The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
The 1994 genocide revealed the dangerous underbelly of Rwanda’s identity politics. RPF, given its history, is Tutsi-led.
Given the recent ethnic political history of Rwanda, anyone in leadership in Kigali has to worry about the attitude of the Hutu majority in the event of a civil war in that country. These threatens have shaped the political system Kigali has evolved, although people like Wrong would want to see Rwanda governed like Belgium.
Therefore, the hypersensitivity of the Rwandan state to security threats has to be understood in this context – its geography (small country surrounded by richer, bigger neighbours sometimes hostile to it), its population density, and its history (of ethnic polarisation leading to genocide). And so is its response.
Wrong glosses over the context of Rwanda’s threats claiming that many people allegedly assassinated by the Rwandan state like Sendashonga, Karegyeya or Kayumba (a failed attempt) were not plotting war. Even if this were objectively true, it does not change anything. The Rwandan state acts on the intelligence it has and believes, not on “objective truths.” No country, not even the USA which has a huge margin of error, can wait to have 100% proof of a terrorist plan before taking action. If it did it would be too late to stop it.
Rwanda has an even smaller margin of error. The price of one misstep is too high. It cannot afford the luxury of waiting. So the room for mistakes is very, very small. Kigali cannot wait for 100% proof on its enemies’ actions and intentions.
If you want to know why Rwanda’s security antennae is on a hair trigger, just think which kind of error would be more-costly the next time you are walking alone at night in a deep forest or a dark alley. The hypersensitive danger detection mechanism in your brain is fine tuned to maximise survival, not factual accuracy. That is Rwanda’s reality.
The problem with many critics of Kagame specifically and the post genocide government in Rwanda generally is a failure to appreciate this context in which its institutions, policies, processes and actions take place. They want Rwanda to adopt the policies and practices of UK or France. Yet these countries themselves do not adhere to the ideal we always attribute to them. Their actions and intentions are also shaped by their experience.
The anti-Kagame coalition in Kampala, which has fallen in love with Wrong’s book, claims that Kagame should rule like President Yoweri Museveni – large hearted, forgiving, tolerant of his generals like David Tinyefuza and Henry Tumukunde who have gone rogue at times.
But even if this were true about Museveni, the two countries face different threats. For instance, most of the security challenges Uganda faces are largely, if not entirely, of a tactical or strategic nature. But Rwanda’s threats are existential. How each leader responds therefore cannot be based on some universal norm but on the objective conditions obtaining on the ground.
Yet there is more than enough proof that the people allegedly killed by Rwanda, or whom it allegedly attempted to kill, were actually involved in planning civil war.
Gerald Prunier is a French scholar and was a close friend and collaborator of Sendashonga. In his book, `Africa’s World War’, he reveals Sendashonga’s plans for armed rebellion against Rwanda.
He says Sendashonga was fed up with always playing the good guy. Prunier quotes Sendashonga and I quote: “I have got to make my move,” he told me in early 1998 during one of our meetings in Nairobi, “Everybody uses a gun as a way of sitting at a negotiation table one day. If I always refuse to use guns, I will be marginalised when the time comes.”
According to Prunier, and again I quote: “About 600 men and around 40 officers of the Ex-FAR had gathered around him (Sendashonga). They were ready to follow him into battle… Tanzania had agreed to host their training camps but he wanted support from what he felt would be the most decisive and progressive force in the region, that is, the (Yoweri) Museveni regime in Uganda. He asked for my help in talking to Kampala and I arranged the necessary contacts… On Sunday May 3rd 1998, he met in Nairobi with Salim Saleh… and Saleh was open to the idea of helping a new moderate face enter the game.” Two weeks later on the evening of Saturday May 16, 1998, Sendashonga was shot dead as he drove home.
I interviewed Saleh at that time who confirmed that he met with Sendashonga immediately before he was shot. If Prunier’s allegations that Kampala wanted to help “a moderate face enter the game” are true, one understands why Kigali had to act quickly and decisively. Relations with Uganda had collapsed over Congo, and the next year the two countries’ armies fought in Kisangani.
In building alliances with Tanzania (to provide training camps for his rebels) and Uganda (to get a moderate face into the game), both countries larger and richer than Rwanda, Sendashoga was posing a serious risk to Rwanda’s security.
