https://unictr.irmct.org/en/tribunal">93 suspected leaders</a> of the genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. However, he remained in hiding in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/5/24/the-risky-business-of-tracking-rwandan-fugitive-felicien-kabuga">Kenya</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/lindamelvern/status/1666390119203450880">Switzerland</a> and later France. </p>
<p>In May 2020, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-rwanda-kabuga/rwandan-genocide-fugitive-kabuga-due-before-french-court-idUSKBN22V1FY">French authorities arrested him at his Paris home</a>. Kabuga has, however, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/rwandan-felicien-kabuga-calls-genocide-charges-lies/a-53590828">denied</a> the charges against him. </p>
<h2>What happened after his arrest in France?</h2>
<p>The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals at The Hague gained custody of Kabuga shortly after his arrest. His alleged crimes fell under its jurisdiction. The Hague-based court took over from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, whose mandate ended <a href="https://unictr.irmct.org/en/tribunal">in 2012</a>. </p>
<p>Prosecution in Rwanda was never a realistic option – Kabuga was wanted by an international court, which holds legal precedence over Rwanda’s judicial demands.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rwandans-will-want-felicien-kabuga-tried-at-home-why-this-wont-happen-139010">Rwandans will want Félicien Kabuga tried at home. Why this won't happen</a>
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<p>Additionally, international human rights groups, such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/07/25/law-and-reality/progress-judicial-reform-rwanda">Human Rights Watch</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr47/013/2007/en/">Amnesty International</a>, have questioned the credibility of Rwanda’s judicial system, often claiming unfair practices and political interference. This has affected the Rwandan government in extradition applications for other genocide perpetrators. Nevertheless, Rwanda’s National Public Prosecution Authority committed to assisting the international tribunal in Kabuga’s prosecution.</p>
<p>The central focus of Kabuga’s case at the tribunal was his ability to participate in the hearings meaningfully. By the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/rwanda-genocide-kabuga-trial-dementia-f49f92513ef7f6ecbdefb993e4a86e23">time of his arrest</a>, he had suffered physical deterioration from old age and <a href="https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-dementia">dementia</a>. Dementia covers a range of conditions that include a loss of memory, problem-solving and language skills.</p>
<p>Kabuga’s lawyers argued that he was unfit for trial because of these medical conditions. Since his arrest, he has been held by The Hague-based court. </p>
<p>Rwandan genocide survivor organisations, such as Ibuka, have <a href="https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/113158-kabuga-trial-for-rwandans-the-old-man-is-still-hiding.html">previously protested</a> against any hindrance to what they perceive as necessary justice. But Kabuga’s lawyers’ arguments on their client’s mental well-being convinced the judges. </p>
<h2>What are the implications of this judgement for Rwandans?</h2>
<p>The recent court decision on Kabuga’s inability to fruitfully participate in any trial reinforces what <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/8129/news/crime/un-court-decision-on-kabuga-trial-disappointing---activists">some Rwandans expected as a failure of the international system and justice</a>. </p>
<p>Shortly after his arrest, some Rwandans <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/6/2/who-should-try-rwandan-genocide-suspect-felicien-kabuga">expressed scepticism</a> about Kabuga’s trial that would be in Europe rather than Kigali. They say those suspected of participating in <a href="https://survivors-fund.org.uk/news/cnlg-and-ibuka-call-out-uk-judiciary/">Rwanda’s genocide must be prosecuted in the country</a> where the crime occurred. As the Ibuka executive secretary <a href="https://survivors-fund.org.uk/news/cnlg-and-ibuka-call-out-uk-judiciary/">once put it</a>:</p>
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<p>Rwanda has all it requires to deliver standard justice. </p>
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<p>Some Rwandans have also <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26893864?seq=1">questioned</a> the effectiveness of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20200528-debate-who-is-f%C3%A9licien-kabuga-rwandan-genocide-kingpin-arrested-in-france">claiming</a> it sought to make up for the international community’s inaction during the genocide rather than provide justice for the victims.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rusesabagina-vs-rwanda-how-kagame-wields-soft-power-to-get-his-way-with-the-west-202963">Rusesabagina vs Rwanda: how Kagame wields soft power to get his way with the west</a>
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<p>This tribunal cost nearly <a href="https://unictr.irmct.org/en/tribunal">US$1 billion</a>, and convicted 61 out of 93 Rwandan perpetrators from 1995 to 2012. In contrast, Rwanda’s domestic judicial and reconciliation system, <a href="https://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/newsite/publications/how-rwanda-judged-its-genocide-new/">gacaca</a>, prosecuted an estimated one million people for various crimes and offences during the genocide at a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dpr.12281#:%7E:text=Clark%20notes%20that%20the%20Gacaca,%2C%20%26%20Gasanabo%2C%202016">much lower cost</a> between 2002 and 2012. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Rwanda-genocide-of-1994/Aftermath#ref1111323">Gacaca courts</a> were presided over by local leaders. They gave the accused opportunities to admit guilt and reconcile with victims. </p>
<p>This latest international court ruling on Kabuga will <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/rwanda-challenges-icc-role-as-court-marks-fifteen-years/1703692.html">reinforce the belief</a> that the international community has abandoned Rwandans who seek meaningful justice. The decision, particularly in light of the fact that <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/6482/news/kwibuka/29-years-after-genocide-over-1000-suspects-still-at-large">genocide suspects are still at large in other countries</a>, is likely to erode Rwandan trust in international courts’ capabilities to properly prosecute suspects and deliver justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Beloff receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Kabuga’s release raises questions about the international community’s commitment to delivering justice for genocide victims.Jonathan Beloff, Postdoctoral Research Associate, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040512023-05-03T13:40:44Z2023-05-03T13:40:44ZPaul Kagame could be president of Rwanda until 2035 - what’s behind his staying power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522545/original/file-20230424-16-d7xzj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rwandan President Paul Kagame.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Shaul Schwarz/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rwanda’s ruling party, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), recently concluded its 16th <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/6363/news/politics/kagame-re-elected-as-rpf-inkotanyi-chairman">congress</a>. This also marked <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/6344/news/politics/kagame-reflects-on-rpf-inkotanyis-35-year-journey">35 years of its existence</a>. The centre piece, however, was the election as chairman, yet again, of the country’s president Paul Kagame. With 99.9% of the votes – 2,099 of the available 2,102 votes – Kagame was re-elected and put on course to potentially run for yet another electoral term in 2024.</p>
<p>The constitution allows Kagame to seek re-election until 2035. That’s a long way off and he has not indicated when he would be willing to usher in a transition from himself. He has acknowledged the need for change as he so often implores his party to reflect on <a href="https://newafricanmagazine.com/15830/">change in continuity</a>. At 65, there is no sign that he will exit the stage just yet.</p>
<p>Kagame who had been the driving force behind the RPF Inkotanyi’s armed wing, took over the chairmanship of the party in 1998. Since then, he has shown himself to be a shrewd political operator, vanquishing political enemies (real and imagined). He has also built a messianic persona and a reputation for being a no-nonsense statesman.</p>
<p>For all these reasons he has become an international icon who is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/opinion/paul-kagame-rwanda-britain.html">liked and loathed</a>. In Rwanda, public sentiments are largely supportive of his legacy.</p>
<p>It is also clear that only Kagame will decide at a time of his own choosing when to exit the political stage. As a long-term researcher and author on Rwanda’s <a href="https://www.perlego.com/book/717192/ethnic-politics-and-democratic-transition-in-rwanda-pdf">political transformation</a>, I believe there are five reasons for this. They include the role of his party in keeping him in power as well as personality traits.</p>
<h2>1. Rwanda Patriotic Front an economic powerhouse</h2>
<p>The dominance and longevity of political parties can sometimes boil down to one simple thing – finances. The Rwanda Patriotic Front has demonstrated that it has <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/rwanda-today/opinion/rpf-s-involvement-in-business-is-problematic-but-it-spurs-growth-1363996">plenty</a> and has used it to eclipse all other political actors. It has built a self-sustaining finance infrastructure buttressed by its <a href="https://taarifa.rw/what-they-dont-tell-you-about-kagame-and-crystal-ventures/">deep involvement</a> in the economy. If real estate were evidential, its <a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/analysis-museveni-criticised-kagame-unveils-fancy-party-headquarters/">over $10 million headquarters</a> in the capital is testament to this financial clout.</p>
<h2>2. The disciplinarian</h2>
<p>Many political observers around the world have come to associate Kagame with a trait that some argue is simple <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210405-new-book-shows-a-very-different-side-to-rwanda-s-paul-kagame">ruthlessness</a> or otherwise <a href="https://thisisafrica.me/politics-and-society/africas-top-four-disciplinarian-presidents/">strict disciplinarianism</a>. Perhaps this is because of his military and in particular intelligence background.</p>
<p>In Rwanda, he is known for having very little time for government officials’ indiscipline and in particular corruption. Cabinet members have been dismissed if implicated in <a href="https://www.minaffet.gov.rw/updates/news-details/president-kagame-in-abuja-for-anti-corruption-summit">corruption</a> and others made to <a href="https://www.ktpress.rw/2020/06/we-will-continue-holding-you-accountable-kagame-to-sworn-in-leaders/">account for lapses in performance</a>. He has a very high work ethic and abhors laxity.</p>
<p>It is this that endears him to even those that disagree with his politics. As such, Rwanda is one of the least corrupt countries, one of the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dpr.12578">easiest in doing business</a> in Sub Saharan Africa. Efficiency, less red tape and transparency being key to an enabling environment.</p>
<h2>3. The pragmatist</h2>
<p>Longevity in Africa’s executive office requires shrewd pragmatism and Kagame has proven adept at this. To ensure dominance of his Rwanda Patriotic Front and himself, he has had to be willing to adopt practical positions that further this interest. For instance, while he has taken <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/02/09/7-times-rwandan-president-kagame-called-out-the-west-s-neocolonialism/">very stern public stance</a> against those seen as disagreeing with Rwanda’s actions or politics, he has been careful to mend bridges when it serves his purpose.</p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2023-03-29/freed-hotel-rwanda-hero-paul-rusesabagina-to-arrive-in-us">release of government critic</a> Paul Rusesabagina after US designated him as unlawfully detained and imprisoned is a case in point.</p>
<h2>4. Public strategist</h2>
<p>For a tiny country of only 13 million people, Rwanda has secured <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/magazine/paul-kagame-rwanda.html">outsize</a> media coverage under Kagame’s leadership. He has taken bold, some would say risky, decisions that have set him apart from any domestic pretenders to the throne and international peers.</p>
<p>The country has been a sponsor of some of the <a href="https://apanews.net/2019/12/04/from-arsenal-to-psg-rwanda-uses-football-for-rebranding/">world’s biggest football clubs</a> sports kits emblazoned with the “visit Rwanda” logo. It has agreed to a humanitarian albeit controversial gesture to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/rwanda-defends-controversial-asylum-pact-with-the-united-kingdom/a-61581479">host refugees</a> repatriated from Libya and recently UK.</p>
<p>The FIFA world 73rd congress summit held for the first time in Africa has recently concluded in Kigali while the country will host, for an African first, the 2025 World Cycling Road Championship.</p>
<h2>5. The omnipresent force</h2>
<p>There is no one in Rwanda more omnipresent than Kagame in particular and his Rwanda Patriotic Front party in general. He has personally dominated and defined the political space of the country since the end of the genocide in 1994.</p>
<p>The Rwanda Patriotic Front, the political wing of the then rebel force of the Rwanda Patriotic Army, has established a <a href="https://www.cmi.no/publications/822-multiparty-elections-in-africas-new-democracies">dominant party system</a> in which no other party contender stands a realistic chance of over taking it. To do this the party used its parliamentary dominance to pass strict rules that govern political parties. These have seen the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/110/438/1/78893?login=true">disbanding of parties</a> like the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR) while co-opting others into a coalition. This, the Rwanda Patriotic Front argues, is the spirit of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/15/rwandas-consensual-democracy-needs-a-reset">consensus governance</a> rather than conflictual competition.</p>
<h2>The risks of dissension</h2>
<p>Political commentators have argued that for those involved in politics in the country, <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/rwanda-paul-kagame-americas-darling-tyrant-103963/">the risks of criticising Kagame</a> or his government are simply too high. According to Human Rights Watch many critics have ended up <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/24/africa/paul-rusesabagina-released-rwanda-intl/index.html">in jail</a>, exiled or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/13/do-not-disturb-review-the-disturbing-death-of-a-rwandan-dissident">assassinated</a>.</p>
<p>This sends a rather chilling message to anyone who dares challenge the status quo.</p>
<p>For now, Kagame appears to provide a kind of certainty and predictability to the nations’ politics, allowing the country to rebuild on a firm footing. But this doesn’t make him indispensable. As Rwanda puts distance from its traumatic past, gains confidence in its future, it may need or indeed demand a change of guard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David E Kiwuwa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s a near certainty that Kagame will be here for some time to come; but as Rwanda looks to the future, it may need or indeed demand a change of guard.David E Kiwuwa, Associate Professor of International Studies, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029632023-04-17T14:24:19Z2023-04-17T14:24:19ZRusesabagina vs Rwanda: how Kagame wields soft power to get his way with the west<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518430/original/file-20230330-24-wcc5fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kagame prefers partnership with successful European football clubs to market Rwanda.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-president-of-rwanda-paul-kagame-takes-part-in-a-news-photo/1473747030?adppopup=true"> Luke Dray/FIFA via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In politics, <a href="https://wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/soft-power-means-success-world-politics">soft power</a> is a persuasive approach to international relations. A leader can use soft power by exerting economic, cultural or reputational influence. </p>
<p>His hard power aside, soft power is something Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame possesses in spades.</p>
<p>One of Africa’s long serving leaders, Kagame wields soft power to deal with international criticism of his <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36687207.pdf">authoritarianism</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/africa/east-africa-the-horn-and-great-lakes/rwanda/report-rwanda/">human rights abuses</a>.</p>
<p>As a political scientist I have been tracking developments in Africa’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt9qf58g">governance and democracy</a>, <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajps/article/view/226326">integration</a> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/49586531/African_Peacekeeping_and_African_Integration_Current_Challenges">peace-keeping</a>. In my view, the recent Paul Rusesabagina saga was the first misstep that seriously dented Kagame’s image and influence in the west, but will likely prove only a hiccup in the long term.</p>
<p>Rwanda organised the <a href="https://www.perseus-strategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Complaint-to-UNSRT_Paul-Rusesabagina_FINAL-1.pdf">extraordinary rendition</a> of Paul Rusesabagina in August 2020. Rusesabagina, now a permanent US resident and a critic of Kagame, is known internationally for a role in saving a thousand Tutsis from genocidal gangs. His actions were portrayed in a Hollywood film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/">Hotel Rwanda</a>. </p>
<p>He was abducted in Dubai and flown to face trial in Kigali on charges of supporting insurgents. The Rwandan court eventually <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/20/rwanda-court-finds-hotel-rwanda-hero-guilty-in-terrorism-case">sentenced</a> him to 25 years in prison.</p>
<p>Rusesabagina’s trial and jailing caused <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/hotel-rwanda-hero-to-be-released-from-rwandan-prison-575462">an outcry</a> in the west – perhaps more than all previous actions, such as assassinations, of the Rwandan government.</p>
<p>The US government spent several months in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/hotel-rwanda-heros-release-came-desire-end-diplomatic-sore-point-2023-03-25/">negotiations</a> with Kagame to get Rusesabagina released in a grant of clemency, and it strained relations.</p>
<h2>The source of Kagame’s soft power</h2>
<p>Kagame’s phenomenal power – both soft and hard – has its <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/110/438/1/78893">origin</a> in the horrific genocide of 1994 when <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/rwandans-take-stock-10-years-after-genocide">about 800,000</a> Tutsi and moderate Hutu were massacred within 100 days in Rwanda. Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front overthrew the regime responsible for the genocide in three months. Ever since, he has enjoyed in the west the sort of deference accorded to Israeli governments, also viewed as the heir of survivors of genocide. </p>
<p>This is not the only unique feature of Kagame’s rule. Many African presidents-for-life are <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jrobinson/files/jr_dividerule.pdf">notorious</a> for self-enrichment. But Kagame focuses on accumulating wealth for the <a href="https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/appp-wp16-developmental-patrimonialism-the-case-of-rwanda-david-booth-frederic_Np9JXni.pdf">ruling party</a>. The Rwandan Patriotic Front’s holding company, Crystal Ventures, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/congorepublic-industry-rwanda-idUSL1N2QX2P7">dominates</a> the Rwandan stock exchange. The party is also efficient at appealing to the Tutsi diaspora around the world for donations. </p>
<p>Rwanda also enjoys a glowing reputation in the west for its gender reforms. Rwanda’s parliament holds the <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.rw/women-representation#:%7E:text=Rwanda%20is%20the%20first%20country,proportionally%20than%20any%20other%20country">world record</a> for the percentage of MPs who are women, at 61%. Women also serve in record numbers as <a href="https://practiceguides.chambers.com/practice-guides/corporate-governance-2022/rwanda/trends-and-developments">nonexecutive directors</a> of Rwandan companies.</p>
<p>And at least two actions of Kagame won the admiration of pan-Africanists. His government imposed import duty on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44252655">secondhand US clothes</a>, to support Rwanda’s clothing manufacturers. When the US government punished Rwanda by removing it from the <a href="https://agoa.info/">African Growth and Opportunity Act</a> he stood his ground.</p>
<p>In 2016 the African Union (AU) <a href="https://au.int/en/aureforms/overview">appointed</a> Kagame to head a commission to recommend reforms of the AU itself. These were all adopted, though few were implemented, beyond the uneven taking up of his report’s <a href="https://au.int/en/aureforms/overview">Kaberuka reform</a> of AU annual dues: a 0.2% tax on imports.</p>
<h2>How Kagame uses his soft power</h2>
<p>Kagame has used this soft power to deploy hard power to accumulate more soft power. He <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/10/rwanda-deploys-1000-soldiers-to-mozambique-cabo-delgado">dispatched</a> 1,000 soldiers to the troubled gas-rich northern Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique in 2021. Though officially labelled as peacekeepers, the Rwandan troops also guarded the oil and gas installations belonging to French company Total Energies against an extremist Islamist insurgency. This was even <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2022/02/rwanda-a-force-for-good-in-mozambiques-war-on-terror">before</a> the Southern African Development Commmunity states could deploy their own peacemaking force there. Soon, <a href="https://mg.co.za/africa/2022-03-28-rwanda-eyes-the-spoils-of-war-in-mozambique/">a civil engineering subsidiary</a> of Crystal Ventures won contracts for clearing and structural work on the Mozambique gas fields.</p>
<p>Similarly, 700 Rwandan troops are in <a href="https://www.africaintelligence.com/west-africa/2023/03/02/kigali-set-to-postpone-benin-deployment,109919518-art">Benin</a>, helping that government to suppress a local extremist Islamist insurgency. All this peacekeeping effort <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/21/how-rwanda-became-africas-policeman/">wins allies</a> for Rwanda’s government every time a vote needs to be taken in the African Union.</p>
<p>Kagame’s government has also shown other ways to project itself as an indispensable ally of western governments. He has pushed for partnerships with <a href="https://www.africa-press.net/rwanda/sport/which-big-european-club-could-be-rwandas-next-tourism-partner">successful European football clubs</a> as part of his efforts to market Rwanda to the world. Rwanda has also signed treaties with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/17/rwanda-uk-asylum-seekers-deportees-israel-scheme">Israel</a> and with the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-61782866">United Kingdom</a> – both under right-wing governments – to allow for deportation of unwanted illegal immigrants to Kigali. These hapless undocumented migrants are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/17/rwanda-uk-asylum-seekers-deportees-israel-scheme">given</a> a few months’ allowance and accommodation, after which they are on their own.</p>
<p>These actions enabled Rwanda to be admitted to the <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries">Commonwealth</a> although it was never a British colony.</p>
<h2>Kagame vs critics</h2>
<p>Criticism has surfaced in the west against Rwanda’s government. The most serious concern is its penchant for <a href="https://www.hrw.org/africa/rwanda">arresting opponents</a>. It also carries out <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/24/rwanda-has-to-investigate-killings-of-opposition-members">assassinations</a>, <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/michela-wrong/do-not-disturb/9781610398435/">reportedly</a>, of opponents who have never taken up arms against the regime. Activists have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/24/rwanda-has-to-investigate-killings-of-opposition-members">“disappeared”</a>.</p>
<p>The fact that the Rwanda government always got away with it inevitably led it to overreach. </p>
<p>The Rusesabagina abduction marked the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/15/from-hero-of-hotel-rwanda-to-dissident-facing-life-in-prison">first serious dent</a> in western admiration for Kagame. Rwanda’s alleged backing for Congolese rebels <a href="https://theconversation.com/m23-four-things-you-should-know-about-the-rebel-groups-campaign-in-rwanda-drc-conflict-195020">the M23</a> could sooner or later cause another rift with the west, and concern among AU friends of the Democratic Republic of Congo.</p>
