The Economist explains
How does Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, get away with it?
Even as evidence of the brutality and thuggishness of his rule mounts up, the West continues to support him
ON SEPTEMBER 20TH a court in Rwanda found Paul Rusesabagina guilty of links to terrorist groups and sentenced him to 25 years in jail. His real crime, however, was to oppose President Paul Kagame. Mr Rusesabagina had been kidnapped in order to stand trial in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, in proceedings widely condemned as a travesty of justice. That has been the fate, and much worse, of many who have stood up to Mr Kagame. Mr Rusesabagina, however, is no ordinary Rwandan. A hotelier who courageously saved hundreds of lives during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, in which about 500,000 people were killed, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush in 2005. A celebrated film, “Hotel Rwanda”, was based on his life. Yet his appalling treatment and the absurd sentence has scarcely caused a ripple of criticism or pushback. America and Belgium both expressed “concern”. That’s it. Why?
Mr Rusesabagina’s treatment is not an isolated case. Evidence of the brutality and ruthless repression of the Rwandan regime has mounted. Mr Kagame was the de facto leader of the country from 1994 to 2000, when he became president. He long ago quashed any semblance of democracy in Rwanda, and is regularly returned to power with over 90% of the vote. Opponents abroad have been shot or strangled to death. None of these murders has been pinned directly on Mr Kagame’s intelligence services, but the president has openly said that the victims got what they deserved. A recent book by Michela Wrong, a British journalist, chronicles in detail the murder of Mr Kagame’s former intelligence chief in South Africa—and she leaves no doubt as to who she thinks ordered the hit. Mr Kagame has denied that Rwanda was involved in the killing.
Yet through it all, whereas other dictators have been blackballed and sanctioned, Mr Kagame has enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of Western politicians, and in particular the largesse of their governments’ aid agencies. Rwanda has received about 50% more aid per person than comparable countries in the region. The World Bank has committed about $4bn to Rwanda since 1994. By successfully posing as the man who saved Rwanda from the genocide (the truth is more complicated), he convinced a generation of Western leaders—notably Bill Clinton and Tony Blair—that he alone could bind Rwanda’s wounds and elevate its people. Mr Kagame also played expertly on Western guilt for the blood-letting. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has written: “The whole world wanted to believe in the miracle that was Rwanda—a country built from the wreckage and devastation that intertribal violence and ethnic cleansing had caused…To our shame, our need for Rwanda to succeed far exceeded our desire or ability to see the cost at which that success was bought.”
If the arbitrary justice meted out to his opponents does not dent Mr Kagame’s reputation, perhaps his record on development will. It was previously his strongest suit, but Rwanda’s government has recently been accused of manipulating statistics to improve its apparent economic performance. Certainly, there is a consensus now that the rapid growth of previous years has evaporated. If Rwanda’s economic miracle turns out to have been a mirage, then, perhaps, people might at last be less starry-eyed about the strongman of Kigali.
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