Can diplomacy Change the Dictatorial Attitude of Kagame who has personalized power in Rwanda?

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The Untold Stories: Can diplomacy Change the Dictatorial Attitude of Kagame who has personalized power in Rwanda?



January 20, 2013 By Rwema IT Webmaster Leave a Comment



If at all History has something to teach the Rwandan leader it has failed to do so and one could conclude that he is not only a bad student of history but also a man who is not bothered for the life of others. Throughout the years after genocide the international donor community hailed Rwanda as a leading post genocide success story, the country's management of the aid and security without stability in the country has been the selling brand of Paul Kagame to the International Community.



However, the recent media and human rights groups outburst on the Kagame's involvement in the Eastern D.R.Congo has not only stripped off the Rwandan Head of State all the political credentials by his former western admirers but has also left him politically naked. Seeing what Rwandan troops and their proxy M23 rebels have done in the DRCongo, there is no doubt that everyone would argue that the Rwandan Head of State should by now be in Hague like his counterparts on the African continent namely Charles Taylor and others.

Yet perhaps the greatest lesson from Congo was not necessarily the bad things that our army is doing in foreign country but how ruthless and reckless President Paul Kagame is at geo-strategic positioning. Kagame has failed to cultivate a very good understanding of the dynamics of regime survival in Africa, a factor that explains his recent fallout with the West.

First, a country or a leader should have policies that foster economic growth in order to continually increase tax revenues. Second, leverage these economic policies for international financial support to supplement your fiscal position. Money is an important political resource to finance patronage for elites, welfare (however poorly delivered) to the masses and to sustain an army. Third, sustain some appearance of democratic politics by tolerating a measure of freedom while maintaining an iron grip on the military and security agenda. So people can express themselves freely but when this threatens your power, crack down hard with the military i.e. hide your iron fist underneath a velvet glove. Third, to crown this assemblage of factors, ensure that the western powers, especially the US, are beholden to you for their geostrategic interests in the region.

It is unfortunate that President Kagame has not only failed to master those tricks and tactics but has fundamentally crossed the red line by using laws and courts to silence his opponents and those perceived to be. He has killed or incarcerated everybody that raises his or her voice in the manner that is not in the line of RPF. As I have mentioned above the Congo project in 1996 was supported by his donor allies the US, UK and some European powers but his brand has passed sell by date and hence his backers have no more appetite for the instability of Congo.

Furthermore, Kagame's Congo project seems to have been influenced by a political calculation regarding his relations with America and UK. The US and UK were tolerant for the Rwandan dictator as long as the then Mobutu was in power and to certain extent to the post-Mobutu which was not pro the West interest. However, Congo without Mobutu and Kabila the father, and the continuation of massacres of hundreds of thousands of innocent Congolese by the Rwandan army and its proxy M23 has created political discontent both in US, UK and the whole European Union.

Hence, America and her allies have shifted their strategy by either condemning Kagame for his involvement in Congo or by suspending or withdrawing the development aid to his government which in fact is partly used in fueling the war in Congo by buying military equipment for M23 rebels who have devastated the entire region of the Eastern DRCongo.

Therefore, with political discontent in most parts of Africa, like Central Africa Republic were the rebels sought to overthrow the government of Francois Bozize and after a bloody war, both sides have now reached a deal that will allow him to stay in office until his term ends in 2016, while sharing power with the rebels which at the beginning of the war was unthinkable, it is another reminder to all many human rights activists, that dictators don't go but are pushed.

The announcement came after several days of peace talks in Gabon, which were organized after an alliance of rebels groups swept through the north of the country and seized control of a dozen towns.

On Friday, Bozize publicly shook hands with the rebel representatives — whom he had denounced as terrorists just two days before — and other political opponents to seal the deal that spares his ouster.

The rebel offensive stopped short of the capital of Bangui but posed the gravest threat to Bozize during his nearly 10 years in power.

"The president, backed into a corner, was forced to make a number of concessions and to make true of his promise to encourage a government of national unity," Margaret Vogt, U.N. special envoy to Central African Republic told the U.N. Security Council by videoconference from Libreville, Gabon. Bozize said he would move to dissolve the government Saturday so that a national unity government could be formed that would be led by a prime minister chosen by the political opposition

It could be argued that, the Rwandan Head of State has not only personalized power but has also brutally suppressed free and independent press, freedom of assembly which is guaranteed by the Constitution has been muzzled. He has called his opponents flies that could be smashed by a hammer if necessary, and other dehumanizing and humiliating names, democracy is just a sham where the electoral commission is owned and operated by the RPF Cadres, indeed, Rwanda has never had free and fair elections, it is therefore unclear where the Kagame regime is heading given the fact that, the donor community have switched off their taps and the country is experiencing the economic bite, whether Kagame will change his dictatorial attitude remains to be seen, but the waves and tides of the sea are so strong that it might be difficult to be resisted or the dictator might be drowned.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.