<p>Kagame’s soft power has consequences for the lives of Rwandans. The assassination of opponents beyond Rwanda’s borders is a grim warning about human rights and governance in the great lakes region and the continent. Kagame will have to learn what the limits and consequences of soft power are.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress, but writes this article in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>With Africa’s solid support and his pro-west military and policy adventures, Kagame is able to take on critics.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2027852023-03-30T09:57:33Z2023-03-30T09:57:33ZRwanda: Paul Rusesabagina’s release and apology – a master stroke by Kagame<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518163/original/file-20230329-16-lfc7wl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Rusesabagina receives the Medal of Freedom from US President George W Bush in 2005.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Wilson/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rwanda’s ministry of justice recently announced the <a href="https://static.poder360.com.br/2023/03/indulto-Ruanda-24-mar-2023.pdf">pardon and release</a> of Paul Rusesabagina from jail. Rusesabagina was involved in events portrayed in the 2004 Hollywood film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/">Hotel Rwanda</a>.</p>
<p>In September 2021, Rusesabagina was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/25/hotel-rwanda-hero-admits-forming-armed-group-behind-attacks">sentenced</a> to 25 years in jail over his ties to groups opposed to Rwandan president Paul Kagame. His release followed intense diplomatic talks between Washington and Kigali, and was <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2023/03/28/freed-hotel-rwanda-hero-arrives-in-qatar//">negotiated by Qatar</a>. </p>
<p>While Rusesabagina’s release may be celebrated by his supporters in the west, it’s a bit more complicated within and for Rwanda. His pardon needs to be understood within the greater context of <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Foreign-Policy-in-Post-Genocide-Rwanda-Elite-Perceptions-of-Global-Engagement/Beloff/p/book/9780367436452">Rwandan foreign policy</a>, whose primary objectives are state security, reduction of foreign aid reliance and economic diplomacy.</p>
<p>Rusesabagina’s arrest illustrated the Rwandan government’s determination to neutralise threats it sees to its national security. His subsequent release provides important narrating elements for both domestic and foreign audiences. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://static.poder360.com.br/2023/03/indulto-Ruanda-24-mar-2023.pdf#page=4">official request</a> for pardon from Kagame, Rusesabagina <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/25/hotel-rwanda-hero-admits-forming-armed-group-behind-attacks">admitted</a> to working with anti-Rwanda groups and took responsibility for their actions. This legitimises Kigali’s move to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hotel-rwanda-hero-arrested-terror-charges-say-police-n1238904">arrest</a> him. It also provides the government with ammunition to combat future criticisms of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/10/rwanda-rusesabagina-was-forcibly-disappeared">human rights abuses over the arrest</a>. </p>
<p>But perhaps more importantly, Rusesabagina’s release portrays Kagame as a pragmatist on the international stage – one willing to negotiate once a security threat is neutralised. </p>
<p>The pardon also helps restore the close ties Rwanda and the US have historically enjoyed. Senior US political leaders, including secretary of state <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/11/blinken-kagame-hotel-rwanda-paul-rusesabagina">Antony Blinken</a>, had censured Rwanda over the arrest.</p>
<p>Domestically, the government has said Rusesabagina’s release fits within its truth and reconciliation process following the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Rwanda-genocide-of-1994">1994 genocide against the Tutsi</a>. </p>
<h2>Who is Rusesabagina?</h2>
<p>In Hotel Rwanda, Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle) is depicted as being the primary person to save the lives of 1,268 people hiding inside Hotel Des Mille Collines during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Over the course of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506">100 days</a>, more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.</p>
<p>However, the Hollywood narrative has been <a href="https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1999&context=jss">challenged by genocide survivors</a> who say it misrepresented facts. Instead, they say, Rusesabagina ran the hotel as a personal profit-making venture. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hotel-rwanda-a-film-that-proved-to-be-a-double-edged-sword-for-kigali-192253">Hotel Rwanda: a film that proved to be a double-edged sword for Kigali</a>
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<p>Rusesabagina left Rwanda in 1996, and eventually became a US resident and Belgian citizen. Following the film’s release, he received several humanitarian awards, including the <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/11/images/20051109-2_p110905pm-0363jpg-515h.html">US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005</a>. He used his newfound platform to promote his political ambitions and ideology. </p>
<p>The Rwandan government <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58624691">accused Rusesabagina</a> of terrorism over his funding of the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change, which has the National Liberation Front and PDR-Ihumure military wings. These groups have called for a change of government in Rwanda and a return to ethnic divisions.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/YolandeMakolo/status/1639740480291307521">Kigali</a> viewed this as harmful to the country’s post-genocide social development under the <a href="https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1480&context=gsp"><em>Ndi Umunyarwanda</em></a> (I am Rwandan) ideology. </p>
<p>Rusesabagina <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZegIcDyowo">aired a call for armed resistance against Kagame</a>, and soon after, National Liberation Front militants attacked Rwanda. In June and December 2018, the group carried out two attacks in southwestern Rwanda. Nine civilians <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/180402/News/victims-of-mrcd-fln-attacks-in-southern-rwanda">died</a>. </p>
<p>These attacks sparked a harsh response from the Rwandan government, which issued an arrest warrant against Rusesabagina. He was captured on 27 August 2020, and subsequently tried and convicted. His 25-year jail term was effectively a life sentence – he is 68. </p>
<p>Rusesabagina’s arrest put Kagame on a collision course with Washington. The Rwandan government had arrested an American resident, and the move was seen as an attempt to silence a critic. US secretary of state Blinken and senator Robert Menendez, who chairs the senate’s foreign relations committee, were among high-profile political leaders who <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/u-s-senator-questions-aid-to-rwanda-over-human-rights-role-in-congo-/6674174.html">demanded</a> Rusesabagina’s release. </p>
<p>Rusesabagina’s family petitioned the Belgian and American governments to intervene. Hollywood actors started a “<a href="https://paulr.org/">Free Rusesabagina</a>” clothing campaign. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other rights groups <a href="https://paulr.org/timeline-2/">added their voices</a>. </p>
<h2>Why pardon Rusesabagina?</h2>
<p>Rusesabagina’s release followed his <a href="https://static.poder360.com.br/2023/03/indulto-Ruanda-24-mar-2023.pdf#page=4">request for pardon</a> from Kagame on 14 October 2022. In his letter, he acknowledged that violence is not the solution for Rwanda’s post-genocide development. </p>
<p>More importantly, he agreed to respect Rwanda’s current political system with Kagame as its leader, saying:</p>
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<p>Moving forward, I know you will focus on securing a peaceful future for all Rwandans.</p>
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<p>He also said he wouldn’t dive into Rwandan politics again, and would instead “spend the remainder of my days in the United States in quiet reflection”. The pardon can be interpreted as effectively silencing Rusesabagina. </p>
<p>Rwanda’s Minister of Justice said Rusesabagina would still have to <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/6108/news/law/rusesabagina-clemency-will-not-affect-reparations-justice-ministry">pay reparations</a> to victims of the 2018 attacks. The <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/189531/News/victims-of-fln-attacks-awarded-rwf400-million-in-compensation">courts awarded</a> them 412 million Rwandan francs (US$374,000). </p>
<h2>Who wins?</h2>
<p>Rusesabagina’s release is still shrouded in mystery, with few details released. So far, the Rwandan government has said the Qatari government negotiated his release, not the US. </p>
<p>Despite Kigali <a href="https://www.ktpress.rw/2023/03/rusesabagina-pardon-rwanda-did-not-yield-to-pressure-deputy-govt-spokesperson/">denying US pressure</a>, the release does benefit the Rwanda-US relationship. Washington can say, whether officially or informally, it helped free a US resident and took a hard stance against its African ally. For Rwanda, it illustrates <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSecRwanda/status/1639282783112556544?s=20">the government’s willingness</a> to constructively engage with its most important global ally. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-and-rwanda-how-the-relationship-has-evolved-since-the-1994-genocide-188115">The US and Rwanda: how the relationship has evolved since the 1994 genocide</a>
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<p>Rusesabagina’s release eases tensions with US political leaders, including Blinken, who privately discussed Rusesabagina’s release with Kagame during an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/11/blinken-kagame-hotel-rwanda-paul-rusesabagina">August 2022 visit to Rwanda</a>. The pardon also effectively removes a lightning rod that US politicians and activists have used to criticise Rwanda’s human rights record.</p>
<p>It also benefits the Rwandan government at home. Forgiveness is a central tenet of the country’s “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/02/59162/">gacaca</a>” judicial system. This traditional form of justice pursued reconciliation outcomes rather than punishment after the genocide. It was used to try <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-how-to-deal-with-a-million-genocide-suspects-38642#:%7E:text=In%20total%2C%20an%20estimated%20one,such%20as%20looting%20or%20theft">one million suspects</a>. Rusesabagina’s pardon reinforces the importance of forgiveness for those who confess their crimes.</p>
<p>Finally, by publicly disclosing Rusesabagina’s pardon request, the government has illustrated to both Rwandans and foreign nations how even harsh critics can change tune and support Kagame. This helps reinforce the government’s narrative that Kagame is the best leader for national development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan R Beloff receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Project Reference: AH/W001217/1). </span></em></p>Rusesabagina’s release portrays Rwanda’s president as a pragmatist – one willing to negotiate once a security threat is neutralised.Jonathan Beloff, Postdoctoral Research Associate, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1922532022-11-07T13:50:13Z2022-11-07T13:50:13ZHotel Rwanda: a film that proved to be a double-edged sword for Kigali<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491348/original/file-20221024-25-fvcj8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Rusesabagina at the Supreme Court in Kigali, Rwanda, in February 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Paul Rusesabagina is perhaps one of the world’s best <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/world/africa/rwanda-paul-rusesabagina.html">known</a> Rwandans. His actions during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi were made famous in the 2004 Hollywood film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/">Hotel Rwanda</a>. </p>
<p>The film was inspired by what happened inside Hotel des Mille Collines in the capital, Kigali. Here, 1,268 Rwandans, both Tutsis and Hutus, were saved from genocidal forces waiting beyond its walls.</p>
<p>The film depicts Rusesabagina – who <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/rusesabagina-i-am-not-rwandan-try-me-as-a-belgian-2486428">left Rwanda</a> in 1996 – as a hero who saved these lives. Following the film’s release, Rusesabagina received several humanitarian awards, including the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/presidential-medal-of-freedom-9-11-05/6/">US Presidential Medal of Freedom</a> in 2005 from former president George W Bush. He eventually became a US resident and Belgian citizen.</p>
<p>On 27 August 2020, however, Rwandan officials arrested Rusesabagina. Human Rights Watch accused the Rwandan government of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/10/rwanda-rusesabagina-was-forcibly-disappeared">intentionally misleading</a> him into a flight to Kigali. </p>
<p>The government accused Rusesabagina of supporting anti-Rwanda groups. He was charged with terrorism, arson, kidnapping and murder over two <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rwanda-security-idUSKCN1S61AG">attacks</a> in 2018 that killed nine Rwandans. On 20 September 2021, Rusesabagina was convicted of these charges. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.</p>
<p>Since his conviction, Rwanda has <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/rwanda-rejects-calls-to-release-rusesabagina-3911342">rebuffed</a> growing international pressure for Rusesabagina’s release. </p>
<p>In August 2022, during a visit to Kigali, US secretary of state Antony Blinken <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/11/blinken-kagame-hotel-rwanda-paul-rusesabagina">urged the government</a> to release Rusesabagina. In Hollywood, actors and actresses have highlighted the issue through a “Free Rusesabagina” clothing campaign.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-and-rwanda-how-the-relationship-has-evolved-since-the-1994-genocide-188115">The US and Rwanda: how the relationship has evolved since the 1994 genocide</a>
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<p>In my most recent <a href="https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1999&context=jss">research paper</a>, I focused on the Rusesabagina case. Based on interviews with Rwandans, I conclude that Hollywood’s interpretation of historical events significantly differs from those who lived in the hotel during the genocide. </p>
<p>Hotel Rwanda is a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/17/hotel-rwanda-hollywood-ending">double-edged sword</a> for the country. </p>
<p>On one hand, it introduced the horrific <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506">1994 genocide</a> to a world that knew little of what had happened in the small African nation. Over 100 days between 6 April and 19 July, Rwanda witnessed the deaths of up to one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the film’s historical inaccuracies <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-08-17/now-jailed-for-terrorism-one-time-hotel-rwanda-hero-has-become-point-of-u-s-contention-with-rwanda">built up</a> Rusesabagina’s profile. Based on what I found during the course of the interviews I did, I argue that he used his fame to promote his version of Rwandan history and his <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/African-hero-now-living-in-S-A-will-run-for-6791393.php">desire for political power</a>. My research findings echo those of others, including <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hotel-Rwanda-Tutsi-genocide-Hollywood-ebook/dp/B008FXI9EI">Rwandan academics</a>, who have explored the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inside-Hotel-Rwanda-Surprising-Matters-ebook/dp/B00APDFXF4">mismatch</a> in narratives. </p>
<p>Many in the global north, whose primary knowledge of Rwanda consists of the film, were swayed to Rusesabagina’s rather than Rwandans’ expression of their history, goals and desires. This narrative was driven to a large extent by human rights groups, which have been highly critical of the country’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/rwanda">human rights record</a>. </p>
<h2>Differing narratives</h2>
<p>Between 2008 and 2018, more than 100 Hotel des Mille Collines survivors discussed with me their historical experiences and belief that Rusesabagina was not the reason they were still alive. I conducted most of these interviews at the hotel and the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which houses the remains of more than 250,000 genocide victims. My research also used existing networks within the Rwandan government and civil society organisations. </p>
<p>Survivors who were at the hotel <a href="https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1999&context=jss">said</a> Rusesabagina ran the hotel as a personal profit-making venture. </p>
<p>If one could not pay him, one would face expulsion from the hotel’s grounds, which meant certain death. One survivor said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you could pay, you would stay in a room. If you couldn’t pay for a room, you could pay to stay in a hallway. If you couldn’t pay that, you could pay to stay by the pool. If you couldn’t pay that, he (Rusesabagina) would demand you to leave. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>One hotel worker told me this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He (Rusesabagina) didn’t care about any of us (workers). I begged him to let them (my family) stay as I was working there (at the hotel) for a long time. He didn’t care and demanded I pay him money or he would throw them out to be killed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Several other <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/survivors-rusesabagina-was-no-hero-hotel-rwanda-film--1934890">survivor stories</a> suggest a different narrative from the one in the film. In Hotel Rwanda, Rusesabagina is depicted as collecting money only to pay off genocide perpetrators. </p>
<h2>Rusesabagina during the genocide</h2>
<p>Prior to the genocide, Rusesabagina worked at the neighbouring Hotel des Diplomates. He took over the management of Hotel des Mille Collines after discovering that its European manager, Bik Cornelis, had been evacuated. One former hotel worker told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…a few days into the killings, Rusesabagina walked in one day and saw that the old manager (Cornelis) was taken with the other Europeans. He called (the hotel owners) and told them to … only work with him. They had no idea what was going on and probably hadn’t talked to Cornelis yet, so they agreed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the film credits Rusesabagina with creating an oasis during the conflict, he’s not the reason the hotel – one of the few areas offering refuge at the time – survived attacks from those behind the genocide. </p>
<p>Not depicted in the film are the seven to 10 United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) soldiers who were constantly positioned in front of the facility. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0786715103">book</a>, Roméo Dallaire, a former commander of this UN mission, says he stationed troops at the hotel’s only entrance as a symbolic indication that it was under the UN’s protection. Dallaire has <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/romeo-dallaire-senator-slams-hotel-rwanda-film-as-revisionist_n_1174607">spoken out</a> against Hotel Rwanda as historical revisionism.</p>
<p>Further, the Interahamwe, the primary Hutu death squads responsible for the
genocidal killings, had been directed to stay outside the walls of the hotel. They allowed people to run into it, but would threaten or kill those who tried to leave. </p>
<p>One former Interahamwe who had been stationed about 20 metres from the hotel’s entrance told me that he received instructions from his regional commander to “just stay put by the hotel and to allow the Tutsis and others to have access”. The hotel was also used for prisoner exchanges “and it would be the final spot for us to cleanse (murder the Tutsis) once we beat the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front)”.</p>
<p>The Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kagame, took control of the country in July, ending the genocide. The horrors of the 100-day period led to Rwanda’s focus on forming a new single ethnic identity: “Rwandan”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Beloff receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Rwanda has rebuffed international pressure to release Paul Rusesabagina, a man made famous by Hollywood.Jonathan Beloff, Postdoctoral Research Associate, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1904512022-09-13T08:48:27Z2022-09-13T08:48:27ZUK-Africa ties: future looks gloomy under Liz Truss as political myopia reigns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484268/original/file-20220913-12-o2cvok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Stuart Brock</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/uk-africa-ties-future-looks-gloomy-under-liz-truss-as-political-myopia-reigns-190451&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>Britain has a new prime minister in <a href="https://theconversation.com/liz-truss-who-is-the-uks-new-prime-minister-and-why-has-she-replaced-boris-johnson-189713">Liz Truss</a>. For African leaders wondering what the new administration might mean for UK-Africa relationships, the view must be pretty gloomy. </p>
<p>British politics has been solidly inward-looking for the past two (post-Brexit Conservative) prime ministers – <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/theresa-may">Theresa May</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boris-Johnson">Boris Johnson</a>. It shows few signs of changing. Looking at the UK’s shifts in relationship with African countries over the past three decades, I see little prospect of African issues rising up the political agenda. And little chance of an active Africa policy, whether at a continental or regional level, before the next general election.</p>
<p>The election must be held <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/07/when-is-the-next-uk-general-election-and-could-it-be-brought-forward-16782836/">by January 2025</a>, but is likely to be sooner. </p>
<p>Aid levels are unlikely to be restored. Nor is UK aid likely to be placed back in an independent government department. In addition, British politicians are unlikely to look beyond domestic and European crises. The result is that Africa is likely to feature in British high-level politics only when it is in the government’s narrow self-interest. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, UK policy will still have impact on the continent. A retreat from climate-emergency pledges, and continuing cuts in aid, will create real harm in many vulnerable African states. Sadly, there will be little scope for their voices to be heard in response.</p>
<h2>Shifting priorities</h2>
<p>Africa and the UK lack the close (some would argue too close) formal political, economic and military linkages of Franco-African relationships. Still, Africa has in the past been a much bigger part of the UK’s political conversation. </p>
<p>The creation of an independent aid ministry – the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development">Department for International Development</a> – by the Labour government <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3993255">in 1997</a> was a key platform for building relationships.</p>
<p>It was also key to raising African politics and issues within the UK government. With both prime minister <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tony-Blair">Tony Blair</a> (1997-2007) and finance minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/gordon-brown">Gordon Brown</a> (2007-2010) interested in African prospects and development, close ties were forged. Through the Department for International Development, links with civil society voices were also stronger.</p>
<p>The transition to a Conservative government <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228198676_The_British_General_Election_of_2010_The_Results_Analysed">in 2010</a> (initially as part of a coalition) saw little change. Indeed, the raising of aid spending to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d217e3e4-7bc8-11e4-b6ab-00144feabdc0">0.7% of gross national income</a> – an increase of £1 billion – expanded the Department for International Development. At the time, other domestic-focused departments faced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/03/lost-decade-hidden-story-how-austerity-broke-britain">severe cuts to their budgets</a>. </p>
<p>The first conservative minister of international development, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/andrew-mitchell">Andrew Mitchell</a> (2010-2012), had long-standing interests in the continent. He developed close relationships with key leaders, including Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. He also maintained close ties with the Ethiopian government, among others. Prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/david-cameron-a-new-future-for-africa">David Cameron</a> (2010-2016) was also interested in Africa, as a visible indication of his ambitions for a strong UK global role.</p>
<p>Since the Brexit referendum <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-five-years-after-the-referendum-here-are-five-things-weve-learned-162974">in 2016</a>, however, Africa has slipped from its precarious but tangible place in UK political discourse. The dismantling of the Department for International Development and its incorporation into a new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-development-office">Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office</a> in <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/breaking-dfid-merged-with-fco-97489">2020</a>, as well as subverting aid to British self-interest, led to the departure of many experienced personnel who maintained the relationships with African political and civil society leaders. </p>
<p>It also removed a key ally for Africa within UK debates. Recent discussions around Africa have focused removing some migrants <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-61782866">to Rwanda</a>, hardly the bedrock of a high-level relationship. </p>
<p>And it’s hard to imagine former governments remaining silent over the Ethiopia crisis, for example, as the most recent Conservative administration has done.</p>
<h2>Truss offers little prospect of change</h2>