Could Kigali reasonably afford to wait until Sendashonga unleashed his army on Rwanda? Does Wrong believe Kigali should have given Sendashonga, a “credible” Hutu politician, space to launch his war before it acts?
Even in her own narrative, Wrong admits that Kayumba has a rebel force in Congo to fight the Rwandan government. I quote: “Today, the exiled Gen. Kayumba is doing exactly what Kagame once suspected he would – training a militia in Eastern Congo and gathering around him a loose coalition of Hutus and Tutsis determined to oust his former boss. But at the turn of the century, were Kagame’s suspicions well founded? Or did he, in the ultimate of ironies, inadvertently bring about exactly the outcome he feared?” You have to be excessively naïve to believe that Kayumba thought about armed rebellion after the attempt on his life.
Wrong reveals her naivete when she claims that Kayumba was “very popular” among sections of the Rwandan army. Yet this “popularity” had been carefully cultivated, always using corrupt means, for a purpose i.e. to grab power for himself via a coup. When he went to London for a course, he went a step farther – began cultivating relationships with exile forces seeking to overthrow the government in Kigali. More than that, there is intelligence that he established a working relationship with regional powers seeking a similar end. I had access to Rwandan and Ugandan intelligence showing how he was travelling from New Delhi to Mauritius to meet exiled Rwandan dissidents.
Wrong was taken for a ride by Karegyeya, Kayumba, Sendashonga’s wife and the entire group of anti-Kagame haters. Sadly, she bought their claims line hook and sinker. Kayumba and Keregyeya lied to her that they wanted to retire from government to private life and Kagame refused. If there was an iota of truths in that, it could only have been part of the story. The truth is that both men did not want leave the limelight, could not afford to be an ordinary-citizens in Rwanda. They had to be in power or else.
When Karegyeya was removed from heading external security and made government spokesman (a demotion), he became bitter and his actions and words came to border on subversion. In my next and final installment, I will provide a firsthand personal experience of my dealing with Karegyeya and other Rwandan officials and the lessons I derived from that experience.
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amwenda@independent.co.ug
Okay.
So, from what you say, Miz Wrong is much like Ugandans who excuse or ignore the actions “their people” have done. You instead hear about how disproportionate response and the alleged human rights violations.
That said Andrew, you should see this reporting from the perspective of the level of technology.
People are looking to trend and go viral. They look for the sensational before the factual.
I think you’ve just exonerated all history’s bloodletting tyrants with your reasoning in that, all their hapless victims -it can be argued- were invariably ‘guilty’ of triggering the ‘security antenna.of the state,ie, the person of the state.
One distinguishing mark of tyrants throughout history is the fusing of their self and the state. Their personal detractors automatically become unpatrioric, treasonous ungrateful sub citizens. Some of these dissidents begged to be left alone, to slink back into their private lives, to live the rest of their lives in their country as ordinary people. But that was not enough, they had to bend and grovel or be subjected to further ignominy, instead they chose the cold uninviting livea of the exiled. I vividly remember some of those names during the uganda Rwanda misadventure in Congo. They were passionate about the new Rwanda. To say otherwise is simply disingenuous.
First, a disclaimer: I’ve not yet got the chance to read Miz Wrong’s book entitled “Do not Disturb”.
However, reading from M9’s two previous discussions in which he struggles to discredit the book, one realizes that as usual himself too misses the point.
And the point is that most African leaders have the inability to separate political opponents and the enemies of the state! A political opponent simply doesn’t believe/agree with public policy of the incumbent in as far as running affairs of the state is concerned; whereas an enemy of the state doesn’t like the existence of that particular country regardless of who is in charge!
I will give M9’s very own example of America versus Al Qaeda. To the Al Qaeda group, regardless of who occupies the White House, America as a country remains a foe and vice versa!
But no American president has ever associated their political opponents with the Al Qaeda group since 9/11.
That’s the crystal clear difference between the Western leaders and African rulers!
For example president Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Tibuhaburwa M7 of Uganda don’t know the difference between Al Qaeda/ Al Shabab and Victoria Ingabire, or Bobi Wine/ Dr Kizza Besigye!
They simply lump them as terrorists who must be dealt with militarily! In early 2010, there was a mudslide that buried many people alive in the eastern district of Bududa and Tibuhaburwa went there in military chopper with an AK 47 slung across his chest!
