Posts Tagged ‘Africa’

Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days. Tension that had been simmering for nearly a century suddenly exploded into three months of carnage. The majority of those killed were Tutsis, and most of those responsible for their deaths were Hutus.

Even for a country like Rwanda, which is no stranger to violence, the scale and speed of the genocide left its people reeling. The international community did little to prevent the bloodshed, which only ended when a Tutsi rebel group defeated the Hutu-backed government.

Out of this unimaginable genocide, Paul Rusesabagina saved the lives of 1,268 refugees. Seen by many as the ‘Oskar Schindler of Africa,’ Rusesabagina resisted the chaos and turmoil, and sheltered both Tutsis and moderate Hutus within the walls of the hotel he managed.

After talking at the Amnesty International Human Rights Centre on behalf of ‘Save the Congo’, Rusesabagina spoke with Andrew de Castro about the problems facing ordinary Rwandans and Congolese today, and whether the international community are doing enough to help.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I took myself as a stranger in my own country”

Last year Rwanda joined the Commonwealth, but today two high-ranking Rwandan military officials were suspended and then arrested. Is it a case of ‘one step forward, two steps back’ for Rwanda?

Rwanda is more or less like a dormant volcano that can erupt at any time. Before, it used to be divisions and subdivisions between Hutus and Tutsis. Today, it is a division – a split – within the Tutsi side. So you can see that there is a tiny group of elite among those ones who came from Uganda. The ones who agree with President Kagame are now his closest people. Those ones who disagreed with him are the ones who he is kicking out of the army.  Today, two other generals were kicked out of the army and arrested. Now, it is actually better because it is no more a Tutsi-Hutu business, it is no longer simple a Tutsi-Hutu thing – it is now a Rwandan conflict.

You mention in your book that your neighbours suddenly became killers overnight – it must be difficult to know who to trust?

That changed me completely. It changed the person I used to be. Before the Rwandan genocide, I could – at least once a month – pop into a bar and offer a round to each and every person in the room. The people used to call me kimaranzara, which in Rwandan is someone that – when he or she comes in – everybody is supposed to be fed; no one is doing to die of hunger. So they used to call me that name; I could just pop in very tired and just offer rounds and everyone knew me for that. So, when I saw what happened with all those neighbours with whom I used to share BBQ’s, beers, drinks – I saw them completely differently to the neighbours I had known for 7 years. I had been staying in that neighbourhood, in the same house, for 7 years and when I saw those people in the militia uniforms with their guns with their machetes and everything, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I took myself as a stranger in my own country. But it paid off as time went on, because they’re the ones who helped me to help others escape the genocide. It paid off.

How has the success of Hotel Rwanda helped you to publicise the Rwandan cause?

If it was not for Hotel Rwanda, the Rwandan cause, the Congolese cause, the cause for the whole region, was never going to come out. I was the first Rwandan to stand up and say “no, this is not what happened.” The Rwandan government had been threatening each and everyone, silencing each and everyone who was raising their voice, telling them that: “Listen, if you talk, we will indict you as a genocideer. Everyone had just been humiliated, shut up.” No-one was talking so I became the only person who started for the first time to talk. Now, I’m surprised to notice that Rwandans from the embassy who were in the audience didn’t raise a voice in saying anything…

“…there where Rwandan embassy members in the audience tonight?”

Yeah, a few of them I recognised. Yes, they were there as a kind of challenge to ask questions about the militias in the Congo – I’m not for the militias! I’m not for people who solve troubles with guns. No.

You also talked a bit about how we – as consumers – are responsible for helping fund the region.

You – as consumers – can also help raise awareness. Tell your elected officials and leaders; let them know what is going on in the region. So that, especially law makers, because many countries in the west, they are the strongest people who can tell the administration that we know that the UK is donor number 1 to the Rwandan government. Stop this – you are fuelling a proxy war that has taken away 7 million lives for nothing. For their own continent, for their own cobalt, for their own gold, for their own minerals. So we – each and everyone – can do this because you can ask your lawmakers – they are your representatives. This is a country where the power is the power of the people, for the people. This is democracy.

In terms of aid donation, do you think that they should just stop giving money to the Rwandan government or is it a problem of allocation?

I’m not asking England or the UK to stop offering aid completely to any countries in conflict, to any killing fields. There is aid which is given to Rwanda, for instance, to help in their annual budget from a British taxpayer. This money is being used in buying weapons and ammunition to go to fight in the Congo. This money is supposed to be sent to the people and has never reached them because it goes through a government – there is no good reason to entertain a proxy war for a British taxpayer. Whereas, humanitarian aid, through NGO’s – if you took away that aid, people would die of hunger. They still need British foreign aid, but we do not need financial aid in the annual budget to help the Rwandan government to entertain that kind of war.

So should they be more accountable about what the money is spent on, or should it simply not go via the State?

It should not go simply through the government. We have a lot of British NGO’s which are helping the people in different regions, in different areas, so these people have got aid. This foreign aid should remain, and we even move around the world asking for it because the we know that the people need to be helped. In the killing fields, people do not have time to work, but they have to eat. But if someone will bring in maize, for instance, or rice – those communities have their basic needs for someone to survive. But money given to governments is money to entertain wars.