<p>Before her elevation to prime minister, Truss was the foreign, Commonwealth and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/28/foreign-office-not-regained-global-footing-under-liz-truss-report-finds">development office minister</a>. She showed little interest in development, anti-poverty policies or creating relationships based on mutual respect and dialogue. In fact, in my view, she contributed to the subversion of UK aid to British diplomatic and economic self-interest.</p>
<p>Her global tours as minister did not include a visit to Africa. </p>
<p>It is true that agreements have been signed with the Southern African Customs Union and Mozambique <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-africa-trade-idUKKCN1VW1N5">in 2019</a>. But they offer little consolation in place of a new and powerful friendship.</p>
<p>More importantly, UK politics, and the attention of the new prime minister, will be firmly fixed on the domestic cost of living and inflation crisis, on a potential new row with the UK’s European Union neighbours (one of the UK government’s own making), and the conflict in Ukraine. Next on the agenda will be China, and the pursuit of trade deals elsewhere in the world.</p>
<p>It’s unlikely Britain’s limited attention span will have much space left for African issues and policy.</p>
<p>There is an argument to be made that African issues might receive a listening ear within the government given that most senior offices of state will, for the first time, be led by ministers with African heritage. The new chancellor is <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/kwasi-kwarteng">Kwazi Kwarteng</a>, whose parents migrated from Ghana in the 1960s, and who has written a (mildly critical) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/books/review/ghosts-of-empire-by-kwasi-kwarteng.html">book</a> on the history of the British empire;
the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will be led by <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/james-cleverly">James Cleverly</a>, who has a Sierra Leonian mother; and the parents of the new Home Office minister, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/braverman">Suella Braverman</a>, came to Britain from Kenya and Mauritius. </p>
<p>Never before have the top posts been held by so many with direct links to Africa.</p>
<p>In my view, however, this is unlikely to make any real difference. None of the ministers have a strong record of advocating for closer or deeper ties with the continent. And despite Kwarteng’s criticism of the legacy of British colonial occupation, all three have signed up to the Conservative Party culture wars which see criticism of a glorious British past as treasonous wokery.</p>
<h2>Danger ahead</h2>
<p>There is a real danger that Britain will institute policies that actively harm African countries. Restoring UK aid to previous levels is becoming a vanishingly small possibility, which means cuts to vital social welfare programmes for some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. </p>
<p>Calls for renewed investment in fossil fuel production, and the possibility of backtracking on climate emission promises <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/07/will-liz-trusss-government-adopt-or-weaken-green-policies">in response to the energy price crisis</a>, will undermine efforts to reduce the impact of the climate emergency.</p>
<p>African leaders and civil society organisations hoping a new broom will lead to a new set of relationships look set to be disappointed. Britain’s political myopia and navel-gazing will continue, with global engagement framed as something strictly to be done where it benefits the UK. Africa will likely have to wait for a new government, and a revived Department for International Development, for strong and close relations to be restored.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Jennings is affiliated with the Fabian Society </span></em></p>Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, Africa has slipped from its precarious but tangible place in UK political discourse.Michael Jennings, Professor in Global Development, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877052022-08-11T14:53:46Z2022-08-11T14:53:46ZNot yet uhuru: the African Union has had a few successes but remains weak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477122/original/file-20220802-19-k8vu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Delegates at the African Union Summit held in Malabo, Capital of Equatorial Guinea, on 27 May 2022 to address worsening humanitarian crises in Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The African Union (AU) was born in the South African port city of Durban <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/september-2002/african-union-launched">in 2002</a>. Under its first chair,<a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki-mr-0">Thabo Mbeki</a>, African leaders seemed determined to abandon the grandiose plans of its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The OAU had been established <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">in 1963</a> to promote African unity and liberation. Other aims included: to protect the territorial integrity of its member states, promote non-alignment, and advance the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7759-file-oau_charter_1963.pdf">peaceful settlement of disputes</a>.</p>
<p>The African Union, for its part, <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">was established</a> to achieve an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa which would be led by its own citizens and play a dynamic role in global politics. Unlike the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7759-file-oau_charter_1963.pdf">OAU Charter</a>, the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">AU’s Constitutive Act of 2000</a> allowed for interference in the internal affairs of its members to stem instability, halt egregious human rights abuses and sanction military coups d’état.</p>
<p>Military regimes in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2005/2/25/togo-suspended-from-au">Togo</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritania-coup-idUSL855802420080809">Mauritania</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/20/african-union-suspends-madagascar">Madagascar</a>, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20100219-african-union-suspends-niger-thousands-celebrate-coup">Niger</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-protests-africa-idUSBRE9640EP20130705">Egypt</a>, <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/sudan-suspended-african-union#:%7E:text=On%20the%206th%20of%20June,exit%20from%20its%20current%20crisis.">Sudan</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/african-union-suspends-guinea-after-military-coup/a-59144311">Guinea</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2012/4/17/guinea-bissau-suspended-from-african-union">Guinea-Bissau</a>, <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/african-union-suspends-mali-participation-all-activities">Mali</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/african-union-suspends-burkina-faso-after-military-coup-2022-01-31/">Burkina Faso</a> were thus suspended from the AU. The continental body launched praiseworthy military stabilisation missions into <a href="https://issafrica.org/chapter-4-the-african-union-mission-in-burundi">Burundi</a> (2003), <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20201231-un-african-union-peacekeeping-mission-in-sudan-s-darfur-ends">Darfur</a> (2007) and <a href="https://effectivepeaceops.net/publication/amisom/">Somalia</a> (2007). However despite this progress, autocrats continued to rig electoral outcomes. </p>
<p>As the AU <a href="https://au.int/en/overview">turned 20 in July 2022</a>, it had achieved a few successes. But it remains a weak organisation embarking on sporadic bouts of illusory reforms. This is due to financial and capacity constraints. And too much decision-making power resides with its omnipotent heads of state which has denied the organisation the ability to take decisions, and act more effectively on behalf of its members.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-unions-conflict-early-warning-system-is-no-more-what-now-183469">The African Union's conflict early warning system is no more. What now?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Institutional sclerosis</h2>
<p>The Addis Ababa-based <a href="https://au.int/en/commission">AU Commission</a> – its implementing arm – is led by an <a href="https://au.int/en/assembly">Assembly of Heads of State</a>, with an Executive Council of foreign ministers and a Permanent Representatives Committee of ambassadors. The ambassadors work with specialised development, governance, parliamentary and judicial organs. The AU Commission has, however, struggled to establish its independence to take initiatives on behalf of its 55 member states in fulfilment of its mandate. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/RO%20Audit%20of%20the%20AU.pdf">2007 audit report</a> led by the Nigerian scholar-technocrat <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/tribute-my-mentor-professor-adebayo-adedeji">Adebayo Adedeji</a> revealed how the AU Commission headed by <a href="https://www.africaunionfoundation.org/professor-alpha-oumar-konare/">Malian Alpha Konaré</a> (2003-2008) misunderstood its mandates and authority levels, and failed to coordinate overlapping tasks. Some of these problems still persist.</p>
<p>Under the French-influenced Gabonese <a href="http://jeanping.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CV-Jean-Ping-VGB.pdf">Jean Ping</a> (2008-2012), the commission’s annual budget had reached <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2011/01/27/short-of-cash-and-teeth">$260 million by 2011</a>. Only 40% of this sum was actually paid by members. The European Union, China and the United States mostly funded the rest. This posed the risk that AU institutional priorities could be set by its donors.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://au.int/en/assembly">AU Assembly</a> of heads of state has often failed to adhere to the principle of subsidiarity: taking decisions at the lowest practical level, as the European Union – the world’s only genuinely supranational regional organisation – does. </p>
<p>The AU also conducts most of its business through unanimity, making it difficult to reach quick decisions.</p>
<p>While the AU Commission has some impressive staff, it also has much “dead wood” inherited from the OAU era. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/african-union-needs-a-more-robust-response-to-conflict-in-cameroon-132449">African Union needs a more robust response to conflict in Cameroon</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The AU’s 2003 plan to set up an <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/page/82-african-standby-force-asf-amani-africa-1">African Standby Force</a> by 2010 was <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/joint/diplomacy-a-peace/african-union-says-progressing-to-military-force-by-end-2015/">postponed until 2015</a>. In December 2020, the organisation simply declared the force to be fully operational, despite the fantasy involved in such a statement. The deadline for “Silencing the Guns” (ending armed conflicts) <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2021.1995222#:%7E:text=The%20Africa%20Union's%20Agenda%202063,all%20illegal%20weapons%20in%20Africa.">by 2020</a>“ was casually pushed back a decade.</p>
<h2>Illusory reforms</h2>
<p>As chair of the AU Commission (2012-2016), former South African foreign minister <a href="https://www.africaunionfoundation.org/dr-nkosazana-dlamini-zuma/">Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma </a> complained that over 97% of the continental body’s programmes were <a href="https://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2012/Dec/27467/budget_challenge_for_dlamini_zuma_at_au.aspx">funded by external donors</a>. In 2013, $155 million of the $278 million annual budget (56%) was still <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/6158/african-union-its-never-too-late-to-avoid-war-dlamini-zuma/">provided by foreign partners</a>. But Dlamini-Zuma failed to reduce this dependence during her four-year tenure. AU leaders refused to back efforts to find alternative sources of funding, such as customs duties and <a href="https://archives.au.int/bitstream/handle/123456789/885/Assembly%20AU%2018%20%28XIX%29%20_E.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">taxes on flights and hotel stays</a>. </p>
<p>Among the more quixotic ideas of the Dlamini-Zuma-driven 50-year development vision, <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview">"Agenda 2063”</a> includes increasing intra-African trade from 12% to 50% by 2045, ending armed conflicts by 2020 ](https://au.int/en/flagships/silencing-guns-2020) and eradicating poverty in two decades.</p>
<p>Under the Francophile Chadian chair, <a href="https://au.int/en/biography-he-moussa-faki-mahamat">Moussa Faki Mahamat</a>, since 2017, the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34915-file-report-20institutional20reform20of20the20au-2.pdf">report</a> chaired by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Kagame">Rwandan president Paul Kagame</a> on reforming the AU seemed rushed and lacked substance, and its laundry list of recommendations on institutional reforms were on a level of vacuity as to be of no real utility. </p>
<p>These were physicians proposing half-baked cures to ills that had not been properly diagnosed. All the 2017 report’s “key findings” had been more coherently outlined in <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/RO%20Audit%20of%20the%20AU.pdf">Adedeji’s report</a> a decade earlier, the recommendations of which still have not been implemented. </p>
<p>Another disappointment has been the 2018 <a href="https://au.int/en/cfta">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> which seeks to facilitate trade, build infrastructure, establish a common market and ensure the free movement of people. But outside West and Eastern Africa, the free movement of people <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/africa-intracontinental-free-movement">remains a pipe dream</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/successes-of-african-human-rights-court-undermined-by-resistance-from-states-166454">Successes of African Human Rights Court undermined by resistance from states</a>
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<p>Most African governments are security-obsessed and hostile to intra-African migration. There is also a lack of convergence of African economies. Many compete to export raw materials rather than exchange diverse goods.</p>
<p>Road, rail, and port infrastructure remains poor. Rules of origin – which define where goods are made – are often restrictive, and non-tariff barriers are widespread. If integration has not worked at the national and sub-regional levels, transferring all these problems to the continental level will certainly not integrate Africa. </p>
<h2>Need for realism</h2>
<p>The 15-member <a href="https://au.int/en/psc">AU Peace and Security Council</a> has contributed substantively to peacemaking efforts across Africa, and coordinated closely with the United Nations.</p>
<p>But other AU organs have performed less well. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nepad.org/publication/nepad-brief">New Partnership for Africa’s Development</a> clearly lacks the resources and capacity as a development agency to uplift the continent. The <a href="https://au.int/en/aprm#:%7E:text=APRM%20is%20a%20voluntary%20arrangement,economic%20growth%20and%20sustainable%20development">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>, which identifies governance challenges in 41 countries, is toothless.</p>
<p>The Pan-African Parliament remains a <a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">“talking shop”</a>. The <a href="https://au.int/en/about/ecosocc">Economic, Social and Cultural Council</a> has failed to provide genuine civil society participation in the AU’s institutions. The idea of the African Diaspora in the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe as a <a href="http://www.west-africa-brief.org/content/en/six-regions-african-union">sixth African sub-region</a>, along with the five continental ones, is largely devoid of substance.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">Toothless Pan-African Parliament could have meaningful powers. Here's how</a>
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<p>The AU must thus adopt more realistic and less illusory mandates. Its approach should be based on an accurate assessment of financial and logistical realities. </p>
<p>More positively, AU members had contributed <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20220630/african-union-peace-fund-board-trustees-convene-meeting-review-progress">$295 million</a> to their <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/peace-fund-lies-dormant-as-member-states-discuss-its-use">revised Peace Fund</a> by June 2022, complementing a <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/african-union-20-much-accomplished-more-challenges-ahead/">$650 million 2022 budget </a>. African leaders must now strengthen the institutions they have created.</p>
<p>They must also establish one effective economic body in each sub-region that can promote socio-economic development and provide jobs for the continent’s youthful population.</p>
<p>The AU’s first two decades have largely represented a magical, mystical world of unfulfilled expectations. This is not yet uhuru (freedom).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adekeye Adebajo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The AU’s first two decades have largely represented a magical, mystical world of unfulfilled expectations.Adekeye Adebajo, Professor and Senior research fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884612022-08-09T10:15:59Z2022-08-09T10:15:59ZIs there really a paradigm shift in US/Africa relations? Why the answer seems to be yes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478255/original/file-20220809-22-788vfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US Secretary of State Antony Blinken setting out Washington's new Africa strategy at the University of Pretoria.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Andrew Harnik/AP POOL/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/08/blinken-makes-case-for-democracy-at-start-of-sub-saharan-africa-tour">whirlwind visit</a> to three African countries is the second in less than 12 months. </p>
<p>In November 2021 he visited <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-blinkens-travel-to-kenya-nigeria-and-senegal/">key U.S. regional partners</a> Senegal, Kenya and Nigeria. </p>
<p>In South Africa – the first stop on this trip – Blinken unveiled the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/U.S.-Strategy-Toward-Sub-Saharan-Africa-FINAL.pdf">U.S Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa</a>, marking a remarkable paradigmatic shift in America’s engagement with Africa.</p>
<p>Why do I call the new strategy a paradigmatic shift? </p>
<p>First, it sets a positive tone for US engagement with Africa. Previous US strategies began from the premise that Africa was not a strategic actor in the broad scheme of American foreign policy. </p>
<p>This strategy is different. It starts from the assumption that Africa is a core priority of US foreign policy. </p>
<p>This guiding assumption frames the fundamental commitment to working together toward common aspirations in the advancement of a shared agenda. </p>
<p>The tone is matched by the emphasis on African agency. And the ability of the continent to lead and participate effectively in decisions when it comes to economic, political and military engagements.</p>
<p>But, first some reflections on Blinken’s three-country visit.</p>
<h2>Significance of three-country stopovers</h2>
<p>The visit to South Africa underscored US interest in re-engaging the South African government within the context of the US-South Africa Strategic Dialogue framework. This was crafted by the Barack Obama administration in 2010 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretary-of-state-blinken-in-south-africa-on-africa-tour/2022/08/07/bd50edba-163f-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html">to deepen the relationship</a> between the two sides. </p>
<p>The dialogue provides a forum for both partners to review common aspirations and objectives while also addressing persisting disagreements. But it was interrupted by the Donald Trump administration as well as the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. </p>
<p>South Africa is one of the few African countries with this kind of strategic partnership with the US. The forum therefore reinforces South Africa as an African actor that Washington takes seriously. This is despite differences which both partners should manage amicably. </p>
<p>Hopefully, the Blinken delegation may have had the opportunity to cautiously raise concerns about the instability and disarray in the governing African National Congress (ANC) coalition. This has had a detrimental impact on South Africa’s stature in foreign policy. In Africa and globally.</p>
<p>In the DRC and Rwanda, Blinken will <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/secretary-blinken-arrive-congo-rwanda-amid-international-tensions/story?id=88086834">confront the unending conflicts</a> in the region. These have decimated lives and communities, frustrated international and regional stabilisation efforts, and consigned the Great Lakes region to global marginality. This is despite its <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=blinken+in+rwanda&rlz=1C1CHBD_enZA971ZA971&oq=bli&aqs=chrome.1.46i67i131i433j35i39j69i57j35i39j0i131i433i512j69i60l3.4607j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">abundant resources</a>. </p>
<p>Bilateral, regional, and international efforts to resolve the root cause of the problem – the antagonism between the DRC and Rwanda – have failed. They need the injection of US mediation to break the impasse. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-and-drcs-turbulent-past-continues-to-fuel-their-torrid-relationship-188405">Rwanda and DRC's turbulent past continues to fuel their torrid relationship</a>
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<p>The government of President Felix Tshisekedi has <a href="https://mg.co.za/africa/2022-06-09-rwanda-drc-tensions-complicate-the-nairobi-peace-talks-for-the-great-lakes/">made decisive attempts</a> to mend fences with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame. But the two are incapable of resolving their problems while conflict persists. </p>
<p>Kagame will not cease his relentless military adventures in the region if the DRC and its supporters cannot eliminate insurgent Hutu rebels implicated in the 1994 genocide. </p>
<p>In addition, neither the DRC government nor the United Nations Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) seem able to marshal the resources to be able to pacify the eastern DRC sufficiently to address <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/08/05/confidential-un-report-provides-solid-evidence-of-rwanda-s-involvement-in-the-east-drc_5992599_4.html">Kagame’s concerns</a>. </p>
<p>It is going to require US diplomatic dexterity and a sustained economic and political re-commitment to resolve this 30-year-old crisis. A start may be a US-led military force composed of new military contingents from various countries. This could be bolstered by a bold US commitment against authoritarian and autocratic regimes in the region. </p>
<p>But Blinken is bound <a href="https://www.aei.org/op-eds/why-blinken-fails-to-understand-rwanda/">to face opposition from some of the key players </a>.</p>
<h2>The paradigm shift</h2>
<p>The strategy outlined by Blinken has four key objectives. These are fostering openness and open societies; delivering democratic and security dividends; advancing pandemic recovery and economic opportunity; and supporting conservation, climate adaptation and just energy transition (pp. 7-10). </p>
<p>An innovative idea is the involvement of the US International Development Agency (USAID) on the education front. What’s been tabled is that US academic institutions and the private sector provide online courses for African students. Subjects could include science, technology, engineering and Maths (STEM) (p.16).</p>
<p>The strategy also emphasises digital democracy, the centrality of cities, and incorporation of African American diaspora in US-Africa relations.</p>
<p>Beyond these, the four objectives capture the continuity of policies that past administrations have articulated. </p>
<p>The change prescribed in the strategy, therefore, is in tone rather than substance.</p>
<p>Third, sensitivities to race play a dominant role in the strategy, reflective of the convergence of Africanists and African Americans in the Biden administration and its Africa policy. </p>
<p>Throughout the document, there is mention of placing people of colour at the heart of US-Africa relations as well as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>recognizing the historical and ongoing connections between addressing racial justice and equality in Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States (p.12).</p>
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<p>Equally germane, the strategy acknowledges past criticisms of US training and support for African militaries that launch coups against civilian regimes and abuse human rights.</p>
<p>Finally, the strategy is cleverly articulated to undercut critics who often invoke US competition with China and Russia in Africa as the main driver of engagement with Africa. The strategy poignantly addresses this issue. It states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the United States has an abiding interest in ensuring that the region remains open, and accessible to all, and that governments and publics are able to make their own choices, consistent with international obligations.“ (p.7).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Instead of being preachy and prescriptive with respect to African relations with other powers, the strategy presents African states with the enticing option of working with the US in the advancement of common values, mutual respect, democracy, and prosperity. </p>
<p>The strategy is a fresh beginning in US-Africa relations. But its outcomes will be judged on two factors. Will the Biden administration be able to negotiate implementation in the fractious US political process? And will African countries be able to seize opportunities that the strategy presents?</p>