Indeed, African rulers are sychopaths/callous. For instance they’ve divided their citizens into class systems, that’s, the privileged and the less privileged. There are those who will get flown out of the country for better medical care abroad when they fall sick, all expenses paid for by the taxpayers money, and then the less privileged will be left to die here in our own sick Healthcare facilities. Is that a lie Mr Mwenda?
In a nutshell, no one knows what became of Andrew Mwenda of the yesteryears to the extent that he’ll put up a spirited defense of the most indefensible!
“Indeed, African rulers are sychopaths (sic)/callous. … they’ve divided their citizens into class systems …”. I think it’s time people woke up the reality that class divisions occur all over the world, and usually the elite don’t want the status quo to change. It does not happen only in Africa; it’s a human reality.
I will paraphrase an Arab colleague who wrote: “Our terrorists wear suicide vests; your (European) terrorists wear Prada suits.” He was referring to the fact that the Western world uses flowery language for its bad deeds (glorification) while using censorial language (condemnation) for the similar deeds elsewhere, especially in Africa.
I am not saying Africa is a perfect place – but neither is the Western world – but it’s critical we stop using the rest of the world as the gold standard against Africa. Time we looked at our local contexts and started any necessary surgery from there; rather looking to the outside first.
Hey folks!
Uwelugosi, Mr.O and any other longtime followers of Andrew Mwenda, I kindly need your help.
There is an old monitor article whose screen shot I just saw entitled “Only the rich should rule, says Museveni’s son”.
Now the only problem is that the screenshot only covers the first page of that story.
Yet am curious about how Andrew Mwenda debunked Muhoozi’s argument that a plutocracy would ensure peace and stability since the rich always desire a calm and tranquil environment given that they own property.
Any help in form of the screenshot of the second page or a summary of Mwenda’s argument to the best of your memory would be deeply appreciated.
Cheers!
Benjamin
P.S: Also does anyone know of how I can get access to the Andrew Mwenda live audios?
A human being who has hunted his kin should never be exalted. Those who participated in the genocide for whatever reason are forever marked men. It is that palpable unease that simmers below the Rwandan narrative. I have read M9 grief whenever he loses loved ones yet here you still glorify murder. You seem to suggest that murder is the best means that has kept Rwanda stable and I say let everyone own up. All Banyarwanda deserve a life.
Read his first article about the difference between African’s threats and Western threats
1.The first world fights more organised,believable and classy wars with known objectives under organs like NATO and UN.
2.The deadliest jobs in the World are those of hit-men,spies, double agents they always die in the same way i.e either in a woman’s thighs or drug overdose.
3.Even at M7’s worst moments;he is the best of the best.
4.Its only naive ex spies like Kareyegera who die the way they do. Real hit men die when they are nerve poisoned.
5.Do you know how good its feels to the army or police when a MOSSAD,Navy Seal or FBI agent trains them?Those agents reside in Sheraton only while on assignment.
What i find fascinating is that in trying to criticise Wrong’s claims or ideas, Andrew Mwenda ends up validating them in the long run.
I thought so too; inconsistencies in Mwenda’s articles are mind boggling! Mwenda actually confirms that Kagame killed Kareheya…. He makes several statements to this effect e.g. (I am paraphrasing) Rwanda’s security antennae is on high trigger because any error would be costly….. No one shoulf blame Kagame for killing dissidents in another country because Ameria, Britain and Israel are doing the same….. One thing my grandmother taught me is never to lie or try to spin things because you can be consistent.
Meant to say in the last sentence that you can’t be consistent when you tell a lie or spin facts…
This argument doesn’t make much sense – basically we can write off any political murders provided the perpetrators can justify them as some form of self preservation- with this kind of thinking we can justify most of the murders during Amin’s regime -after all his government survived over 20 coups attempts – so Idd Amin had every reason to murder his opponents based on a hunch or a rumor that they intended to overthrow him. Don’t you ask yourself why everyone who falls out with the regime in Rwanda decides to flee the country – instead of staying home to join opposition politics. Rwandan politics is not so unlike what we see in the region – it is not like the neighborhood is comprised of Westminister style democracies – but you don’t see politicians who fall out with gov’ts in Tz, Ug or Kenya running to neighboring countries to form rebel groups – Opposition politics in Rwanda seems to be an extreme sport – the only options people have is to either join the so called “consensus govt” or make a principled stand on issues and risk getting assassinated