Three decades ago, a great many people believed that President Paul Kagame and those affiliated with the current regime in Rwanda were the key to political and economic development for the country that was devastated by genocide, internationalized civil war, reprisal killings, human rights violations and random violence. In certain ways, it looks as though the promises have been kept. Rwanda is generally viewed as a “peaceful" nation where individuals are quite safe to walk the streets (especially in urban centers like Kigali) and the idea of overt collective violence is generally viewed as highly unlikely. In line with most conceptions of political democracy, the political system has engaged in periodic elections with mass participation, there has been extensive inclusion of a group that was previously under-represented in government (i.e., women) and there was discussion of as well as extensive action taken towards reconciliation through the process known as “Gacaca” – this system evaluated and dealt rulings on a million plus individuals. In addition to this, there has been extensive discussion as well as action taken regarding the importance of law. Domestic issues are not the only place where Rwanda appears to have excelled. Internationally, the government of Rwanda has offered itself up to assist other nations either by sending peace keepers (i.e., throughout Africa) or housing those seeking asylum (i.e., from the United Kingdom). Finally, Rwanda has been heralded by some as nothing less than an “economic miracle” providing a shining example of what is possible.
This is the view that one gets when they take a quick look. The situation becomes much more complicated and less positive when one takes a closer look. Indeed, several of us had a conversation about the last thirty years in an interesting discussion placed online: https://www.mivideo.it.umich.edu/channel/channelid/339658312. The takeaways for me were quite remarkable and unsettling.
In terms of political violence used domestically (by all actors including the government) it is clear that all forms of overt violence within the borders of Rwanda have declined. The price of this decline, however, is the veritable decimation of civil society and individual freedom. Across diverse databases (e.g., the Political Terror Scale, the Cingranelli and Richards Human Rights Dataset and the Varieties of Democracy Project), it is clear that Rwanda experienced very high levels of human rights violation and civil liberties restriction over that last 30 years just declining in the last 5 to 10. In addition to this, political power (i.e., the ability to create as well as implement policy across domains) has increasingly become concentrated in a single individual with no other political party or individual attempting to challenge Kagame being able to avoid persecution, harassment, exile or elimination. One can only speculate that the restrictions and intimidation of the ethnic majority Hutu has led to extensive resentment which could lead to another outbreak of resistance and collective violence if the government were to show any weakness – this actually justifies the continuation of extensive domestic repression. As a consequence, while some manifestations of violence are now unlikely (e.g., civil war or revolution), other manifestations of violence were involved in getting there (e.g., crimes against humanity, genocide, atrocities as well as human rights violation) and still other manifestations of contention have been rendered more likely (e.g., sabotage, terrorism, flight or internal withdrawal until the opportunity for change emerges [perhaps best signified by the high levels of unhappiness reported by the population]). Externally, there are numerous episodes of violent behavior that have been associated with the current government. There have been repeated direct incursions from the existing Rwandan government into the Congo under the guise of responding to the looming threat presented by former genocidaires but this situation is complicated by accusations of the Rwandans also being in country to extract resources. There has been indirect incursion from the existing Rwandan government as well through their support for M-23 rebels. There has been consistent effort to return political opponents from around the world back to Rwanda on the basis of government accusation regarding participation in genocide alone. Recently revealed through the Paul Rusesabagina and Pegasus case, there has also been a global network of covert repressive activityidentified which seeks to identify, constrain or eliminate political threats. This is added to the efforts to discredit all of those who challenge the regime through extensive use of marketing as well as political/legal leverage.