<p>The December 2022 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-announces-us-africa-summit-mid-december-2022-07-20/">Africa-US summit in Washington</a> will be an excellent opportunity to gauge responses to this strategy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilbert M. Khadiagala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The strategy outlined by the US Secretary of State marks a fresh beginning in US-Africa relations.Gilbert M. Khadiagala, Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations and Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881152022-08-03T16:03:30Z2022-08-03T16:03:30ZThe US and Rwanda: how the relationship has evolved since the 1994 genocide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477450/original/file-20220803-13-vhq58h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rwandan president Paul Kagame speaks during a governance event in the US.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Marotta/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the primary points of discussion between Antony Blinken and Rwandan president Paul Kagame in the US secretary of state’s upcoming <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202207290639.html">visit to Kigali</a> will be the renewed tensions between Rwanda and its neighbours, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-blinkens-travel-to-cambodia-the-philippines-south-africa-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-rwanda/">US State Department statement</a>, Blinken’s visit will focus on the role the government of Rwanda can play in reducing tensions and the ongoing violence in eastern DRC.</p>
<p>Tensions between Rwanda and the DRC are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/resurgence-of-m23-fuels-conflict-between-congo-and-rwanda/av-62398977">running high</a>. The DRC has accused Rwanda of openly supporting the Mouvement du 23 Mars (March 23 Movement, M23) in eastern Congo. Rwanda has dismissed these accusations. It has <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/211848/rwanda-drc-tensions-flare-over-rebel-groups-in-eastern-drc/">instead claimed</a> that the Congolese government is spurring violence against the minority Banyamulenge population, and working with the rebel group called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, which holds pro-Hutu genocide ideology.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/region-steps-up-diplomatic-firefighting-in-rwanda-drc-tensions-3844854">Regional actors</a>, such as Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, have tried to reduce these tensions. But there has been little progress. </p>
<p>The issue is of importance to the US based on its historical relationship with Rwanda and the east African nation’s alleged <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-congo-demomcratic-un-idUKBRE9BF1GQ20131217">interference</a> in eastern DRC by supporting antagonist forces, such as the M23. This charge was laid by the <a href="https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sanctions/1533/panel-of-experts/expert-reports">UN Group of Experts</a>. </p>
<p>It’s unclear if Blinken’s mediation efforts will be successful. </p>
<p>Relations between the US and Rwanda have had their high and low periods. One of the lowest points came in 2012, during Barack Obama’s tenure as US president. He <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-18944299">cut military aid</a> to Rwanda over Kagame’s human rights record, as well as Kigali’s role in supporting the M23 rebel group. The US cut $200,000 from a $200 million programme, a symbolic gesture from one of Rwanda’s staunchest defenders. </p>
<p>Since then, however, Rwandan-US relations have continued to grow, with a notable increase of American tourists and officials visiting the east African nation prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<h2>The ups and downs</h2>
<p>Before the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/africa/rwandan-genocide">Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi in 1994</a>, the country fell within France’s sphere of influence. Washington did not view Rwanda as a strategic partner.</p>
<p>But America’s relations with Rwanda changed after the genocide, based on a desire to help support the new post-genocide government. The result was the forging of close diplomatic relations, a process described by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Aftermath-Genocide-U-S-Role-Rwanda/dp/0595344119">Robert Gribbin</a>, a former American ambassador to Rwanda (1996-1999), in his book, In the Aftermath of Genocide: The US Role in Rwanda. </p>
<p>Gribbin sets out how the US developed close relations with the post-genocide government and the victorious Rwanda Patriotic Front. This included providing military training for soldiers and commanders, which still continues.</p>
<p>Thanks to the efforts of Susan Rice, the former assistant secretary of state for African affairs (1997-2001) under the Clinton administration, the US became a close ally of Rwanda. </p>
<p>This relationship held despite turbulent times under the Obama administration (2009-2017), which led to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/19/obama-rwanda-support-congo-rebels">reduction in military aid</a> and harsher <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/04/rwanda-president-paul-kagame-us-obama-third-term">critiques</a> of Rwanda’s democratic and human rights record. </p>
<p>While there was some <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-relationship-between-rwanda-and-trumps-america-could-change-72807">optimism</a> under the Trump administration, disagreements on <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1344686/trumps-trade-wars-hit-kagames-rwanda-over-secondhand-clothes/">trade</a> led to anger among Rwandan officials. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Rwandan-US relations have remained relatively strong.</p>
<h2>Kagame as a pull factor</h2>
<p>The reason for America’s continued close relations with Rwanda possibly stems from the stability of Kagame. <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1047239/election-in-rwanda-paul-kagame-has-won-re-election-to-secure-third-term/">First appointed as president</a> in 2000, he presents a stable ally who knows the pro-western language of development and security. </p>
<p>Kagame, however, has come in for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/rwanda-human-rights-fears-paul-kagame">a great deal of criticism</a> for his domestic human rights and political record. Blinken, according to the US State Department, will be <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-blinkens-travel-to-cambodia-the-philippines-south-africa-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-rwanda/">raising concerns</a> about this record during his visit. </p>
<p>Blinken will particularly focus on Kagame’s “transnational repression, limiting space for dissent and political opposition, and the wrongful detention of US Lawful Permanent Resident Paul Rusesabagina”. Rwanda <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/191368/rwanda-paul-rusesabaginas-prison-sentence-is-upheld-following-an-appeal/">sentenced</a> Rusesabagina to 25 years in prison for his <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/rusesabagina-gets-25-year-sentence-over-fln-terror-attacks">connection</a> to terrorist attacks in 2018 that killed nine Rwandans. </p>
<p>For the most part, however, American officials have chosen to <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/03/25/the-furious-debate-about-rwanda-and-its-autocratic-president">overlook</a> concerns about Kagame’s human rights record. They are much more inclined to view Kagame’s support as instrumental to promoting American policies and interests in Africa. These include promoting a business environment that is favourable for US foreign investment, his soft power influence in African relations and Kigali’s peacekeeping contributions.</p>
<h2>Peacekeeping</h2>
<p>America’s willingness to send its military into peacekeeping missions was greatly hindered by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Somalia-intervention">1993 failed peacekeeping mission in Somalia</a>. The US was seen to have been humiliated after 19 American soldiers died in the Battle of Mogadishu. </p>
<p>These events fostered great political backlash in the US. Many Americans failed to see the purpose of sending US military personnel in non-strategic military operations. </p>
<p>America’s reluctance to be involved in peacekeeping opened the door for Washington to offer nations political, diplomatic and military support in return for their participation in missions. In this way the US can meet <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/renewing-us-commitment-un-peacekeeping-africarenewing-us-commitment-un-peacekeeping-africa">its commitment to peacekeeping</a> without sending its own soldiers.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that Blinken will seek Rwanda’s continued commitment to contributing military and police personnel.</p>
<p>This is a particularly tricky issue in the region at the moment. Over the past two weeks, the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC has come under attack. In <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20220731-several-killed-after-un-peacekeepers-open-fire-in-eastern-dr-congo">two separate incidents</a>, at least 20 people have been killed. Among them were three peacekeepers. Additionally, Rwandan authorities have previously <a href="https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/rwanda-threatens-to-withdraw-peacekeepers">threatened</a> to remove their soldiers from peacekeeping missions after receiving international criticism.</p>
<h2>Investment destination</h2>
<p>Even though Rwanda is a <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/rwanda/overview">small country</a> – it is a low-income economy with a <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/rwanda-population/">population of just over 13 million</a> – it is still an important destination for American multinational corporations seeking to invest in east Africa. </p>
<p>Rwandan officials, in particular Kagame, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rwanda-Inc-Devastated-Economic-Developing/dp/1137278951">have developed</a> close relations with international leaders of companies like Starbucks, Volkswagen, Costco, Macy’s, Visa and Marriott International Inc. </p>
<p>These companies have either opened factories, such as <a href="https://www.volkswagen.rw/en/help-and-support/about-the-vw-group.html">Volkswagen</a>, bought commodities, such as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna11625229">Starbucks</a>, or as with <a href="https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/6158/visa-in-rwanda-the-future-for-financial-sector-development">Visa</a>, invested in financial growth services in the region.</p>
<h2>Outcome</h2>
<p>The current tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, as well as Rusesabagina’s arrest, will not be solved by Blinken’s quick visit. But these issues are unlikely to cause any long-term damage to Rwanda-US foreign relations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Beloff receives funding from the Arts and Humanity Research Council (AHRC). </span></em></p>The US has become one of Rwanda’s staunchest defenders.Jonathan Beloff, Postdoctoral Research Associate, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1862442022-08-02T14:05:56Z2022-08-02T14:05:56ZHow Rwanda’s annual genocide commemoration fans the flame of ethnicity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473875/original/file-20220713-9357-jjdkei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A billboard highlights Rwanda's 100-day commemoration of the 1994 genocide.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thierry Falise/LightRocket via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each year, Rwandans at home and in the diaspora remember those <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506">killed in the 1994 genocide</a>. This is not a single-day event. Kwibuka (“to remember” in the local Kinyarwanda language) consists of 100 days of official commemoration. It’s characterised by explicit acknowledgement and public discussions of ethnic identity.</p>
<p>But there’s a puzzling contradiction of state policy at play during Kwibuka. </p>
<p>In 2003, Rwanda adopted a policy of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/world/a-decade-after-massacres-rwanda-outlaws-ethnicity.html">ethnic non-recognition</a>. There are no Hutus or Tutsis; only Rwandans. The aim is to achieve national homogeneity in a country that was torn apart by ethnic genocide. </p>
<p>The policy is strictly enforced, but relaxes during the 100 days of Kwibuka. </p>
<p>This has led to seemingly opposed practices: legally erasing identity groups because of their link to conflict, contrasted against three months of saturated reminders in the form of public speeches, memorial programming, burials and commemorative signage.</p>
<p>In 2014, 20 years on, the genocide was officially renamed from the Rwandan genocide to “the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi”. This decision was recognised by the United Nations General Assembly in <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/ga12000.doc.htm">2018</a>. </p>
<p>The change marked a distinct shift from an inclusive naming. It also centred Tutsi people as the sole targets of genocidal violence. This, despite Rwanda and the international community historically acknowledging that moderate Hutus were victimised, too. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-rwanda-genocide-commemorations-are-infused-with-political-and-diplomatic-agendas-160283">In Rwanda, genocide commemorations are infused with political and diplomatic agendas</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/constructing-identity-through-commemoration-kwibuka-and-the-rise-of-survivor-nationalism-in-postconflict-rwanda/CFE362C810D66B522D751AC1938DCF59">My research</a> pinpointed four anomalies that were not present during the rest of the year but emerged during Kwibuka:</p>
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<li>a perceived increase in violence towards survivors</li>
<li>an increase in accusations and convictions of genocide ideology and denial</li>
<li>widespread youth involvement in identity rhetoric</li>
<li>a reported increase in prisoner confessions. </li>
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<p>These anomalies highlight how Kwibuka exacerbates social tensions. My research was done five years ago, but the <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/rib-warns-against-genocide-ideology-ahead-kwibuka27">anomalies</a> I observed <a href="https://www.ktpress.rw/2022/04/kwibuka-28-killed-and-dumped-in-river-rubyiro-remembered-for-the-first-time/">persist</a>.</p>
<h2>Studying state-led commemoration</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/CFE362C810D66B522D751AC1938DCF59/S0022278X19000259a.pdf/constructing-identity-through-commemoration-kwibuka-and-the-rise-of-survivor-nationalism-in-post-conflict-rwanda.pdf">my research</a>, I examined the rhetoric coming from the Rwandan state on the 1994 genocide. I also observed nine commemoration events to see how attendees reacted to and spoke about Kwibuka.</p>
<p>I additionally conducted interviews to help me understand the differences between the commemoration period and the rest of the year. </p>
<p>I was curious to follow what effect this sudden shift from ethnic non-recognition to recognition might have on people. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of the genocide, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the country’s leading political party, has “<a href="https://advox.globalvoices.org/2020/08/07/the-chilling-tale-of-mass-surveillance-and-spying-in-rwanda/">positioned itself</a> as the only guarantor of peace, security and development”, as Rwandan lawyer Louis Gitinywa writes. </p>
<p>My research shows this message is reinforced through commemoration programming. This commonly emphasises that only the ruling party and current political leadership stand between ordinary Rwandans and a reemergence of genocidal violence. </p>
<p>The ethnic non-recognition policy is linked to Rwandan laws against “genocide ideology” and <a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4ac5c4302.pdf">“sectarianism”</a>. The government claims that such laws keep Rwandans safe. However, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr47/005/2010/en/">critics</a> point out their chilling effect on legitimate political opposition and dissent. I was at times told that simply asking questions about genocide commemoration and ethnicity could be seen as being at odds with the law.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/commonwealth-leaders-gather-in-rwanda-as-uk-refugee-plan-focuses-attention-on-human-rights-185328">Commonwealth leaders gather in Rwanda as UK refugee plan focuses attention on human rights</a>
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<h2>Anomalies</h2>
<p>I discovered four anomalies that are only present during the commemoration period. </p>
<p>First, there is heightened sensitivity across the country. Survivors told me they were worried about violence against them and their property. This is not baseless. National radio and television stations report threats against survivors throughout Kwibuka. These include their livestock being tortured, property destroyed and bones mailed to memorial sites.</p>
<p>The second anomaly is the emergence of “survivor youth” and their engagement with ethnic rhetoric. Among my interviewees, “survivor” was synonymous with “Tutsi”. </p>
<p>This self-claimed identity held even among young people who have spent most of their lives in a country with an ethnic non-recognition policy. Notably, my youth interviewees identified themselves by ethnicity unprompted, and when asked if they knew any non-Tutsi who would refer to themselves as “survivors”, they all said no or were unsure.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.cnlg.gov.rw/index.php?id=2">National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide</a> shared data with me on accusations and convictions related to genocide denial and ideology during Kwibuka. It showed that many of these cases involved people born well after 1994. This happened despite the state’s insistence that the next generation is free of the old biases or violent inclinations that drove the genocide.</p>
<p>The third anomaly is the increase in accusations and convictions of genocide ideology, denial and sectarianism. My interview data was consistent with <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/call-unity-kwibuka27-activities-draw-closer">statistics</a> from the Rwanda Investigation Board showing that such accusations and convictions are concentrated during Kwibuka. It’s not clear why, but heightened sensitivity and the fear rhetoric promoted by the Rwandan Patriotic Front during the 100 days may be among the reasons.</p>
<p>Finally, Kwibuka always marks an increase in confessions from imprisoned génocidaires. This relates directly to an <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/genocide-over-18000-victims-exhumed-kigali-mass-graves">increase</a> in bodies of genocide victims being discovered. Confessions are made each year, even though authorities say incentives for prisoners who share information ended some time ago.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ateliers/2019-v14-n2-ateliers05462/1071136ar/">argued</a> that this continual discovery of bodies merits further attention. Exhumation and reburial can lead to <a href="https://www.cigionline.org/publications/promoting-reconciliation-through-exhuming-and-identifying-victims-1994-rwandan-0/">closure</a> for families and communities, and is an important part of commemoration. However, a claim that prisoners confess because they are “moved by the spirit of Kwibuka” is at odds with documented <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/10/10/we-will-force-you-confess/torture-and-unlawful-military-detention-rwanda">coercion and human rights violations</a> in Rwandan prisons.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rwandans-discuss-how-best-to-commemorate-genocide-94452">Rwandans discuss how best to commemorate genocide</a>
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<h2>Memory without exclusion</h2>
<p>My research in no way aims to promote covering up history. But there is a difference between teaching history and stoking historical social divisions. The exclusionary “us versus them” form of nationalism that emerges during Kwibuka may threaten Rwanda’s precarious peace. </p>
<p>One solution may lie in the fact that the commemoration period is highly mutable. It adapts and changes every year. This means it’s possible to have more inclusive events that favour a <a href="https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/agaciro-vernacular-memory-and-the-politics-of-memory-in-postgenocide-rwanda(2e914106-f314-4a45-a6f2-7927a68d2be6).html">balance</a> between official narratives and ordinary people’s memories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186244/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gretchen Baldwin received funding for this research from the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) in 2017. She is currently a Researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. </span></em></p>In 2003, Rwanda adopted a policy of ethnic non-recognition. However, for 100 days in a year, it centres ethnicity in the country’s psyche.Gretchen Baldwin, Researcher, Stockholm International Peace Research InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1853282022-06-20T12:15:11Z2022-06-20T12:15:11ZCommonwealth leaders gather in Rwanda as UK refugee plan focuses attention on human rights<p>For decades, Whitehall has pondered how to make use of the Commonwealth, without tangible results. There was an expectation in some quarters that Brexit would increase its significance to the UK. But it was never clear why this would, in itself, suddenly transform an under-resourced and notoriously unfocused organisation into an effective vehicle for British interests. </p>
<p>Indeed, with the publication in March 2021 of its <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/global-britain-in-a-competitive-age-the-integrated-review-of-security-defence-development-and-foreign-policy">integrated review of defence and foreign policy</a>, which barely even name-checked the Commonwealth, the British government finally seemed to have given up trying to solve that perennial riddle. And the UK is not alone in wondering whether there shouldn’t be a clearer instruction manual for this enigmatic survival from the imperial past.</p>
<p>How and why, then, does the Commonwealth survive? Perhaps the best answer is that the benefits of belonging to the organisation are now about identity rather than utility. Since the 1990s, it has attempted to reinvent itself as a body united by shared values rather than a shared history. These are values like respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law enshrined in the <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/charter">2013 Commonwealth Charter</a>. So being a member is a sort of Kitemark of international respectability.</p>
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<p>More specifically, the prestige of hosting the organisation’s biennial Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) – and hence becoming the organisation’s chair-in-office – ensures there is at least one Commonwealth leader who has a keen interest in dragging out its existence for another couple of years. </p>
<p>It is a particular prize for regimes who want to use it for what one might call “reputation laundering”. This was certainly the case in 2013, when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/15/sri-lanka-britain-rethink-commonwealth-rajapaksa">the Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapaksa</a>, which was heavily implicated in human rights abuses, was able to wrap itself in the high ideals of the charter and welcome Prince Charles and other Commonwealth dignitaries to that year’s summit in Colombo. </p>
<p>To many Commonwealth watchers, the prospect of the 2022 CHOGM being hosted by the Rwandan government of Paul Kagame, with its own controversial record in the areas of <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/africa/east-africa-the-horn-and-great-lakes/rwanda/report-rwanda/">human rights</a> and <a href="https://rsf.org/en/country/rwanda">press freedom</a>, seemed like a willful failure by the Commonwealth Secretariat to learn from recent history. Still, it was difficult to see what the UK gained from this process of whitewashing.</p>
<h2>‘Dumping’ refugees</h2>
<p>It probably took the ingrained cynicism of the Johnson administration to answer this question. But answer it they did in April when they unveiled a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memorandum-of-understanding-mou-between-the-uk-and-rwanda/memorandum-of-understanding-between-the-government-of-the-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-and-the-government-of-the-republic-of-r">memorandum of understanding</a> under which asylum seekers would be “relocated” to Rwanda for processing and settlement. In return, the UK would pay Rwanda around £120 million. Not only was Britain proposing to use a Commonwealth partner as a place to “dump” unwanted people, but there were real concerns about the welfare of those forcibly removed there.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-action-to-tackle-illegal-migration-14-april-2022">Announcing the scheme</a>, Johnson partly sought to justify the choice of Rwanda on the basis that, later in the year, it would “welcome leaders from across the Commonwealth”. The clear implication was that it would not have been granted the honour of doing so if its human rights record had been in doubt. </p>
<p>The prime minister was, in effect, neatly inverting the approach of successive governments, including his own, which has been to urge countries like Rwanda to improve their performance in order to adhere to the values of the charter. </p>
<h2>Rwanda’s record</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/37th-universal-periodic-review-uk-statement-on-rwanda">January 2021</a>, the Foreign Office reminded Rwanda that as “a member of the Commonwealth, and future chair-in-office” it had a duty “to model Commonwealth values of democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights”. Yet as recently as last month, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rwanda-country-policy-and-information-notes/country-policy-and-information-note-rwanda-general-human-rights-may-2022-accessible">the Home Office’s own report on human rights in Rwanda</a> placed it 45th out of 49 African nations in terms of the ability of opposition parties to participate in the political process, 44th in terms of freedom of expression and 47th in terms of freedom from “political killings and torture by the government”.</p>
