Can uneasy peace last in Rwanda?

This appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The elections earlier this month in the small African nation Rwanda, with a tragic history, call once more into question its likely future trajectory.

Rwanda’s president and top leader since 1994, Paul Kagame, and his party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, won re-election to his third seven-year term with some 99 per cent of the vote. Even though the elections were in principle contested, the extent of that victory, and the strong-arm tactics that preceded it, make Rwanda a one-party state and Kagame one more African president for life.

The real problem lies in the fact that Rwanda has been ruled since 1994, and before 1959, by force by a 14 per cent ethnic minority, the Tutsis. They rule over an 85 per cent Hutu ethnic majority and a small group of Twa, sometimes known as pygmies. The vice presidential candidate of an opposition party was found beheaded before the elections.

The major complication in Rwanda in 2017 comes in the form of the fact that Kagame’s government has ruled the country of 13 million since it took over in 1994 very well in terms of economic development. When Kagame and the RPF came to power in 1994, Rwanda had been absolutely shattered as a society by a wave of genocidal killings.

So what is the bet? Is it on the Tutsis’ and Kagame’s continued ability to rule, reinforced in no small part by the majority Hutus’ fear of renewed violence and appreciation of the economic development? Or is it concern that once again Rwanda will return to rounds of inter-ethnic violence?

The return of genocide would be a horror. At the same time, it would be irresponsible not to want to see democratic, participatory government as part of the picture of economic development that Rwanda represents. Then the question becomes, is that possible given the history and ethnic composition of the place? No easy answers.