But of course you don’t want to become aid-dependent as a country so you will ultimately need a strong government that isn’t corrupt and that isn’t funding wars in other countries.

In any case, if you give money to the government, this money will never do the right thing you want it to be doing; it will always end-up in my pocket. Is there any need to give that money – pretending that you are giving that money to a family – when, in the end, I’ll be taking that money into my own pocket? There’s no need.

Is there not a way to fight corruption within the government?

Within the government, that is different –there are many different ways of fighting corruption but I believe the most important thing is to set rules and regulations, and also to organise meetings and talk to the right people who are in possible positions of being corrupt. But the Rwandan government is not corrupt for that matter – rather, they misuse donations. Instead of using that money to wield projects in the country, for the country and for the people, they use this money to buy weapons to go any fight. I don’t believe that a taxpayer pays his taxes to entertain a war, in my name, or anyone else’s name, no I don’t think so. But if the British donor can give his money, his full help to the people in the rural areas, that is perfect. But directly to the people. Because whatever passes through the government does not reach the people. In Rwanda, we have a saying that all the money and donations from the Bretton Wood institution, World Bank, IMF, comes from Washington DC, flies over the skies of Kigali but it never lands. It comes back to Washington DC under someone else’s name. It does never land. It goes to Europe under someone else’s name. This is what we are fighting against.

At the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in September 2000, all 189 member states unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration. They agreed upon a series of quantified and time-bound goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease and deprivation; the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, despite progress in some areas, it now seems unlikely that these goals will be met.

Decreasing funding, increasing needs

It was not the first time that the international community committed to these objectives. The World Summit for Children in 1990 witnessed a pledge to achieve universal access to primary education by the year 2000. So what is different this time? Global interconnectedness and market interdependence play a significant role. In this new climate of globalization and with more talk of terrorism, extreme poverty has more far-reaching consequences than in the past. Ensuring adequate living conditions worldwide would be a significant contribution towards global peace and stability. Likewise, conservation of the environment and biodiversity is an issue of universal concern.

However, these goals are unlikely to be met. The MDGs were set in a period of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. The affluent financial situation enabled donors to pledge contributions towards the realisation of these goals. The 2008 financial crash was an unexpected and acute setback. It forced many countries to cut expenses. Foreign aid budgets suffered.

As a result, this year, a wide range of UN agency, and other NGO budgets have experienced large budget shortages.  Subsequently, certain development projects underwent significant quality decreases. For instance UNRWA, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees in the Near East, has already been experiencing increasing budget shortages in the last years: $87.4 million in 2008, and $107 million in 2009.

The financial crisis also had severe direct effects on aid recipient countries. The progress towards the achievement of the MDGs in most developing countries resulted from the high economic growth of the early 2000s. Now, “the immediate prospects are for reduced global growth and higher inflation. Both threaten continued success in reducing income poverty,” Sha Zukang, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, stated in the overview of the 2008 MDG report.

Aid allocation discrepancies

Aid allocation methods are also likely to undermine progress towards these goals. The United States and the European Commission spend the majority of their aid budgets in middle-income countries, which were already on course to meet the MDGs. This demonstrates that donors distribute much less aid to the most deprived countries for various political reasons. It is therefore unsurprising that, despite considerable progress, numerous countries in sub-Saharan Africa are not on track to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal. Another impediment to the achievement of the MDGs is that the populations of countries where corruption or authoritarian regimes prevail are deprived of foreign aid and opportunities, which may lead to disastrous consequences. Jeffrey Sachs proposes in his book, ‘The End of Poverty’, that “perhaps the most important action that rich countries can take in those circumstances is to help the well-governed neighbours of such countries to prove that there is help available for those that are organized politically to help themselves. The biggest problem today is not that poorly governed countries get too much help, but that well-governed countries get far too little.

Substantial Progress

The predicted failure of certain regions to meet the MDGs, however, does not necessary imply a lack of development. In fact, some of the poorest states in Africa, which are far from being on track to meet the MDGs, have been making the most rapid progress in their history.  Analyst Michael Clemens highlights the fact that most African countries have expanded primary enrolment rates far more rapidly during the last 50 years than Western countries did during their development. Nevertheless, this is still not sufficient to reach the 2nd MDG of achieving universal primary education.

Furthermore, Africa’s recent GDP growth of an average of 5.2 percent during 2000-07 has been the highest in Africa’s history for a seven-year period, and above historical averages for all countries. It is nevertheless 1.8 percent short of the growth needed for the region to achieve the 1st MDG, of reducing poverty rate by half.

Significant African successes are being depicted as failures, according to economist William Easterly. He believes that “the negative picture matters because it is demoralizing to African leaders and activists, and because it might have real consequences for things like private foreign investment to reinforce the stereotype that “Africa always fails”. That said, rich countries who have not met pledges must shoulder their share of blame for what failures there are.

“Almost arrived. Car poorly” was the ominous text that landed in my inbox at the ungodly hour of 4:30 in the morning. As I walked out into the pre-dawn darkness, I was greeted by the sight of my co-driver pushing our noble steed down the road. One has to love traditional British understatement in times of trouble. To help those less mechanically-minded, our car had run out of electricity and had lost the ability to produce more, rendering it rather immobile. Read the rest of this entry »