<p>Despite damaging assessments such as these, Kagame has retained friends in high places in the UK and strong links to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/16/partisan-views-on-rwanda">Conservative Party</a>. In March, the British government meekly accepted the appointment of <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/uk-approves-rwandan-envoy-ahead-of-commonwealth-meet-3753064">Johnston Busingye</a> as Rwanda’s high commissioner in London despite his alleged role while minister of justice in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/01/hotel-rwanda-activist-paul-rusesabagina-kidnapped-from-dubai">abduction of Paul Rusesabagina</a>, a leading critic of Kagame and the man world-famous for having sheltered refugees from the 1990s genocide, as depicted in the film Hotel Rwanda. </p>
<p>Neither the current Commonwealth secretary-general, Patricia Scotland, nor Jamaica’s foreign minister, Kamina Johnson Smith, who will be challenging her for the role when heads of government meet in Rwanda later this week, have openly criticised the UK’s asylum plan, perhaps for fear of alienating Kagame who will be presiding over the vote. Indeed, in an <a href="https://www.easterneye.biz/exclusive-fight-to-save-commonwealth/">extraordinarily vitriolic article</a> in which Scotland’s supporters accused the British government of promoting a “colonial agenda” and having systematically undermined her, no mention was made of the Rwandan deal despite its distinctly colonial overtones.</p>
<p>But not everyone has been so relaxed about this burgeoning Commonwealth “special relationship”. Apparently <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10930213/Prince-Charles-fears-Rwanda-row-drown-Commonwealth-message-visit-Kigali-week.html">fearing</a> that deportations to Rwanda would overshadow this month’s CHOGM, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/10/prince-charles-criticises-appalling-rwanda-scheme-reports">Prince Charles</a> reportedly described the scheme as “appalling”. A letter to The Times from Anglican bishops called it <a href="https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/17-june/news/uk/bishops-unite-to-condemn-shameful-rwanda-plan-for-asylum-seekers">“shameful”</a> and one of Johnson’s own backbenchers labelled it <a href="https://www.thenational.scot/news/20188943.jesse-norman-no-confidence-letter-say/">“ugly”</a>.</p>
<p>The legal challenges which forced the UK to halt the first flight to Rwanda <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/jun/14/rwanda-flights-asylum-seekers-priti-patel-liz-truss-conservatives-uk-politics-latest">at the last minute</a> may have reduced the prospect of embarrassment when Commonwealth heads meet, but the UK government remains committed to the policy. It is the wrong answer to the decades-old question of how to make use of the Commonwealth and, like almost everything else the British prime minister touches, it is likely to reflect badly on everyone involved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Murphy has received funding from the AHRC. He is a member of the European Movement UK. An earlier version of this article was published by History & Policy on 20 April.</span></em></p>The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Kigali, Rwanda will be complicated by the UK’s plan to send refugees to Rwanda.Philip Murphy, Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and Professor of British and Commonwealth History, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1834692022-05-24T14:42:08Z2022-05-24T14:42:08ZThe African Union’s conflict early warning system is no more. What now?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464671/original/file-20220522-25-p66l1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police officers under the African Union.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stuart Price/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since 2017, the African Union (AU) has undergone institutional reforms to increase its efficiency and effectiveness. The gist of these reforms was proposed by the so-called <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34915-file-report-20institutional20reform20of20the20au-2.pdf">Kagame Report</a> commissioned by the AU Assembly of <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/35286-doc-ext-assembly-2xiannex_-_administrative_reform_roadmap_e.pdf">Heads of State and Government</a>. </p>
<p>An advisory team led by Rwanda president Paul Kagame took on <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34915-file-report-20institutional20reform20of20the20au-2.pdf">“the chronic failure to see through African Union decisions”</a>. This had led to the AU being seen as having limited relevance to African citizens. </p>
<p>The team also addressed financial overdependence on external partners, the underperformance of some organs and institutions, and the ambiguous working relations between the African Union Commission, and regional entities and member states.</p>
<p>One reform proposed was the merging of the Political Affairs and Peace and Security departments in 2021. It’s now called the Department of <a href="http://www.peaceau.org/en/">Political Affairs, Peace and Security</a>. </p>
<p>However, the result was that one of the five pillars of the African Peace and Security Architecture – the <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/uploads/psc-protocol-en.pdf">Continental Early Warning System</a> – has disappeared. Established in 2002, the early warning system was created to anticipate and prevent conflicts in the continent.</p>
<p>It was <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/a-democratic-africa-is-imperative-to-bring-about-lasting-peace-bankole-adeoye">recently argued</a> that the warning system’s functions would be incorporated across the new portfolio department. However, its major functions can no longer be performed. These include coordination and harmonisation with regional economic communities, and assisting member states in conflict analysis and mitigation. </p>
<p>As a former advisor to the African Union’s Peace and Security Department, I am deeply concerned about the effect this will have on the continent’s capability to prevent violent conflict. It is impossible to prove which conflicts were avoided because of the early warning system. However, in my view, its outputs ensured less violence than might otherwise have been.</p>
<p>The warning system produced analytical reports that informed the chairperson of the African Union Commission and the Peace and Security Council on impending conflict situations. It also established regular, direct relations with the council and helped regional economic communities develop their own early warning systems.</p>
<p>It further facilitated early warning exchanges across the continent, and helped member states address issues of structural stability and root causes of conflict. </p>
<p>The continental system additionally offered regular analyses in pre-election situations that had in the past escalated to violent conflict. </p>
<h2>Establishing the system</h2>
<p>The African Union’s Continental Early Warning System became operational in 2012, 10 years after its formation. This followed the careful design of its systems, workflow and structure. </p>
<p>Historically, the core of the system was the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep09583.7.pdf">Conflict Management Centre</a>. This was set up in 1993 for the Organisation of African Unity, the AU’s predecessor. </p>
<p>The early warning system functions included information monitoring and collection. Second was conflict and cooperation analyses. Third was the formulation of response options for decision-makers. The first was carried out by the so-called Situation Room while the second and third were carried out by analysts. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/uploads/psc-protocol-en.pdf">early warning analyses</a> were to be used by the chairperson of the African Union Commission:</p>
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<p>to advise the Peace and Security Council on potential conflicts and threats to peace and security in Africa, and recommend the best course of action. </p>
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<h2>Early warning practices</h2>
<p>Numerous early warning reports were developed, such as the automated Africa News Brief or Daily Reports. There were also in-depth, analytical early warning reports that offered concrete policy recommendations.</p>
<p>The early warning system also <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/uploads/01-cscpf-booklet-updated-final.pdf">developed</a> a strong dimension of long-term conflict prevention practices. It resulted in strategies that countries could use to assess their potential for conflict and develop mitigation strategies. In 2017 and 2018, <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/uploads/press-release-v2.pdf">Ghana</a> became the first country to voluntarily go through this process. </p>
<p>Another problem to be overcome was the ‘silo mentality’ among African Union Commission stakeholders who were acting in isolation to each other. For this purpose, a separate <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/article/the-african-union-commission-inter-departmental-task-force-on-post-conflict-reconstruction-and-development-reviews-progress-since-its-inauguration-in-may-2016">conflict prevention framework</a> was established in 2015. The task force was partly operational, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit the continent.</p>
<p>In engaging decision-makers, the Continental Early Warning System developed a horizon-scanning practice. From 2016, it briefed the Peace and Security Council twice a year. However, this was also discontinued during the pandemic. </p>
<h2>The effect of institutional reform</h2>
<p>The Continental Early Warning System was unfortunately obliterated under the broad AU reforms in 2021 that created a new department of Political Affairs, Peace and Security. </p>
<p>The Situation Room has been retained, but the early warning system analysts were redeployed to regional desks. There are now three regional desks: West and Central Africa, East and Southern Africa, and North Africa. They are staffed by five analysts each. </p>
<p>Obviously, they are preoccupied with conflict management in the many cases of violent extremism and terrorism, or unconstitutional changes of government. They simply don’t have the time and structure to also do early warnings. This means the dedicated place for early warnings is gone. </p>
<p>So, what are the practical implications of these decisions? </p>
<p>First, the question arises: can these rather dramatic changes be made without the African Union Assembly revising the Peace and Security Council Protocol? As stated earlier, the early warning system is one of five statutory pillars of the African Peace and Security Architecture.</p>
<p>Second, it’s not clear what role the system’s technical staff will play within the union’s peace and security apparatus. Or what becomes of the tools that have been developed and customised for data collection and analysis over the past 13 years. </p>
<p>Third, there is no dedicated unit left to prepare the statutory horizon-scanning briefings for the Peace and Security Council.</p>
<p>Fourth, there’s no unit in place to continue assisting member states to identify and address structural vulnerabilities at an early stage to build more resilient and prosperous nations. This core function is quite different from the work of the <a href="https://www.aprm-au.org">African Peer Review Mechanism</a> and cannot be replaced by it.</p>
<p>Finally, there’s no indication which organ will now coordinate and harmonise the early warning relationship between the African Union and regional economic communities. </p>
<h2>A possible future</h2>
<p>The current structure of the new Department of Political Affairs, Peace and Security basically doesn’t fulfil the early warning mandate of the Peace and Security Council Protocol. </p>
<p>It also doesn’t address the ambitious aims spelled out in the <a href="https://au.int/en/documents/20200331/africa-peace-and-security-architecture-apsa-roadmap-2016-2020">African Peace and Security Architecture Roadmap</a> and the <a href="https://au.int/en/documents/20200204/african-union-master-roadmap-practical-steps-silence-guns-africa-year-2020-lusaka">Master Roadmap on Silencing the Guns</a>.</p>
<p>The African Union had years of steady progress in implementing the early warning dimensions of the Peace and Security Council Protocol, and even going beyond it. There is a strong need for its decision-makers to realise that these early warning functions and practices must be re-organised quickly, systematically and substantively.</p>
<p>On the issue of early warning and conflict prevention, the well-intended institutional reform of the African Union has gone a step too far. </p>
<p>However, this can be easily rectified.</p>
<p>A possible way forward can be borrowed from another structure that was dissolved under the new organogram: the African Union Border Programme. </p>
<p>The border programme had developed an important track record in addressing ill-demarcated borders and border conflict in amicable ways. Its “need for dedicated capacity and required resources” was recently <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/article/declaration-14th-ordinary-meeting-of-the-specialised-technical-committee-on-defence-safety-and-security-12-may-2022-addis-ababa-ethiopia">acknowledged</a> during a meeting of the Specialised Technical Committee on Defence, Safety and Security held in Ethiopia on 12 May 2022.</p>
<p>Taking stock of the achievements and current needs of the continental early warning system should follow soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ulf Engel receives funding for various research projects from the EU Commission (Horizon 2020), the German Research Council (CRC 1199), and the German Federal Ministry of Education (African non-military conflict intervention practices network). </span></em></p>The African Union’s Continental Early Warning System was created to anticipate and prevent conflicts, but it’s gone.Ulf Engel, Professor, Institute of African Studies, University of LeipzigLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1818632022-05-22T12:35:12Z2022-05-22T12:35:12ZMuseveni’s first son Muhoozi: clear signals of a succession plan in Uganda<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461233/original/file-20220504-13-flt98h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Muhoozi Kainerugaba, commander of Uganda's land forces and President Yoweri Museveni's son.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Busomoke/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 8 March 2022, Ugandan politics was sent into a spin by 49 words tweeted by President Yoweri Museveni’s only son, Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.</p>
<p>The tweet announced Muhoozi’s retirement from the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), which he had formally served in since 1999. Since his most recent promotion in June 2021, he has served as the commander of the land forces. The position made him the third-highest ranking officer in the defence forces.</p>
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<p>Muhoozi’s resignation would clear his legal path to formally enter electoral politics. Serving members of the armed forces are banned from political activity under Uganda’s constitution. </p>
<p>The tweet seemed to catch everyone by surprise, including senior security officials. They later <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/updf-clears-the-air-on-muhoozi-status-3745690">put out a statement</a> saying Muhoozi had not resigned. </p>
<p>While Muhoozi clarified hours later that his retirement would not come for eight years, the post fits a recent pattern that has fuelled growing public perception that he is declaring his political intentions. </p>
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<p>The most stark example of this occurred weeks after the tweet. This was in the form of a nationwide series of public events to mark <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/magazines/people-power/muhoozi-s-birthday-launch-of-the-project--3800066">Muhoozi’s 48th birthday</a>. </p>
<p>These included sports tournaments, public rallies, a party for supporters, and a state dinner. Public roads were shut for the events, and state-owned broadcasters aired some of them live. Rwandan President Paul Kagame attended the State Dinner. </p>
<p>At one of the birthday rallies held in the south-western town of Masaka on <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/the-curious-case-of-muhoozi-national-event-3791614">April 20,</a> supporters wore T-shirts with slogans such as ‘Muhoozi K is our next president’ and ‘MK Project. Team Chairman. Secure Your Tomorrow.’ </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/we-will-take-power-says-muhoozi-3801732">subsequent tweets</a> in early May, Muhoozi dropped any remaining reticence. </p>
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<p>He later added:</p>
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<p>At the state dinner, Museveni, who has <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/i-am-not-grooming-my-son-for-presidency-says-museveni-3544172">always denied</a> grooming his son to succeed him, <a href="https://www.observer.ug/news/headlines/73599-why-colonels-generals-support-gen-muhoozi">made comments </a> implying that Muhoozi would soon be in charge. </p>
<p>Whether or not Muhoozi makes it to State House – and a great deal still stands in the way of this happening – it is undoubtedly clear that the possibility of replacing Museveni with his son has dramatically shifted from rumour to reality in recent months.</p>
<h2>Heir apparent, apparently</h2>
<p>Muhoozi was 11 years old when his father’s National Resistance Army took Uganda’s capital Kampala in 1986. In 1999, he formally joined the Ugandan defence forces while a student at the city’s Makerere University. </p>
<p>He has been subsequently trained at elite military academies in the UK and US, and <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/special-reports/muhoozi-kainerugaba-uganda-s-cagey-heir-apparent-3726692">continually promoted</a> ahead of more experienced peers.</p>
<p>After Muhoozi’s most recent promotion to commander of the land forces, he has featured in a number of Uganda’s military deployments. These include those in the <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/updf-sends-more-troops-armoured-vehicles-into-dr-congo-in-anti-adf-rebel-operation--3639838">Democratic Republic of Congo,</a> <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/the-rise-of-gen-muhoozi-kainerugaba-3742016">Somalia</a> where Uganda is part of the African Union peacekeeping force, and the <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/we-re-coming-with-hell-muhoozi-tells-rustlers-3757124">Karamoja region</a> in Uganda’s northeast. </p>
<p>Muhoozi’s fast-tracked rise into a position of power within the military has long produced <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/probe-assasination-claims-says-tinyefuza-1542336">accusations</a> that he is being groomed by Museveni for succession. Yet, despite this ‘heir apparent’ accusation, Muhoozi’s public profile had previously remained relatively small. He is still perceived as something of ‘an unknown quantity’ among broad swathes of the Ugandan public. </p>
<p>He has rarely given interviews to traditional media outlets. For most of his adult life, the average citizen would probably not have known very much about him. </p>
<p>The reasons for this relatively subdued profile were related to the inner workings of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17531055.2016.1279853">National Resistance Movement</a> (NRM) regime that Museveni has led since 1986. </p>
<h2>Museveni’s play book</h2>
<p>At every point in his now 36 years at the helm, the president has maintained a posture of impending retirement. Museveni consistently suggests that the next election will be his last and that he dreams of <a href="https://chimpreports.com/museveni-i-am-ready-to-retire-as-soon-as-we-get-east-africa-federation/">the simple life</a> of cattle keeping. </p>
<p>Being constantly about to step down in this way has allowed Museveni to play off the factions of the NRM against each other. He has dangled the possibility of succession before them. </p>
<p>In Uganda, this ploy has been referred to as the succession <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/magazines/people-power/what-really-happened-to-the-succession-queue--1586740">‘queue’</a> within the ruling party.</p>
<p>In recent years, however, this act has worn thin. </p>
<p>This is mainly because Museveni has successfully marginalised several powerful National Resistance Movement figures who had developed partially autonomous political bases. They include former Vice President Gilbert Bukenya, former Parliamentary Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, former Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura, and most spectacularly former Prime Minister and Party Secretary General Amama Mbabazi. </p>
<p>The decline of these figures – all rumoured to be in the metaphorical ‘queue’ for the top job – has made even the most naive party elites incredulous to the idea that Museveni will ever hand over power to one of them. </p>
<h2>Enter Muhoozi</h2>
<p>This change has coincided with the political emergence of Muhoozi in recent years. </p>
<p>His public profile has been growing both domestically and internationally. As a presidential advisor on special operations, a post he was appointed to in 2017 alongside his military roles, Muhoozi has <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/magazines/people-power/is-former-ldu-muhoozi-eyeing-seat-of-commander-in-chief--3800078">held summits</a> with the leaders of Egypt, Kenya and Somalia. </p>
<p>He has also held regional engagements with Rwanda’s Kagame, whom he refers to as his ‘uncle’. Following a meeting between the two men in Kigali in January, Rwanda finally agreed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-has-reopened-the-border-with-uganda-but-distrust-could-close-it-again-176861">reopen its border</a> with Uganda. It had been closed for three years following Kigali’s accusations that Uganda had been harbouring members of the opposition Rwandan National Congress. </p>
<p>The perception that Muhoozi’s intervention has been key in mending the frosty relationship between the two countries was reinforced by a further meeting, again in Kigali, in <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202203150194.html">March</a>. After this, Muhoozi and Kagame announced a broader bi-lateral agreement to stop supporting dissidents in each other’s countries. </p>
<p>Shortly afterwards, Rwandan opposition blogger, and former journalist, <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/uganda-deports-top-rwandan-rebel-robert-mukombozi-3771012">Robert Mukombozi</a>, who had been living in Kampala, was pictured boarding a plane at Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport. </p>
<p>Muhoozi confirmed on Twitter that Mukombozi had been expelled, describing him as an “enemy of Rwanda and Uganda”. It was not clear where Mukombozi was going, although it was <a href="https://taarifa.rw/robert-mukombozi-rncs-boss-in-australia-deported-to-rwanda/">possibly to Australia</a>, with which he has ties. </p>
<p>No longer a quiet figure in the background, the First Son has recently become vocal on social media about many aspects of Ugandan politics and its foreign affairs. </p>
<p>In many cases, his stances appear to have <a href="https://observer.ug/news/headlines/72924-disregard-muhoozi-s-tweet-backing-russia-on-ukraine-minister-oryem">contradicted</a> some of the official positions of the Ugandan government. These include his tweets in support of Tigrayan rebels in Ethiopia’s civil war, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in his invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>Alarming to many is not just the positions Muhoozi has taken, but the <a href="https://observer.ug/viewpoint/72907-what-s-beneath-muhoozi-s-ridiculous-and-outrageous-tweets">bombastic and egotistic tone</a> of his discourse. </p>
<p>He frequently states that he will destroy Uganda’s enemies, and likens himself to military and revolutionary figures throughout history. These are discursive traits that have long been components of his father’s rhetoric.</p>
<p>Yet, across the country and online, multiple ‘Team MK’ or ‘MK 2026’ <a href="https://observer.ug/news/headlines/71516-muhoozi-army-campaigns-for-his-2026-presidential-bid">groups</a> are popping up to support his future presidential run.</p>
<h2>What’s coming?</h2>
<p>The most likely explanation for Muhoozi’s recent emergence is that his once low profile is being raised to position him to succeed his father. If this is indeed the regime’s wish, it would be unwise to bet against it. </p>
