‘Soccer sponsorship none of your business’

RWANDA has had words with some European donor countries after the govern ment of President Paul Kagame defended its multi-million dollar deal to sponsor Kagame’s favourite football team, Arsenal.

Some politicians in Britain, the Netherlands and other donor countries, who criticised the decision (after the World Bank reported that the East African country received more than $1 billion in foreign aid and development assistance in 2016), were told it was none of their business.

This rare criticism from the West comes against a background where Rwanda is regarded as a model African state with Kagame responsible for transforming the country economically following the 1994 genocide in which a million Tutsis, and some moderate Hutus, were slaughtered by the Hutu Interahamwe militia.

Rwanda is ranked 41 among 190 economies in the ease of doing business, according to the latest World Bank 2018 annual ratings.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected Rwanda’s GDP to grow by between 6 and 7% this year.

Kagame also evoked international sympathy when he led the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in defeating the murderous Interahamwe.

But while Kagame’s progressive attitude towards gender equality has been applauded, his rule has come at a high price for political opponents, personal liberties and freedom of the press.

Even questioning if Kagame and his ruling party’s version of the 1994 genocide is illegal deserves a lengthy jail term.

Several American investigators who subsequently visited the country and exposed atrocities committed by the RPF were hastily deported. Walking around the super clean streets of Kigale, one is hard-pressed to find even a cigarette butt – courtesy of neighbourhood committees which are forced into cleaning them. There are also no beggars within sight.

“Scores of people suspected of collaborating with ‘enemies’ of the Rwandan government were detained arbitrarily and tortured from 2010 to 2017,” said HRW.

Scores of people suspected of collaborating with ‘enemies’ of Rwanda were detained arbitrarily and tortured Human Rights Watch