Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
What legacy will President Paul Kagame leave?
THIRTY years ago, the world watched as Rwanda was ripped apart by genocide. In a 100-day spell of violence, an estimated 800 000 people from the minority Tutsi ethnic group were butchered by armed Hutu militias.
It is estimated that more than one million lives were lost in what can be described as some of the darkest days of post-independent Africa.
No one came to the rescue of the Tutsis in Rwanda. Not Africa. Not the international community. If Rwanda had been a richer, more geopolitically significant territory, the response may well have been different.
In a video message before the 30-year commemoration of the genocide, French President Emmanuel Macron said that France and its western and African allies “could have stopped” Rwanda’s 1994 genocide but did not have the will to halt the slaughter.
Peacekeepers, rather than providing support and sanctuary, left in numbers as the country was turned into a killing field. Twenty years after the mass murders, the former secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, spoke of the shame of the organisation for failing to prevent the genocide and protect the people of Rwanda.
In the end, it was Paul Kagame’s Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) which brought an end to the genocide. In his address at the 30-year commemoration on Sunday, President Kagame thanked Rwandans for doing the impossible by carrying the burden of reconciliation on their shoulders.
He said: “We have turned the corner in Rwanda, but the same ideology that justified the genocide against the Tutsi is alive and well in our region. And we see the same indifference from the wider world as in 1994. It is as if those expensive lessons are always lost, and we stare blindly as the same type of situation builds up again and again.”
A handful of world leaders, including the former US president Bill Clinton, and France’s Finance Minister, Stéphane Séjourné, attended the commemoration in Rwanda. In his autobiography, Clinton wrote that the failure to try to stop Rwanda’s tragedies was to become one of the greatest regrets of his presidency. The presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, at the commemoration, raised a stir given the genocidal acts of Israel against the people of Palestine.
In Rwanda, Kagame has moved mountains to bring about reconciliation. The government has invested heavily in internal peace and reconciliatory efforts. There is a government ministry focusing on reconciliation and a school syllabus that teaches young Rwandans about the genocide against the Tutsis.
On the economic front, Rwanda has enjoyed strong and consistent GDP growth. The World Bank projects an average growth of 7.2% over the 2024-2026 period. Investment in infrastructure, farming and tourism has paid dividends for the nation, and its people. The percentage of Rwandans living in poverty has reduced significantly and life expectancy has doubled. A universal health-care programme is in place and gender parity is in play with women making up over 60% of the Rwandan parliament.
Unfortunately, spates of human rights abuses and the alleged involvement in fuelling regional conflict may sully the Kagame legacy. The suppression and arrest of those who dare to speak out against him or the ruling RPF will forever scar the developmental achievements of his administration. Additionally, Kagame is also alleged to be causing regional instability.
The UN and US have accused Rwanda of supporting the Tutsi-led M23
movement in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). As the battles rage between the DRC armed forces and the rebel M23 group, the population has been subject to murder, rape, and displacement. However, Kagame has been at pains to say that any involvement in the DRC conflict on the part of Rwanda is a defensive not aggressive move.
In an interview published last month in the East African weekly newspaper, Kagame said: “If Rwanda’s security is threatened, as that situation has done, I don’t need anybody’s permission to do whatever I have to do to make sure that Rwanda is protected.”
The DRC’s President Félix Tshisekedi has compared Kagame to Adolf Hitler and argues that the Rwandan president has expansionist aims and that he has his eyes set on the mineral wealth of the DRC. However, Kagame appears seized with the task of protecting Rwanda and its people, and the gains made over the past 30 years.
While South Africa has transgressed from its miracle nation standing in 1994 to the world’s most unequal nation, Rwanda has moved from a place of unimaginable pain in 1994 to a miracle nation.
If Kagame is to be remembered as one of the giants of Africa, he will need to consolidate and build on the three decades of reconciliation and development in Rwanda. His role in the East African region should be one of reconciliation rather than rupture.
The landscape of Rwanda has transformed from one of damage to one of development, from genocide to growth. However, the foul act of ethnic cleansing which almost destroyed Rwanda in 1994, has left an indelible injury across East Africa. Many perpetrators, and ordinary Hutus fearless of persecution, fled to neighbouring counties, including the DRC in 1994.
Some of the Hutu militia responsible for the genocide in Rwanda against the Tutsis who fled to the DRC pledged to return to Rwanda to complete their gruesome task of ethnic cleansing. It is claimed that some of these elements are part of the DRC’s armed forces. The wound of the genocide continues to fester and bleed across East Africa. One hopes that Kagame helps to heal this wound in the same way he has done in Rwanda.