<p>However, the pathway for Muhoozi to reach State House is far from guaranteed. The Ugandan public would expect him to win an election to legitimise his leadership, and in so doing he would potentially face 2021 candidate <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/120/481/629/6406415">Bobi Wine</a> in fierce competition for the nation’s increasingly young electorate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Wilkins has received funding from the British Institute in Eastern Africa</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Vokes has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Royal Society of New Zealand, the European Union, the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), the British Institute in Eastern Africa, the British Library, and the Australia-Africa Universities Network.</span></em></p>The plan to replace Museveni with his son has dramatically shifted from rumour to reality in recent months.Sam Wilkins, Lecturer, RMIT UniversityRichard Vokes, Professor of Anthropology and International Development, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1809732022-04-14T04:56:30Z2022-04-14T04:56:30ZOutsourcing asylum seekers: the case of Rwanda and the UK<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457442/original/file-20220411-6515-rkcc10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A group of migrants are guided up the beach after being brought into Kent on a lifeboat.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/outsourcing-asylum-seekers-the-case-of-rwanda-and-the-uk-180973&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on April 4 2022 that Britain would <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/rwanda-asylum-seekers-plan-boris-johnson-announcement-uk-migrants-latest-updates-1575315">relocate some asylum seekers</a> arriving in the UK to Rwanda. The plan was <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uk-plan-send-asylum-seekers-rwanda-draws-criticism-84075683">condemned</a> by the opposition as well as human rights groups such as Amnesty International. The UK has settled on Rwanda after earlier reports that it had been considering <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dominic-raab-plan-fly-migrants-albania-kay-burley-sky_uk_61954f2de4b025be1ad5f00e">Albania</a> and <a href="https://www.ein.org.uk/news/ghana-completely-rejects-claims-it-would-be-willing-receive-asylum-seekers-uk-offshore">Ghana</a>. In the light of the latest developments, Cristiano d'Orsi, an expert on the law and asylum seekers, provides insights into why Rwanda.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Political asylum in the UK - why ‘outsource’ the process?</h2>
<p>Refugees have made a massive cultural, social and economic contribution to life in the UK in the last 460 years, despite often negative government and popular responses. Many <a href="http://refugeeweek.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/HistoryofContributions.pdf">famous household names</a> are evidence of the presence of refugees, including Austrian-born neurologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Freud">Sigmund Freud</a> and Hungarian-born author and journalist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arthur-Koestler">Arthur Koestler</a> to name but a few. </p>
<p>Asylum in Britain has always been granted at the discretion of the Home Office, and is therefore susceptible to the government of the day. Shifts in public opinion towards refugees can quickly result in new legislation and influence the implementation of asylum policy.</p>
<p>The 20th century has justifiably been called the century of the refugee. There were major population displacements in Europe from the beginning of the century. One major displacement was precipitated by the First World War. The draconian measures introduced by Britain <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/asylum-uk-a-history/">in response</a> shaped the future of its asylum practice up to the present.</p>
<p>In 2021, the UK <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html">received</a> 48,540 asylum applications – 63% more than the previous year and the highest number for almost two decades. When compared with the <a href="https://eosc-portal.eu/policy/EU-Countries">EU (and associated countries)</a> (known as EU+), the UK received the 4th largest number of applicants. This equates to 8% of the total asylum applicants across the EU+ and UK combined over that period, or the 18th largest intake when measured per head of population.</p>
<p>The number of refugees admitted to the UK from Ukraine is <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/04/how-the-uk-is-trailing-europe-on-ukrainian-refugees#:%7E:text=The%20number%20of%20refugees%20admitted,the%20majority%20through%20family%20connections">a fraction</a> of those admitted to other European countries.</p>
<p>A spurious distinction is sometimes made between illegal and legal asylum seekers. This is bogus. As an asylum-seeker, a person <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html">has entered into a legal process </a> of refugee status determination. Everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. People who don’t qualify for protection as refugees will not receive refugee status and may be deported. But just because someone doesn’t receive refugee status doesn’t mean they are a bogus asylum-seeker. </p>
<p>There’s also confusion sometimes between refugee and asylum seeker. Asylum seekers are not the same thing as refugees. Being an asylum-seeker is the precursor to applying for refugee status. Not all asylum-seekers will become refugees. </p>
<p>In the UK most asylum-seekers don’t have the right to work and so must rely on state support. Housing is provided, but options are limited. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get">Cash support</a> is also available.</p>
<p>The benefit of outsourcing the asylum procedures would be that the UK would receive less claims and, as such, admit fewer refugees onto British soil. The UK’s Home Secretary’s Priti Patel thinks that migrants may <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10693737/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Priti-Patel-making-difficult-refugees-leave-war-torn-Ukraine.html">think twice</a> before crossing the Channel if they think they may end up in Rwanda.</p>
<p>So what does “processing” involve?</p>
<p>It means assessing asylum-seekers to see if they are entitled to be refugees according to international, regional, sub-regional and domestic legal instruments. In principle, refugee status is a transitory status. In principle a person can’t be a “refugee” forever. The three solutions to end refugee status are: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>local integration (often through a process of naturalisation),</p></li>
<li><p>resettlement in a third country (offering naturalisation to the refugee), and</p></li>
<li><p>voluntary repatriation to the country of origin.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What are Rwanda’s policies towards refugees?</h2>
<p>The choice of Rwanda has a logic about it. But it’s also controversial. On the one hand Rwanda has shown that it’s hospitable towards refugees and has experience as a host. On the other it has a bad reputation when it comes to the protection of human rights. </p>
<p>Rwanda is a small landlocked country of <a href="https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Africa/Rwanda.html">26 338 sq km</a> and <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/rwanda-population/">13.5 million people</a>. Data from September 2021 <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda">showed</a> it was hosting 127,163 refugees and asylum seekers. </p>
<p>Since 1996 Rwanda has been primarily hosting Congolese refugees who now number nearly <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/rw/refugees#:%7E:text=From%201996%2C%20Rwanda%20has%20been,renewed%20hostilities%20in%20eastern%20DRC.">74,000</a>. There are also a large number of refugees from Burundi. </p>
<p>Ninety percent of refugees in Rwanda live in six camps. The <a href="https://www.kiva.org/blog/building-the-economy-within-rwandas-refugee-camps">biggest</a> is Mahama camp which hosts more than <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/rw/17271-japan-supports-unhcrs-2022-refugee-response-in-rwanda.html">55,000</a>. </p>
<p>Rwanda’s record on refugees includes signing a <a href="https://au.int/en/newsevents/20190910/signing-mou-between-au-government-rwanda-and-unhcr">Memorandum of Understanding</a> with the African Union and UNHCR to set up an Emergency Transit Mechanism for evacuating refugees and asylum seekers out of Libya.</p>
<p>A more controversial approach involving Rwanda came to light in 2017 when newspapers began reporting that it had received <a href="https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/refugees/community/2018/05/03/how-israels-secret-refugee-deals-collapsed-in-the-light-of-day">some of a total of 4 000 refugees</a> (mostly from Eritrea and Sudan) who were deported from Israel. This was done informally and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/rwanda-denies-secret-deal-to-accept-asylum-seekers-deported-by-israel/">never officially acknowledged</a>. Most didn’t stay in Rwanda. And the scheme was stopped.</p>
<p>Overall, however, refugees in Rwanda enjoy a <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Rwanda%20-%20Refugee%20Policy%20Review.pdf">conducive environment</a> and their rights are protected under various laws. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, there are many rights they don’t have. This means that the situation of refugees in Rwanda is ambivalent: they are neither persecuted nor criminalised but, on the other hand, have few chances to improve their lives. </p>
<p>The reception and protection of refugees in the country is set out under a comprehensive <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/53fb08cd4.html">law</a> that was passed in 2014. The law encapsulates some of the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/rw/12164-right-work-refugees-rwanda.html">most progressive policies</a> in the world to support refugee self-reliance. This enabling environment includes refugees having freedom of movement and the right to work. </p>
<p>In addition, a <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/58b586934.html">2014 prime ministerial order</a> says refugees are legally entitled to a wide range of social, economic, civil and political rights. </p>
<p>The principle of non-refoulement is enshrined in law, and is generally respected. However, the law is silent on the option for Rwanda hosting asylum-seekers “externalised” by other countries. </p>
<h2>Why Rwanda is a controversial destination</h2>
<p>The country is a controversial destination because of its human rights record.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/rwanda">2022 World Report</a> by Human Rights Watch:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) continued to stifle dissenting and critical voices and to target those perceived as a threat to the government and their family members. The space for political opposition, civil society, and media remained closed. Several high-profile critics, including opposition members and commentators using social media or YouTube to express themselves, went missing, were arrested or threatened. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rwanda is also accused of targeting Rwandan refugees abroad. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/rwanda">Human Rights Watch</a> has documented and received credible reports of Rwandan refugees and asylum-seekers being forcibly disappeared and returned to Rwanda, or killed. </p>
<p>The extent of the governments efforts to silence critics is also the subject of a book – <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Do-Not-Disturb-Political-African/dp/1610398424">Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad</a> – written by veteran journalist Michela Wrong. </p>
<h2>What would be the main concerns?</h2>
<p>The biggest challenge is the ambivalent role that Rwanda plays – particularly its human rights record. </p>
<p>Other factors include the lack of economic and professional prospects for refugees in Rwanda. High unemployment <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/rw/protection">makes financial independence and self-sufficiency</a> difficult for most refugees. The ability for the country to absorb the refugee population through integration and naturalisation has been extremely limited. </p>
<p>In addition, the absence of documentation and a lack of clarity and awareness on refugee rights <a href="https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/12936.pdf">has reduced</a> the ability of refugees in camps and urban areas to access jobs and services.</p>
<p>Overall, there is no systematic discrimination or denial of rights targeting refugees. While discrimination might occur in some situations, for instance in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, this is true for both refugees and members of the host community. </p>
<p>However, non-discrimination is not enough and refugees in Rwanda are still a long way away from being able to make independent lives for themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristiano d'Orsi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The choice of Rwanda has a logic about it. But it’s also controversial.Cristiano d'Orsi, Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow at the South African Research Chair in International Law (SARCIL), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1768612022-03-10T15:01:23Z2022-03-10T15:01:23ZRwanda has reopened the border with Uganda but distrust could close it again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445494/original/file-20220209-1970-10db1fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rwanda has fully re-opened the Gatatuna-Katuna border with Uganda, ending a three-year impasse. Cyril Ndegeya/Anadolu Agency via </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-wait-cross-the-katuna-border-crossing-between-uganda-news-photo/1238095524?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Rwanda has now fully <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/gatuna-border-fully-reopens-ordinary-passengers-after-3-years">reopened</a> the Gatuna border with Uganda, ending a three-year impasse on the <a href="http://www.ttcanc.org/page.php?id=11">Northern Corridor</a>, one of East Africa’s key transport arteries that funnels goods from the Indian Ocean seaport of Mombasa to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47495476">abruptly closed</a> the border in February 2019 after it accused Uganda of abducting its citizens and supporting rebels seeking to topple President Paul Kagame. Legal scholar Filip Reyntjens takes us through the nature of Rwanda-Uganda relations.</em> </p>
<h2>What’s the brief history of Uganda-Rwanda relations?</h2>
<p>The presidents of Uganda and Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame, were close allies during the civil wars of <a href="https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/4386/5071">Uganda</a> (1981 to 1986) and <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/civil-war-erupts-in-rwanda">Rwanda</a> (1990 to 1994). They were also on <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1640692.stm">the same side</a> in the first (Democratic Republic of Congo) war that removed <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0782891/bio">Mobutu Sese Seko</a>, between 1996 and 1997. </p>
<p>But the two leaders <a href="https://eyalama.com/part-1how-six-day-kisangani-war-pushed-museveni-and-kagame-from-friends-to-nemesis/">fell out</a> during the second Congo war (between 1998 and 2003). Uganda and Rwanda clashed over the exploitation of Congolese resources and the management of the rebellion against <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056240208704645">Laurent Kabila</a>, whose forces had deposed Mobutu Sese Seko. Rwandan and Ugandan armies fought each other in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1999 and 2000.</p>
<p>A semblance of peace was restored between the two leaders in the early 2000s but trust never returned. A new <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2017/12/frenemies-for-life-has-the-love-gone-between-uganda-and-rwanda/">round</a> of hostile verbal exchanges erupted in 2017, and they escalated considerably in early 2019. This time, Rwanda accused Uganda of harbouring armed dissidents and victimising Rwandans. </p>
<p>A 2018 UN <a href="https://www.undocs.org/S/2018/1133">report</a> found Uganda had provided support to Rwandan dissidents. Uganda too claimed that Rwanda was engaging in acts of espionage and attempts to destabilise Uganda. </p>
<p>Other issues included air traffic rights, the construction of a standard gauge railway, and energy projects. </p>
<p>In March 2019, Rwanda’s closure of the Gatuna/Katuna border crossing sealed the rupture. Influential opinion makers close to both countries’ regimes didn’t rule out the possibility of direct war. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/east-africa-should-intervene-to-defuse-rwanda-uganda-war-of-words-114202">East Africa should intervene to defuse Rwanda-Uganda war of words</a>
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</em>
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<p>Later that year, the two leaders signed an agreement brokered by the Angolan and Congolese presidents. The <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/422686492/Memorandum-of-Understanding-of-Luanda">Luanda Memorandum of Understanding</a> called on both countries to desist from “acts such as the financing, training and infiltration of destabilising forces”. It also <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/uganda-rwanda-leaders-sign-pact-aimed-at-ending-tensions-1425494">called</a> for respect of rights, freeing of each other’s nationals and resumption of cross-border activities. </p>
<p>But there was very little progress. The two leaders continued to trade accusations. It seemed unlikely that, as long as Museveni and Kagame were at the helm, bilateral relations would ever improve. </p>
<h2>How important is the Gatuna border crossing?</h2>
<p>Gatuna is one of the most important borders in East Africa as it connects Kenya’s Mombasa port to various cities in the region. On <a href="https://www.ssatp.org/sites/ssatp/files/publications/SSATPWP96-border-crossing_1.pdf">average</a>, 2,518 trucks pass through the Gatuna border every month (84 trucks per day) into Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The East African Community has since <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/works-gatuna-one-stop-border-post-near-completion">upgraded</a> it into a one-stop border post.</p>
<p>Its closure had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/rwanda-re-opens-border-with-uganda-says-grievances-remain-2022-01-31/">choked off commerce</a> in East Africa. Its re-opening is set to spark <a href="https://www.eac.int/press-releases/2354-eac-applauds-the-re-opening-of-the-gatuna-katuna-border-post-by-the-republics-of-rwanda-and-uganda">social and economic activities</a> and also benefit the informal cross-border traders.</p>
<h2>What’s fuelling the border conflict now?</h2>
<p>The border stalemate is about two presidents who know each other well, and their mutual dislike and distrust is deeply ingrained. </p>
<p>On 22 January, Kagame met Lt. General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Museveni’s senior presidential advisor on special operations and commander of the Uganda People Defence Forces. Kainerugaba has no official function in Uganda’s foreign affairs apparatus, but he is Museveni’s son. </p>
<p>Three days after the visit, in a gesture of goodwill, Museveni replaced intelligence chief Major General Abel Kandiho, who is considered in Kigali as “anti-Rwanda”. Three days later, Rwanda announced a <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/crossing-at-reopened-border-as-rwanda-uganda-3700576">partial reopening</a> of the Gatuna/Katuna border crossing.</p>
<p>But on 31 January, Rwandan deputy government spokesman Alain Mukuralinda told Rwanda TV that Uganda had not yet addressed all of Kigali’s grievances. </p>
<h2>Has the East African region seen the last of this conflict?</h2>
<p>The border issue is not a settled matter. The initial border reopening, which took place on 1 February, was made subject to COVID-19 protocols. Even with full reopening on 7 March, the situation at the border remains confused over the conflicting handling of the COVID-19 protocols by national agencies. </p>
<p>Ominously, on 8 February, Kagame told Parliament that Rwanda was ready to respond to any external <a href="https://chimpreports.com/why-museveni-cancelled-ex-cmi-boss-abel-kandihos-transfer-to-south-sudan/">threat</a>. He said: “We wish everybody in the region peace, but anyone who wishes us war, we give it to him”. </p>
<p>Kagame referred to rebel forces in the DRC, but the Ugandan army has been deployed there cooperating with the Congolese army against the Allied Democratic Forces, and a Rwandan intervention would carry the risk of a new confrontation with the Ugandan troops. </p>
<p>The next day, Museveni <a href="https://www.watchdoguganda.com/news/20220208/129901/gen-kandiho-bounces-back-as-polices-chief-of-joint-staff.html">appointed</a> Kandiho as Chief of the Joint Staff of the Uganda Police Force. </p>
<h2>How can this dispute be resolved?</h2>
<p>The mutual aversion between Museveni and Kagame is so deep that it has become hard to expect a long lasting solution to a conflict that has poisoned relations for over 20 years. </p>
<p>After the 2015 constitutional amendment Kagame can potentially stay in power until 2034. Although Museveni is not bound by term limits, he will be 82 years old at the time of the 2026 presidential election. Kainerugaba is often mooted as the <a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/muhoozis-2026-presidential-bid-is-impossible/">anointed successor</a> and he appears to want to make peace with Rwanda. </p>
<p>In the absence of initiatives by regional leaders, change will have to come from inside Rwanda and Uganda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Filip Reyntjens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tension persists between the neighbours as Kampala is yet to address all of Kigali’s grievances.Filip Reyntjens, Emeritus Professor of Law and Politics Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of AntwerpLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1759322022-02-01T14:21:42Z2022-02-01T14:21:42ZThe African Union at 20: a lot has been achieved despite many flaws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443160/original/file-20220128-17-kh828w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gunter Fischer/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a widespread view that the African Union – and its bureaucracy – are glorified servants of African governments. This view is supported by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/09557571.2019.1628707?needAccess=true">scholars</a> and by the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/8/4/the-african-union-israel-and-the-futility-of-appeasement">media</a>.</p>
<p>But is it accurate? I address this question in a recent <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0002039721990394">article</a> as the organisation marks its 20th anniversary this year.</p>
<p>The African Union was negotiated, and signed by African governments in 1999. Its <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">founding treaty</a> would not have come into existence if at least two-thirds of the 54 African governments and Western Sahara had not ratified and deposited it on May 26, 2001.</p>
<p>My paper shows that since its official launch in 2002, the African Union has developed considerable agency. I defined this as its capacity to shape the agenda and decisions in Africa and on global affairs. </p>
<p>There is no question that the African Union has its challenges. It is financially weak and dependent on external donors. It is often seen as a club of old men that is inaccessible to ordinary Africans. And it has implementation deficits, with its work sometimes held back by poorly governed states. </p>
<p>Yet, the organisation is often at the heart of agenda-setting, decision-making, rule creation, policy development and strategic leadership for the African continent. </p>
<p>It is, therefore, an oversimplification of the complex relationship between the African Union and its members to treat the pan-African bureaucracy as a mere servant of the continent’s governments. The African Union and its bureaucracy are neither glorified messengers nor docile followers of the orders of African governments. </p>
<p>It has marshalled its 55 members to take common positions on many critical global issues. These have included <a href="https://library.au.int/ezulwini-consensus-and-africas-quagmire-united-nations-security-council-reform-unpacking-dynamics">building consensus</a> on United Nations reforms, the COVID-19 <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-abstract/120/826/172/116764/The-African-Union-Makes-Its-Mark-in-the-Pandemic">response</a>, and financing of <a href="https://au.int/en/newsevents/20220122/high-level-meeting-financing-african-union-beyond-covid-19-enhancing-resilience">African development</a>. </p>
<h2>Measuring impact, and failures</h2>
<p>My paper shows the various pathways that the African Union exercises agency. It offers a nuanced way to understand how the union: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>shapes the drafting of international treaties</p></li>
<li><p>enforces regulations, promises and treaties</p></li>
<li><p>represents the collective will of member states</p></li>
<li><p>sets agenda, and directs, influences and shapes thinking at the global level</p></li>
<li><p>offers strategic leadership.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Drafting international treaties.</strong> The African Union has contributed to the drafting of treaties to promote <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/uploads/psc-protocol-en.pdf">peace</a>, democracy and good <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/36384-treaty-african-charter-on-democracy-and-governance.pdf">governance</a>. </p>
<p>Many of its treaties contain global firsts. This is true even though many member states still have loopholes in protecting democracy.</p>
<p>It has been able to contribute to treaties because it’s attracted some of the best policy minds on the continent. <a href="https://ecdpm.org/wp-content/uploads/AU-UN-Peace-Security-Partnership-Power-Politics-ECDPM-Discussion-Paper-305-2021.pdf">This research</a> shows that African Union staff are some of the most highly educated international civil servants in the world. They also have extensive work experience.</p>
<p><strong>Enforcing regulations, promises and treaties.</strong> The African Union has developed a well-oiled machine promoting <a href="https://au.int/en/psc">peace and security</a>. </p>
<p>Its initiatives have included developing an institutional design for mediation, political dialogue, early warning systems and peace-support operations. These have changed the game of peace missions and led to relative success. One example is the intervention in <a href="https://gsdrc.org/document-library/lessons-from-the-african-union-mission-for-somalia-amisom-for-peace-operations-in-mali/">Somalia</a>.</p>
<p>The Union has also been effective in changing the mindset of African political elites from their traditional posture of indifference to one that encourages them to intervene in each other’s affairs. It intervened swiftly in the post-election violence in Kenya in <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/EJC-e5aca3f5e">2007</a> and rapidly deployed <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/39226-doc-176._the_african_union_operations_in_comoros-maes_and_operations_democracy.pdf">Operation Democracy</a> in the Comoros in 2008. </p>
