The power of opposition

Having had a bit of free time over the last few days, it’s been really enjoyable to discover some of the excellent blogs eminating from Kigali, and yesterday, as Rwanda formally joined the Commonwealth, there was some particularly good stuff flying around. I’m not going to add anything myself – these people are far too well informed for there to be any point in that – but just thought I’d post some links in case any friends or passing vagrants might be interested.

Rwandinfo picks up a press release from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiatives (CHRI) that criticises the Rwandan government for failing to allow “freedom of expression, freedom of association and peaceful assembly of opposition parties” ahead of the national elections scheduled for 9 August.

Included in the CHRI statement is the following:

Rwanda’s membership requires that it honours and complies with the Commonwealth’s fundamental political principles which include respect for civil society and human rights. The Chair of a new opposition party, United Democratic Forces (UDF) has written to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth alleging state orchestrated harassment, describing violence against herself and colleagues as well as outlining the restrictive environment facing opposition parties in their electoral challenge to the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

Under Article 13 of the Rwandan constitution it is an offence to engage in “revisionism” or “negationism” (denial of the genocide). These are so broadly defined to include anyone who disagrees with the ruling RPF’s account of the Genocide. On the 25th of February the Ministry for Security in Rwanda issued a statement saying that any politician who “slanders the country” or is “against public unity” would be punished.

And though it obviously doesn’t seem so bad to make denial of the genocide a crime, it does seem excessive to outlaw any deviation from the official account, particularly when the ruling party and head of state were involved so closely in the events (albeit acting in the interests of the victimised).

But I think our favourite of the blogs we’ve discovered so far is postcardjunky’s, whose acerbic and cynical take on national politics strikes something of a chord with our general world view. Whilst very much in favour of free speech, postcardjunky points out that in reality, the UDF and its leader, Victoire Ingabire, may not be particularly savoury as opposition:

The more I hear about Ingabire around town, the less credible I find her as a viable opposition candidate. (At least one reporter who has interviewed her described her to me as an “idiot.”) Her persistent refusal to answer questions related to her alleged links to the FDLR – including just who’s bankrolling her campaign – seem like the sort of politically expedient obfuscations of someone with something to hide. On a knee-jerk, free-speech level, I agree that her harassment by the Kagame government has been a bit unfair. But if she turns out to be the monstrous, ethnically divisive figure Kigali makes her out to be, is this really someone we should be defending?

(For friends unfamiliar with all this, the FDLR is the main remnant of the organisation that was behind the genocide in 1994, in which more than 800,000 Tutsis are estimated to have been massacred in 100 days.)

I’m just coming to the end of the utterly excellent State of Africa by Martin Meredith, and one running theme is that many democracies fail in Africa because rather than engaging in political argument, parties (and therefore election contests) are drawn up along ethnic/religious lines, which only leads to division among the people and, once in power, the allocation of top jobs, funds etc to the ethnic groups who supported the government. It would be a huge, huge shame if Rwandan democracy was heading down the same path.

I don’t have any more to say other than to thank those who’ve put these arguments in terms that I can understand.

But finally, on a lighter note, there’s one more top-quality blog from this region that we’ve found thus far. This, Kigaliwire’s story of bringing live Premier League football to the Rwandan masses, is as entertaining a piece of photojournalism as we’ve seen in a while.