Kagame Rebel Reformer

 

In the run-up to the presidential election on Aug. 9 in the tiny East African nation of Rwanda, the government of Paul Kagame has arrested several opposition members, expelled a representative of Human Rights Watch (HRW), shut two newspapers and suspended the BBC's Rwandan service. On May 28, police detained Peter Erlinder, 62, an attorney from Minnesota representing an opposition leader, and held him for more than two weeks. Other regime challengers have been less fortunate. A former army officer living in exile in Johannesburg was shot and wounded on

June 19; in Rwanda, a journalist was shot dead on June 24, and an opposition leader was beheaded on July 14.

 Taken together, these events might suggest that Rwanda is run by a type of government all too familiar in Africa — and many of Kagame's critics have made the inevitable comparison of him to the continent's notorious Big Men. "We have no problems acknowledging [Kagame] has done positive things," says Kenneth Roth, head of HRW. "But we question whether the world should be closing its eyes to dictatorship."

 But Rwanda, where the ethnic-Hutu majority macheted 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority and their Hutu "collaborators" over 100 days in 1994, is not an easy place to explain. Kagame's record on human rights is more nuanced than critics admit. He has abolished the death penalty, released thousands of so-called génocidaires from jail to participate in a reconciliation process, decentralized government, given the opposition seats in his Cabinet and taken a stand against African homophobia — hardly the actions of a tyrant.

 Kagame's accomplishments don't end there. Since his rebel forces ended the genocide, Kagame has presided over Rwanda's stunning rebirth. Its economy has grown an average of 6.4% since 2001; last year the World Bank named Rwanda its most improved country; roads, schools, running water and phones are widespread; disease is down; literacy and life expectancy are up; even the mountain gorillas are thriving. That record makes Kagame, 52, the star of a new Africa recast as a place of growth and opportunity, a status U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cemented on June 24 when he named Kagame co-chair of a new panel on ending world poverty.

How to reconcile that impressive record with the unsavory events ahead of the vote? Kagame denies any involvement in the attacks and attributes HRW's expulsion to a visa violation. To understand the closure of newspapers and arrests of critics, you have to remember that memories of the genocide will never fade — and neither will fears of a relapse. The arrests and closures, Kagame says, were meant to stop the stoking of more Hutu-Tutsi violence. The President is a Tutsi. There's no denying that many opposition figures representing Hutus have contact with the militias responsible for the 1994 atrocities and sometimes make inflammatory statements.

Erlinder's client, Victoire Ingabire, told TIME recently that if the Hutus win power again in Rwanda, "I am sure they will revenge themselves against the Tutsis." One of the closed newspapers, Umuseso, also predicted blood. Quoting John F. Kennedy, it wrote, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible  

NGOMA- A delegation of 27 members of Ngoma District Advisory Council Tuesday inspected various development projects in the district.

Led by the chairman Joseph Sematabaro, the councillors were accompanied by members of the district Executive Committee.

According to Sematabaro, the tour was meant to provide first hand experience on issues affecting communities, and how they are involved in implementation of government programmes. 

‘We intend to end the arms-chair management of society…we want to assess the successes and failures registered so far, so that we go back to the drawing board with tangible experience,’ he said. 

Charles Ntageruka, the Vice Mayor in charge of Economic Affairs, said that the tour helped bridge the gap between the people and the councillors. 

He noted that some members of the community don’t even know the role of the councillors. â€˜Councillors are decision-makers, which means they are our managers, including the executive and the population. It is imperative that they get in contact with the people and the issues on the ground,’ he emphasised. 

‘Leaders have to visit us in communities if they want to know what people really need. It is illogical to sit in offices and imagine solutions to problems they don’t know, so this is a good gesture from councillors,’ said one of the residents, Bertha Mukamboneza, 37. 

According to authorities, the councillors are expected to meet later this week to pass the 2010-2011 district budget.