<p><strong>Collective will, setting the agenda and shaping thinking.</strong> The African Union has used the power of recommendations to great effect. </p>
<p>It used it to rally members to support a slate of African candidates vying for positions in international organisations. Examples include the election of <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20170519/african-ambassadors-urge-support-dr-tedros-adhanom-african-union-endorsed">Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus</a> as Director-General of the World Health Organization
and <a href="https://www.news24.com/News24/au-leaders-back-rwanda-to-head-francophonie-group-20180702">Rwanda’s Louise Mushikiwabo</a> as Secretary-General of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. </p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://ecdpm.org/wp-content/uploads/AU-UN-Peace-Security-Partnership-Power-Politics-ECDPM-Discussion-Paper-305-2021.pdf">studies</a> indicate that the African Union was able to get members to take common positions on more than 20 major issues. </p>
<p>Many of these positions shaped global debate and decisions. These include influencing the terms of engagement between the UN and regional organisations. </p>
<p>But the union has also convened and mobilised for bad causes. An example was the shielding of the former President of Sudan, Omar al Bashir, and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta from calls to appear before the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-24452288">International Criminal Court</a> to answer charge of crimes against humanity.</p>
<p><strong>Strategic leadership.</strong> The African Union has shown it is capable of providing leadership and acting as advisor to governments and intergovernmental agencies. </p>
<p>It successfully developed forward-thinking development frameworks such as <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview">Agenda 2063</a> and the <a href="https://au.int/en/ti/cfta/about">African Continental Free Trade Agreement</a>. It has also created development agencies, including the African Union Development Agency <a href="https://www.nepad.org/">NEPAD</a>.</p>
<p>The African Union has been good at socialising African governments to accept development ideas and make them pillars of national growth <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-703">plans</a>. </p>
<p>It has also <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/08/africa/mastercard-africa-cdc-vaccine-intl/index.html">mobilised resources</a> to boost the continent’s development initiatives. This has included efforts to make COVID-19 <a href="https://www.unicef.org/supply/african-unions-african-vaccine-acquisition-trust-avat-initiative">vaccines</a> available to member states.</p>
<p>But there are weaknesses. </p>
<p>The African Union resource mobilisation has been <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/au%E2%80%99s-dependency-donors-big-shame">criticised</a> for deepening Africa’s dependence on international partners. Some also <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2673-3986/2/4/42">argue</a> that the union is good at coming up with lofty ideas but is often unable or unwilling to implement them. </p>
<h2>Problems</h2>
<p>The organisation has been held back by the constant push to reform it. </p>
<p>Between 2002 and 2009, Muammar Gaddafi’s relentless hounding to get it changed to a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-africa-summit-gaddafi-idUSTRE66Q70620100727">union government</a> became a serious distraction and major impediment to the implementation of its programmes.</p>
<p>And since 2016, a process to <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/the-kagame-reforms-of-the-au-will-they-stick/">reform the institution</a> led by Rwandan President Paul Kagame has sowed division among the leaders of the commission. The process paralysed staff for almost five years and weakened the AU commission, as former South African President Thabo Mbeki <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201901150631.html">observed</a>. </p>
<p>Old habits – such as the cult of personality, concentration of power in the office of the chairperson of the commission, and shrinking of spaces for popular participation in decision-making – have set in over the past few years.</p>
<p>The rotation of the chairperson of the union largely among leaders who have questionable democratic credentials also suggests that the union has moved into the orbit of a particular group of African leaders. This is made up of authoritarian leaders who have turned the institution into a conservative and risk-averse body. </p>
<p>An example of a more conservative approach is the <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/the-au-reneges-on-its-stance-against-coups-detat">softening</a> of its zero-tolerance position on military regimes. </p>
<p>It has been soft on recent coup makers. This is in contrast to its outspoken stance in previous years and the steps it took to ostracise military regimes in Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe in 2003, Togo in 2005, Mauritania in 2005 and 2007, Guinea in 2008, Mali in 2012, as well as Egypt and Central African Republic in 2013. </p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/burkina-faso-coup-latest-sign-of-a-rise-in-the-ballot-box-being-traded-for-bullets-175642">resurgence of coups on the continent</a> suggests that the African Union needs to revisit its position on unconstitutional changes of governments and strengthen its agenda to promote democracy.</p>
<p>The continent needs a stronger African Union leadership on this issue – and many others – over the next 20 years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Kwasi Tieku receives funding from Insight Grants from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research )</span></em></p>Despite the criticisms the African Union has faced over the last two decades, it is far from being a docile follower of the orders of its member states.Thomas Kwasi Tieku, Associate Professor of Political Science, King's University College, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1667782021-08-31T15:10:26Z2021-08-31T15:10:26ZHow authoritarian rulers manage their international image<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417833/original/file-20210825-25-14cic4h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/FLORIAN WIESER</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this year, the staff of Rwanda’s minister of justice <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/upfront/2021/2/26/rwanda-paid-for-flight-that-led-to-paul-rusesabagina-arrest">accidentally sent Al Jazeera</a> journalists a video recording that included the minister’s preparation sessions with a public relations firm for an upcoming interview. The interview <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/upfront/2021/2/26/rwanda-paid-for-flight-that-led-to-paul-rusesabagina-arrest">was about</a> the Rwandan government’s involvement in a scheme to lure exile Paul Rusesabagina to Rwanda so that he could be arrested and tried. </p>
<p>Rusesabagina helped save hundreds of Rwandans during the genocide by sheltering them in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/world/africa/rwanda-paul-rusesabagina.html">hotel</a>, a story that was made into the movie Hotel Rwanda. He later became a vocal and sometimes controversial critic from abroad of Paul Kagame’s government. He now faces trial on <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/he-was-the-hero-of-hotel-rwanda-now-he-is-in-prison-facing-trial-for-terrorism-1.4487532">terrorism charges</a>. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paul-rusesabaginas-arrest-shows-theres-no-space-for-critical-voices-in-rwanda-145460">Paul Rusesabagina's arrest shows there's no space for critical voices in Rwanda</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>The video shows consultants from <a href="https://chelgate.com/">Chelgate</a>, a UK “reputation and relationship management” firm, prepping the minister to evade questions about Rwanda’s involvement in Rusesabagina’s capture.</p>
<p>This episode nicely illustrates the multiple ways that authoritarian states – countries <a href="https://sites.psu.edu/dictators/">where</a> the leadership maintains power by non-democratic means – manage their image abroad. There’s plenty of scholarly debate about what “counts” as authoritarianism and about different subtypes of authoritarian states. But controlling domestic institutions to preclude genuine political competition and pluralism is a hallmark of the <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2017/breaking-down-democracy">modern authoritarian strategy</a>. </p>
<p>As I argue in my new book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-the-world-safe-for-dictatorship-9780197520130?cc=gb&lang=en&">Making the World Safe for Dictatorship</a>, a good image abroad affords many advantages to authoritarian leaders. It makes achieving foreign policy goals easier and helps marginalise foreign critics. It also makes it tougher for exiles and domestic activists to work together and solidifies the government’s legitimacy domestically.</p>
<p>The book draws on a range of data. I examined filings by public relations firms, gathered data on cases of transnational repression, did fieldwork and interviews, watched authoritarian propaganda, and more.</p>
<p>Although the book is global in scope, I also take a closer look at China, Rwanda and North Korea in case study chapters. These cases were chosen to illustrate how things play out given different regime types, capabilities, regional contexts and ambitions. Understanding authoritarian image management is important. It helps explain our global information environment and the behaviour of authoritarian states in it. </p>
<h2>Managing their image</h2>
<p>To manage their image abroad, authoritarian states try to advance a favourable narrative about themselves. They do things like hire public relations firms to produce <a href="https://corporateeurope.org/en/pressreleases/2015/01/european-pr-firms-whitewashing-brutal-regimes-report">positive content</a>, disseminate <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/chinas-foreign-propaganda-machine">propaganda themselves</a> and <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794577.001.0001/acprof-9780199794577">cultivate friendly foreigners</a> who can speak on their behalf.</p>
<p>But they also try to silence, obscure, or discredit criticisms of their rule.</p>
<p>They try to “spin” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/world/asia/china-conspiracy-theories-coronavirus.html">negative news stories</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/the-strange-saga-of-a-made-up-activist-and-her-life-and-death-as-a-hoax/250203/">sow discord or paranoia</a> in activist communities abroad, and repress or <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression">even kill</a> their exiled critics.</p>
<p>Back to Rwanda. During his decades in power, Kagame <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/rwanda">has systematically</a> undermined opposition, manipulated elections and repressed critics at home and abroad. He also amended the constitution so he can rule until 2034. In 2020, the Sweden-based <a href="https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/74/8c/748c68ad-f224-4cd7-87f9-8794add5c60f/dr_2021_updated.pdf">Varieties of Democracy Institute</a> ranked Rwanda 150th out of 179 countries in the world on its index of liberal democracy. In other words, clearly authoritarian.</p>
<p>Kagame’s ruling political party – the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191828836.001.0001/acref-9780191828836-e-292">Rwandan Patriotic Front</a> – pays a lot of attention to its image abroad. Rwanda is an avid consumer of public relations services from firms based in Europe and the US. For example, the same year that Kagame <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2003/08/28/kagame-won-a-little-too-well">won over 95%</a> of the vote in the heavily manipulated 2003 election, Rwanda’s embassy in the US <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/docs/3774-Exhibit-AB-20030922-HOYTER03.pdf">contracted</a> American PR firms to boost the image of the country and its leader. </p>
<p>As Kagame consolidated power domestically, it was apparently important to be seen positively in the US, <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/history-usaidrwanda">a major aid donor</a>.</p>
<h2>Managing critics</h2>
<p>But authoritarian image management goes beyond promoting a positive picture. It also involves silencing or marginalising critics abroad. </p>
<p>The Rwandan Patriotic Front is hyper-sensitive to criticism. It’s so touchy that what foreign academics write garners attention. <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/97432">Responses are sometimes published in</a> party-loyal newspapers or other platforms. According to <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6175-Exhibit-AB-20130612-1.pdf">filings</a> with the US department of justice, in 2013 the Rwandan ministry of foreign affairs contracted an <a href="https://www.therwandan.com/kagame-hired-prof-michelle-martin-to-do-propaganda-work-in-the-rwandan-diaspora-she-is-now-the-star-government-witness-in-the-rusesabagina-case/">American academic</a> to “establish a publishing record” in popular and academic venues about the Rwandan diaspora. The scholarly impact appears to have been negligible, but years later the same academic did appear as a government witness at Rusesabagina’s trial.</p>
<p>Even more consequentially, its agents have been <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-2-2015-1.3096552/mounting-evidence-rwandan-president-ordered-killing-of-dissidents-1.3096623">involved in</a> extraterritorial repression, including assassination plots which target critics abroad. </p>
<p>As shown with Rusesabagina’s case, the state wants to avoid the reputational damage that comes with transnational repression. It probably also wants to signal to potentially troublesome exiles that nobody is out of reach.</p>
<h2>Authoritarian tactics</h2>
<p>Rwanda is not the only state to use these tactics. Indeed, my book is about authoritarian states in general. </p>
<p>Using <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/ords/fara/f?p=1381:1:10021991828357">publicly available filings</a> with the US department of justice, I counted 33 authoritarian states that collectively paid PR and public affairs firms hundreds of millions of dollars in 2018 and 2019 to manipulate their image. This is only in the US, only self-reported, and only overt. The scope is much wider than these numbers suggest.</p>
<p>I also gathered data on authoritarian states targeting their exiles for repression between 1991 and 2019. Again, using only publicly available sources, my team and I were able to find 1,117 instances in which states repressed their critical citizens abroad. These <a href="https://alexdukalskis.wordpress.com/data/">ranged from</a> verbal threats to outright assassination. Uzbekistan, China, North Korea, Turkey and Russia stand out as frequent violators.</p>
<p>Nor is it just today’s dictatorships that try to influence their international information environment. South Africa’s apartheid regime <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Apartheid-Africas-Global-Propaganda/dp/0745399142">went to extraordinary lengths</a> to manipulate its image abroad. Ferdinand Marcos retained high-powered Washington DC public relations and lobbying firms and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14672715.1990.10413099">attempted to</a> influence academic scholarship in the US about the Philippines. China under Mao Zedong <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maoism-Global-History-Julia-Lovell/dp/0525656049">helped perpetuate</a> a global cult of personality despite the millions of deaths due to the Chairman’s policies.</p>
<p>Authoritarian states don’t just sit back and let foreigners define them. They actively try to manipulate their image and silence critics. Next time you see an interview with a representative of a dictatorship, ask yourself what the preparation session with PR consultants looked like and what information the regime wants to obscure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Dukalskis received funding from Enterprise Ireland for the project "Making the World Safe for Autocracy" and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, 2020-2021 for the project “Authoritarian Image Management & PRC “Advertorials” in Foreign Publications” </span></em></p>A good image abroad affords many advantages to authoritarian leaders.Alexander Dukalskis, Associate Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1657732021-08-15T09:03:19Z2021-08-15T09:03:19ZIn search of advantages: Israel’s observer status in the African Union<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415852/original/file-20210812-24-z1fep5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rwanda's President Paul Kagame meets Israel's then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulkagame/35029583353">Paul Kagame/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since its establishment as a <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel#:%7E:text=On%20May%2014%2C%201948%2C%20David,nation%20on%20the%20same%20day.">state in 1948</a>, Israel has placed great importance on foreign policy. This is because it had been under a <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/1977-04-01/middle-east-arab-boycott-israel?amp">political and economic boycott</a> by surrounding Arab states. The boycott has been falling apart since the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/israel-egyptian-peace-agreement-signed">1979 peace treaty with Egypt</a>. But it is still in place with countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Algeria and Libya. </p>
<p>As a result Israel pursues reliable political allies and trading partners on the periphery of the Arab world – and beyond. </p>
<p>This is true in Africa too. Israel’s strongest relations on the continent are with countries in west, central and east Africa. It now has <a href="https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/israel-hebrew/benjamin-netanyahu-resetting-israel-africa-relations/">diplomatic relations</a> with 46 of the <a href="https://au.int/">55 African Union member states</a>.</p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/23/israel-granted-observer-status-at-the-african-union">decision</a> by the African Union to grant Israel observer status has once again raised the profile of Israel’s relations with the continent. </p>
<p>For over half a decade under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure, Israel lobbied hard for this outcome. </p>
<p>Netanyahu visited sub-Saharan Africa in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/world/africa/israel-africa-netanyahu-uganda-kenya-rwanda.html">July 2016</a>, the first Israeli head of state to visit since Levi Eshkol in 1966. In addition to encouraging further political and economic ties, his mission was to secure the support of African leaders for observer status at the African Union. </p>
<p>He carefully chose Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Ethiopia and Kenya had had close ties with Israel in the past. And they were engaged in security cooperation against the threat of Islamist terrorism and were sympathetic to Israel’s goal of achieving African Union observer status. </p>
<p>Connections with Uganda were developing, while Rwanda’s leader Paul Kagame shared an affinity with Israel given his country’s experience with genocide. </p>
<p>The following year Netanyahu visited Liberia <a href="https://www.africanews.com/amp/2017/06/04/israeli-prime-minister-woos-west-african-leaders-to-join-forces/">to address</a> the 15-member countries of the Economic Community of West African States – the first non-African head of state to do so. He made <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=sFRsPT-OTFY&autoplay=1">an appeal</a> for political support in return for economic aid and technical assistance in sectors such as agriculture, water resources, energy and health.</p>
<p>He also lobbied for African Union observer status. Israeli officials – both in public and private – continued with these efforts in the intervening years.</p>
<p>In recent years, Israel has made inroads in North Africa too. In 2019 it re-established relations with Chad, which had been broken off in 1972 because of Israel’s then-continued occupation of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula since the 1967 War. The current African Union Commission chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, who granted Israel observer status in late July 2021, comes from Chad. Mahamat’s decision was supported by the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s president and current chairman of the African Union, Félix Tshisekedi. </p>
<p>Israel also has normalised relations with Morocco and Sudan through the <a href="https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords/">Abraham Accords</a>. These were brokered by the US and came into action initially with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signing the agreement in August 2020.</p>
<p>The reasons for wanting observer status are not hard to decipher. Firstly, Palestine <a href="https://egyptindependent.com/au-grants-palestine-observer-status/">had been granted observer status</a> in the African Union in 2013. Secondly, African countries form a large bloc at the United Nations and many vote in a similar fashion. Israeli policymakers felt that the African Union would be an easier place to lobby for their positions in the conflict with the Palestinians. Israel had had observer status in the Organisation of African Unity. But <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-19-years-after-its-ouster-african-union-reinstates-israel-as-an-observer-country-1.10020545">it was denied</a> the status when the African Union replaced the Organisation of African Unity in 2002. </p>
<p>Israel hopes to get African countries to support it on issues of political interest at the United Nations, and at the very least to abstain or absent themselves. Beyond that, Israel wants to increase security cooperation and economic ties. This includes the sale of civilian as well as military items. </p>
<p>Observer status at the African Union enables Israel to have closer contacts with African policymakers and to address attendees of the organisation’s meetings. </p>
<h2>The history</h2>
<p>During the 1950s, as the Cold War evolved, Israel placed emphasis on ties with the US and countries in Western Europe. </p>
<p>At the same time there was a hope of developing promising relations with the independent states in Asia. The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/bandung-conf">Bandung Conference of 1954</a> stymied these efforts as Israel was not invited to the gathering. Many of its prominent figures would later establish the <a href="https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/">Non-Aligned Movement</a>, which often opposed Israel’s policies, especially towards the Palestinians.</p>
<p>One of the consequences was that when African states began achieving their independence in the 1960s, a number received a great deal of interest from Israeli policymakers. Two factors drove Israeli efforts. One was a desire to counteract diplomatic movements by Egypt. Another was an attempt to portray Israel as a model for development and as an alternative to the former imperial European states as a conveyor of technical assistance. </p>
<p>However, all African countries, except apartheid South Africa, Malawi, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Mauritius, broke off formal relations with Israel around the time of the 1973 War. This was due to the continued occupation of Arab territory <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt9309h7t3/qt9309h7t3.pdf?t=mnipnf">as a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War</a>.</p>
<p>Some informal ties through embassies and business relations were maintained until many African countries began re-establishing relations with Israel at the end of the Cold War. This was also a period during which Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation began a process that resulted in normalising ties.</p>
<h2>Opposition</h2>
<p>South Africa <a href="https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/south-africa-downgrade-embassy-in-israel-to-liaison-office-585883/amp">downgraded its representation</a> in Israel in 2019 from an embassy to a liaison office over Israel’s actions in Gaza in 2018. South Africa has been at the forefront of the <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/">Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign</a> against Israel. The organisation’s raison d’etre is that isolating Israel will force it to relinquish Palestinian territory in the West Bank and end its blockade of Gaza. The movement has some appeal among left-wing individuals and groups in the west. But it is largely ignored by other African states.</p>
<p>The strong feelings of the South African government and the ruling African National Congress party are driven by two factors. The first is Israel’s military – and possibly nuclear – cooperation with the apartheid regime. The second is the affinity that many South Africans have with the Palestinian cause for self-determination. </p>
<p>South Africa was the country most strongly opposed to Mahamat’s decision. </p>
<p>However, most African countries have chosen to separate the issue of the Palestinians from economic cooperation with Israel, even though a number still vote against Israel on political issues at international forums such as the United Nations.</p>
<p>Some, like South Africa, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/28/shocking-south-africa-slams-israels-au-observer-status">opposed Israel’s observer status</a> on the grounds of its treatment of the Palestinians and the continued occupation of their territory. They <a href="https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/botswana-and-three-other-african-countries-oppose-israels-au-observer-status/dwep03m">included</a> Arab League members Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Libya, Mauritania and Tunisia as well as Namibia and Botswana.</p>
<p>Just as vocal critics – such as South Africa and Algeria – could do nothing about Morocco’s readmission to the African Union, it remains to be seen what they can do about reversing the decision on Israel. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Israel has an important forum in which to lobby for its interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Bishku does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most countries in Africa have chosen to separate the issue of the Palestinians from economic cooperation with Israel.Michael Bishku, Professor of Middle Eastern and African History, Augusta UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1617172021-05-29T07:35:24Z2021-05-29T07:35:24ZRwanda genocide: Macron forgiveness plea resets historic ties<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403352/original/file-20210528-24-8ypnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">French president Emmanuel Macron lays a wreath on a mass grave at the Kigali Genocide Memorial on 27 May 2021.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> EPA-EFE/Eugene Uwimana</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>French president Emmanuel Macron has just paid his <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/france/20210526-macron-seeks-reset-with-rwanda-on-africa-visit-after-years-of-tensions">first state visit to Rwanda</a>. While many world leaders have visited the central African nation of 13 million, including past French presidents, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/world/europe/26france.html">President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010</a>, this trip was going to be different. </p>
<p>Sure enough president Macron would come the closest to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/27/kagami-the-winner-as-macron-gives-genocide-speech-in-rwanda">apologising</a> for France’s involvement during the <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20140402113037-u315s/">1994 genocide</a> against the Tutsis.</p>
<p>At the Kigali Genocide Memorial, Macron <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/time-bow-genocide-victims-listen-survivors-macron">asked</a> for forgiveness for France’s involvement in the genocide. He also expressed his desire to combat genocide ideology and denial in order to foster stronger relations with Rwanda. </p>
<p>The long-term impact of this trip will be based on building on this commitment. France’s tangible foreign policy mechanism will be committing itself to helping Rwanda through foreign aid development funding and COVID-19 vaccines. However, for France to gain the trust of Rwandans, the country has to commit itself to combatting genocide ideology and denial. A great start would be the arrest and extradition of Rwandans who participated in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis.</p>
<h2>The history</h2>
<p>Prior to the genocide, France was Rwanda’s closest European ally. It was never the colonising power. Rwanda was colonised by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Rwanda/Rwanda-under-German-and-Belgian-control">Germany</a> (1884-1919) and later transferred to Belgium. It was during the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/rwanda/etc/cron.html">Belgian colonial period</a> (1919-1962) that socio-economic divisions of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa become immovable ethnic divisions. To <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Rwanda_Before_the_Genocide/IawzAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=jj+carney&pg=PP2&printsec=frontcover">justify Belgium’s colonial atrocities</a>, the colonial government elevated some Tutsi elites into positions of power to illustrate local rule. </p>
<p>In a 1973 coup, Juvénal Habyarimana <a href="https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dossiers/rwanda/r1271.asp#P1538_159983">took</a> the presidency. <a href="https://watermark.silverchair.com/mqi059.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAr4wggK6BgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKrMIICpwIBADCCAqAGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMVb1nio-L8HxBN5IVAgEQgIICcfmSwQPwxnjhFmGazhzmvbvWVJHCsdHtBhSaRUxEPbWaooM_6zm3YbVvLQFQ5w3K1fzj_VpgJ7lhBJ2Mo51JzbrBo6aIhVV-rSMLVTF_NYAqnf1e9dca2g72gCnzsZh7RGsNOiWi4KncyQR_kuf6If0DxMzmynXoGSa_zYVhRoxs6OFwFXrKqDUWTHKbdSoJHHpAUjmuyHR60HMxJP5xgvEKSRIW52kwQOiZaq5lXKMh3mj4JSEhrJoOFaU8OhNRWGS1izkN5ThorQPj_qM_tb4Dz4C6UXBQFlAs317hufIaCo_UljeXiHPQ99v_xck4S9AySSSKnb0k9tAplFT8NYJm_IPH9PvneNGOdZ8F8kEkdA-lWo0F5j07na5AjvCBAZxHDY_IyLprT59_gzEFXrn9NVz1673Vz39A6r2m0HLnRHsjxlR7T9BUSVuqLqCXq8rv79g3FE_ZpWk3i0CiC3bK02cD13G5VwxlLOwoVAT9zO3xHSJ_rA-p595gNXCDMOqE_Odib_wUxM-yTMydmHkuaTYzKboAyxxpca6YVxJZHWUPMf6G9q87zso6ntLOegnyFUbZuI69wLjQxPGtDTxeyTbar3SQD_5i91d1QT6Ash3Q3lpcEMFfWSMz5s7eRuMShH9ETbNudZG_JbvlXzDc_xxBkzX_pACcGXdqGsPj3icp_HfSeSCG0aNLMuwejx8cDxj2sJMPSZrFA5w5BufpCGcMNOkArPpW6qhcoT_R0NcyYDxwrSiPfVp9FT40g3eLm4-xmvZa4lK8zBBL1_cvMhEkkkxaCYX64m35dhcYOqYEqbyW5bO2tWkEWsvynTE">He</a> developed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/05/paris-trial-elysee-rwanda-genocide">close personal relationship</a> with French president François Mitterrand (1981-1995). </p>
<p>France under Mitterrand provided the Habyarimana regime with considerable financial and military support. Mitterrand’s backing helped create a sense of legitimacy for his Rwandan counterpart. This in turn aided the policies of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4187200.pdf?casa_token=2_AoP5kA5cYAAAAA:T5NDvKsEM6UwsdYT-nhG_J5J3_i7WmE7RvDrvEtKtrxPCaY1LFhFrAY-3kD_GRPkjq3oR4P7rXcQNJdP-QqzvoE1zjPTIbQuI_fIwmeFPUP9pg8l4A">ethnic divisionism</a>, hatred and pogroms that would eventually result in the 1994 genocide.</p>
<p>Since then, Rwandan-French relations have been poor at best. Many within the Rwandan government, led by the Rwanda Patriotic Front, <a href="https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1696&context=gsp">denounced</a> France’s closeness to Habyarimana as unacceptable. Rwanda also demanded an acknowledgement of French involvement in the 1994 genocide. Unfortunately, this did not happen under the next French president <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/opinion/15iht-edkinzer.1.15328850.html">Jacques Chirac</a>. </p>
<p>Subsequently, president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/25/sarkozy-rwanda-genocide-kagame">Sarkozy</a> attempted to foster greater relations with Rwanda. He came close to admitting France’s role during the genocide, but blamed “political errors” for the country’s actions. Relations deteriorated again under president <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/187831">François Hollande</a> who minimised France’s involvement prior to and during the genocide. </p>
<p>Now, however, Macron has gone beyond Sarkozy’s tentative steps. </p>
<h2>How relations went south</h2>
<p>As Cold War declined in the early 1990s, France <a href="https://apnews.com/article/edfa5353874d34c97d3062d300bca767">began to apply pressure</a> on its African allies – such as Habyarimana – to democratise. In Rwanda, however, the transition from dictatorship to open political competition did not go well. Rather than peaceful mobilisation, the opening of political space helped Hutu ideological extremists loyal to Habyarimana to propagate the ideology of genocide against the Tutsis. </p>
<p>At the same time, Rwandan exiles — mostly Tutsis – formed the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/161382?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Rwandan Patriotic Front</a> signalling the start of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1462352042000225958?casa_token=XXZMNZVErBsAAAAA:EHqfGZrSRrG1vr1c8CDkKHS1k_Mx8BN5bSuyYwg0OJB7RwtuZ4DBw8Djnr4iFG7AZrDLzMZ1RXw">Rwandan Civil War (1990-1994)</a> between government and well-organised rebels.</p>
<p>France backed Habyarimana’s regime by fighting back the first invasion by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (1990-1991). After this campaign, the French government provided its military assistance to rebuild Rwanda’s military against the party. They also secretly supported a government-backed militia, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Rwanda-genocide-of-1994/Genocide#ref1111308">Interahamwe</a> (Those who fight together).</p>
<p>The genocide began hours after the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/12/rwanda-hutu-president-plane-inquiry">assassination</a> of Habyarimana. The presidential plane he was in was shot down by unknown assailants. </p>
<p>France remained steadfastly behind the new genocide government. While not providing military equipment or troops, it pressured for the removal of the United Nation’s peacekeeping <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/past/unamirS.htm">force</a> in Rwanda. It also moved the Rwandan government’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-arrest-of-madame-agathe">inner circle</a> of power out of Rwanda in the early days of the genocide.</p>
<p>Later France was to send military troops under the UN-sanctioned <a href="https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/05/14/assessment_of_opration_turquoise_113440.html">Opération Turquoise</a>. The French government publicly stated their substantial contribution of nearly 2,500 soldiers would help stop the genocidal killings. However, it became a safe zone for genocide perpetrators to continue the massacres as well as to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Zaire.htm">flee</a> into neighbouring Zaire.</p>
<h2>Goodwill gestures</h2>
<p>The political fallout from the 1994 genocide will remain at the heart of relations between Rwanda and France for some time to come. But the signs are promising. A great first step was made in 2019 with the creation of the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/europe/report-frances-role-rwandas-genocide-fails-lay-rest-dark-past">Duclert Commission</a> to investigate France’s role in the genocide. </p>
<p>The commission report expressed reasonable doubt as to whether the French government was fully aware of how its relationship with the Habyarimana regime and training of Interahamwe forces would lead to the genocide. It nevertheless acknowledged France’s involvement in the events leading to the mass killings. </p>
<p>The Rwandan government <a href="https://www.gov.rw/blog-detail/statement-on-the-release-of-the-duclert-commission-report">accepted</a> the report’s findings and commented on how important this was to help restore trust between the two nations.</p>
<p>Macron and current Rwandan president Paul Kagame recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/world/africa/france-rwanda.html">met</a> in France. Macron publicly showed his desire for a <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/video/20210527-replay-france-s-macron-meets-rwanda-s-kagame-to-turn-page-on-post-genocide-tensions">friendship</a> with his Rwandan counterpart. </p>
<p>During Macron’s Rwanda state visit some significant <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/rwanda-france-sign-two-bilateral-agreement">agreements</a> were made between the two countries – for <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/rwanda-france-sign-two-bilateral-agreement">example</a> a bilateral cooperation agreement between the two nations’ foreign ministers, financial support for development and for combating Covid-19.</p>
<p>But the highlight for Rwandans was Macron’s visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial. While this might not appear to be a tangible benefit in foreign policy, it holds significant influence in Rwandan perceptions of France amid hesitation, scepticism and open hatred for France. </p>
<p>For many Rwandans, France represents a period in their country’s history that was filled with ethnic hatreds, instability and Habyarimana’s dictatorship. Many still hold France responsible for aiding the destructive ideology of the genocide. </p>
<p>It will take time for Rwandans, especially those who suffered or witnessed the genocide, to trust France again. Macron will be aware of these challenges and how French-Rwandan relations will require time, gestures of goodwill and actions addressing the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Beloff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It will take time for Rwandans, especially those who suffered or witnessed the genocide, to trust France again.Jonathan Beloff, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1602832021-05-05T14:56:14Z2021-05-05T14:56:14ZIn Rwanda, genocide commemorations are infused with political and diplomatic agendas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398888/original/file-20210505-17-eehaii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rwanda's presidential couple at the 2021 genocide commemoration. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SIMON WOHLFAHRT/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Created in 2003, the <a href="https://cnlg.gov.rw/index.php?id=2&L=20">National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide</a> is responsible for Rwanda’s genocide remembrance policy. It is a programme that has, over time, influenced all aspects of politics across all sectors.</p>
<p>Each year, on 7 April, themed memorial events are organised by the commission, in close collaboration with the president. </p>
<p>This article addresses the period following the 20th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rwandan-Civil-War">Rwandan Civil War</a> and its <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20140402113037-u315s/">1994 genocide</a>. </p>
<p>What follows is a review of the commemorations from 2014 to the present – and a view on the challenges ahead.</p>
<h2>2014 - 2019: internationalising the remembrance</h2>
<p>In 2014 Rwanda entered the final phase of its genocide remembrance public policy, the “second internationalisation” phase. The aim was to urge recognition and commemoration of the Rwandan genocide as an ethical obligation across the world.</p>
<p>This gave rise to commemorations in Kigali in 2014 that were considered particularly offensive, <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20140406-france-boycott-rwanda-genocide-commemoration">especially by the French government</a>. On the morning of the event, the French ambassador’s accreditation was withdrawn. The day culminated in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9otQUZtd3Y">accusatory speech</a> by Rwandan president Paul Kagame at a ceremony attended by the <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2014-04-07/remarks-commemoration-20th-anniversary-rwandan-genocide-english-and">UN Secretary General</a> and foreign heads of state.</p>
<p>With widespread international genocide commemorations in 2017, Rwanda submitted a draft <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/N17/439/57/PDF/N1743957.pdf">resolution</a> to the United Nations General Assembly to rename the day. On 26 January 2018, the assembly adopted a decision – without vote – for the “International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda” to become the <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/ga12000.doc.htm">“International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda”</a>. This decision was highly criticised, given the new name excludes victims from other ethnic groups.</p>
<p>In 2019, the 25th anniversary commemorations consecrated the international community’s recognition of its responsibility towards the genocide and unwillingness to try to stop it. Official ceremonies were characterised by remorse from many countries.</p>
<p>Even France, usually in the crosshairs, was spared. A few months prior, a French court had <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/32489/rwanda-genocide-paris-drops-investigation-into-attack-of-plane-carrying-habyarimana/">dismissed</a> a case against prominent Rwandans for the 6 April 1994 attack on Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane. This sparked the genocide. </p>
<p>A long-running dispute between France and the new Rwandan regime was resolved. But even as the investigation was being closed in 2017, Rwanda enlisted a prestigious US law firm to explore bringing France before international courts for complicity in genocide.</p>
<p>In a 2019 declaration, French president Emmanuel Macron highlighted his desire to “break with the way in which France had understood and taught the Tutsi genocide”. He made 7 April a French national <a href="https://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/questions/detail/15/QE/28557">day of commemoration</a> and a commission was <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/macron-orders-probe-into-frances-role-in-rwanda-genocide/a-48227839">set up</a> “to examine all French archives relating to Rwanda between 1990 and 1994”. A French court also dismissed a case against French officers involved in <a href="https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/05/14/assessment_of_opration_turquoise_113440.html">Operation Turquoise</a> in Rwanda. </p>
<p>This indicated an educational approach towards French sovereign institutions, who were invited to recognise the “errors” of the past. </p>
<h2>2020: the return of controversial commemorations</h2>
<p>The 2020 anniversary was particularly complicated for Rwanda. On top of COVID-19 restrictions and on the eve of commemorations, the UN secretary general António Guterres and UN General Assembly president Volkan Bozkir unexpectedly questioned the new title. </p>
<p>Guterres <a href="https://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/commemorations-2020-sg-message.shtml">specified</a> that among the one million people murdered in the genocide, “the victims were overwhelmingly Tutsi, but also included Hutu and others who opposed the genocide”.</p>
<p>The following day, 7 April, Kagame’s <a href="https://youtu.be/-8WZlmZ_pUY">short public declaration</a> took note of the statements. It was addressed to “all Rwandans”, speaking of “what happened to our country and what we learned”. It didn’t specifically mention the “genocide against the Tutsi”.</p>
<p>Such a transgression of the official wording drew such criticism from survivor organisations that Kagame eventually backtracked.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-8WZlmZ_pUY?wmode=transparent&start=45" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">President Kagame’s 7 April address in 2020.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rwanda’s draft resolution required a formal vote to be passed in the UN General Assembly. During debates, the <a href="https://d2v9ipibika81v.cloudfront.net/uploads/sites/296/4.20.2020-Letter-to-GA-President.pdf">US</a> and <a href="https://www.un.org/pga/74/wp-content/uploads/sites/99/2020/04/UK-EOP-on-Rwandan-genocide-resolution-20-April.pdf">UK</a> <a href="https://usun.usmission.gov/explanation-of-position-on-the-un-general-assembly-resolution-on-the-rwandan-genocide/">denounced</a> the rewriting of history implied by this wording. Following Rwandan pressure, the <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N20/101/35/PDF/N2010135.pdf?OpenElement">resolution</a> was nevertheless passed.</p>
<p>Rwanda <a href="https://www.undocs.org/en/A/74/830">lamented</a> the US and UK positions, saying they “bring ambiguity that feeds the resurgent genocide denial movement” in the <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/conflict-trends/conflict-great-lakes-region/">Great Lakes Region</a>.</p>
<p>All objectives of the active commemoration policy promoted by the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide have therefore been formally achieved. The “genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda” is now recognised and commemorated internationally as an ethical obligation. So is the genocide remembrance policy, now divorced from its historical context.</p>
<p>By dissociating the genocide from actions undertaken by the two politico-military blocs during the 1990–94 war, Rwanda’s official version has ended the debates that characterise the historical work relating to this region since independence. </p>
<p>It’s no longer a matter of rebuilding, using factual <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2019.1709611">research</a> to provide depth. It is about criminalising those who dare to disagree, citing various genocide denial laws.</p>
<h2>2021: Rwanda’s other fights</h2>
<p>In 2021, two major events provided the backdrop to commemorations. On 26 March, a <a href="https://www.vie-publique.fr/sites/default/files/rapport/pdf/279186_0.pdf">report</a> on French archives relating to the genocide was <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210326-france-braces-for-historians-report-over-rwanda-genocide-failings">published</a>. It was followed by the announcement that Macron would likely travel to Rwanda. In Kigali, everything pointed towards the commemorations capitalising on these advances.</p>
<p>They were indeed capitalised on, but Kagame’s long <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/kwibuka27-address-president-paul-kagame">speech</a> consisted mainly of justifying the authorities’ resolutions. He denounced countries that have not tried genocidal perpetrators living on their soil and refused to extradite them to Rwanda. “It’s the same people who question the use of ‘Genocide against Tutsi’,” he said. “But the problem of definitions started way back in 1994, of just simply naming what it was.”</p>
<p>The accusations are surprising, given that Kigali is preparing to host a <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/chogm">meeting of the Commonwealth</a> in June. Rwanda’s membership goes beyond the fact that part of the population speaks English. It’s mainly based on adhering to the Commonwealth Charter values, including human rights.</p>
<p>Rwanda’s human rights violations have been denounced by major Anglo-Saxon human rights organisations <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021">Human Rights Watch</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/3202/2021/en/">Amnesty International</a>. In rebuttal, Kagame has quoted the French archive report, that then French president François Mitterrand “knew that a genocide against Tutsi was being planned by their allies in Rwanda”. The French report in fact provides strong critique of France’s role supporting the Habyarimana regime between 1990 and 1994, but stops short of stating France was complicit in the genocide.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398961/original/file-20210505-21-1six2do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people in the dark, lit by candles that they hold." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398961/original/file-20210505-21-1six2do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398961/original/file-20210505-21-1six2do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398961/original/file-20210505-21-1six2do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398961/original/file-20210505-21-1six2do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398961/original/file-20210505-21-1six2do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398961/original/file-20210505-21-1six2do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398961/original/file-20210505-21-1six2do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AKigali vigil during the 25th commemoration of the genocide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the most important part was yet to come. On 19 April, Rwandan authorities finally revealed their own “investigative <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/19/france-enabled-1994-rwanda-genocide-report-says">report</a>” on France’s role in the genocide. This was updated in light of the French report’s conclusions, but was much harsher. According to Rwanda’s foreign affairs minister, French political leaders “enabled a foreseeable genocide”. </p>
<p>The report states France did not participate in the genocide and “the French government is not complicit. But it’s a question of law and the Rwandan government will not bring this question before a court.” In this way, the foundations for a “healthy relationship” have been laid, contingent on an official apology, which “would be a step in the right direction to rebuild trust”.</p>
<h2>2022: challenges ahead</h2>
<p>It seems next year’s commemorations will involve a wealth of events. It’s worth mentioning two other international commemorations concerning Rwanda in 2022. The first will be held on 1 July, the anniversary shared by “warring brothers” Rwanda and Burundi, celebrating 60 years of independence.</p>
<p>In Rwanda, 1 July is just a bank holiday and the regime will probably continue to mainly celebrate 4 July, the date that they took Kigali in 1994. In Burundi, it’s the opposite. Authorities intend to give strong meaning to 1 July, remembering both independence and the 50th anniversary of the genocide against the Hutu in 1972. Giving recognition to this <a href="https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/burundi-killings-1972.html">“hidden” genocide</a> will be at the heart of commemorations.</p>
<p>The various massacres and genocides in 1959–61, 1965, 1969, 1972, 1988, 1973, 1993–94 and 2015 remain profoundly fixed in the memories of both <a href="https://theconversation.com/burundi-and-rwanda-a-rivalry-that-lies-at-the-heart-of-great-lakes-crises-63795">Burundians and Rwandans</a>. The “Tutsi” domination of Burundi and “Hutu” domination of Rwanda (now reversed after two civil wars) have established the political authoritarianism of the military regimes. The debate sparked about commemorating one group of victims over the other will endure in various forms.</p>
<p>For the vast majority of Burundians, 50 years after the 1972 genocide and a return to peace, it is high time to honour the memory of all victims of national divisions. Debates established by Burundi’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission alongside the <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/03/20/burundi-s-truth-and-reconcilliation-commission-presents-new-findings//">current work</a> of exhuming and registering genocide victims, have allowed for liberating moments of expression for Hutu and Tutsi populations. </p>
<p>This could finally pave the way for the writing of a plural, shared, national history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor at University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne., André Guichaoua is affiliated with UMR "Développement et Sociétés". FMSH, Member of International Scientific Committee of ANR Program "Exit from Violence"</span></em></p>A survey of the commemorations since 2014 reveals the politicking behind the writing of history and Rwanda’s place in the world.André Guichaoua, Professeur des universités, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-SorbonneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.