The political system is, at best, now consistently characterized as autocratic in nature if not fully personalist in the nomenclature of more recent work or, invoking an older conception, “totalitarian” with increasingly negative evaluations coming back regarding election fraud and limited rule of law (again placed on global display during the Rusesabagina trial). Most human rights groups who monitor political institutions now clearly place Rwanda in a non-democratic category. Perusing the hundreds of characteristics found in the Varieties of Democracy project or Polity Project or Freedom House, one is struck by the increasing consistency of this position. Most prominently, the shift has occurred over three elections which left Kagame the leader of the country but amidst serious questions about even the possibility of political competition in the evolving Rwandan landscape and serious concerns regarding the magnitude of each victory with 99% of the vote in the last election of 2017. The future suggests more of the same. Kagame has already declared that he will run for a fourth term which he is officially allowed to do since he successfully altered term limits. This would leave him in power to at least 2034, if not longer. In many respects, the myth of Rwanda political system as something to emulate has been tarnished. They are less the darling of the foundation world. Even American Universities, once a place where Kagame would consistently find a willing audience, has begun to step away from him.
And finally, once believed to be a developmental model, over the last 30 years Rwanda has revealed itself to be something of a developmental failure. Indeed, the economic system has been identified as one of the poorest 25 on the planet. Not only has there been no economic miracle but the Rwandan economy has been exposed to be largely propped up by foreign aid. What is intriguing is that this is nothing new. Rather, it has been found that the level of aid to Rwanda was more or less comparable to what other “poor”, “indebted” and “fragile” nations received. This makes the miracle more of an artifact than a reality. Data has emerged to reveal that key individuals manipulated information to make it look as if development had taken place. Moreover some scholars have noted that one could view “amazing growth” in the Rwandan economy as something largely derived from the exceptionally low starting point it began from in 1994.
And thus we arrive at the thirtieth anniversary of Rwanda’s emergence from political violence with many more questions. How much leeway and freedom to act should political leader’s be given in their efforts to recover from massive human tragedy? How could Kagame get away with the failures across violence, politics and economics noted above? While individuals in the Times like Anjan Sundaram have highlighted Kagame’s ability to use shame and guilt to hinder scrutiny from the West, there is an alternative explanation. It is the principle of “commitment escalation” – once humans have committed to something (like backing an individual or institution to remedy a problem) rather than open themselves up to updating and new information, they double down on the earlier decision, they close themselves off to new insights as well as updating and they even will attack those challenging their earlier judgement. I was once told regarding my research Rwanda (trying to understand what took place during 1994) that I would be hated for what I was doing. Not because I was wrong mind you but because the horror and evil of Rwandan political violence and the desire to have Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front deal with the problem was so clear in the popular imagination that it would not easily let go of it. Clearly some have moved in this direction. The revelations across the themes identified above have revealed massive shifts over time. Clearly thirty years later, there are still some minds yet to be changed. There are still some invitations, aid decisions and humanitarian efforts yet to be reconsidered. Hopefully it will not take another thirty years to shift these as well.
This is the view that one gets when they take a quick look. The situation becomes much more complicated and less positive when one takes a closer look. Indeed, several of us had a conversation about the last thirty years in an interesting discussion placed online: https://www.mivideo.it.umich.edu/channel/channelid/339658312. The takeaways for me were quite remarkable and unsettling.
In terms of political violence used domestically (by all actors including the government) it is clear that all forms of overt violence within the borders of Rwanda have declined. The price of this decline, however, is the veritable decimation of civil society and individual freedom. Across diverse databases (e.g., the Political Terror Scale, the Cingranelli and Richards Human Rights Dataset and the Varieties of Democracy Project), it is clear that Rwanda experienced very high levels of human rights violation and civil liberties restriction over that last 30 years just declining in the last 5 to 10. In addition to this, political power (i.e., the ability to create as well as implement policy across domains) has increasingly become concentrated in a single individual with no other political party or individual attempting to challenge Kagame being able to avoid persecution, harassment, exile or elimination. One can only speculate that the restrictions and intimidation of the ethnic majority Hutu has led to extensive resentment which could lead to another outbreak of resistance and collective violence if the government were to show any weakness – this actually justifies the continuation of extensive domestic repression. As a consequence, while some manifestations of violence are now unlikely (e.g., civil war or revolution), other manifestations of violence were involved in getting there (e.g., crimes against humanity, genocide, atrocities as well as human rights violation) and still other manifestations of contention have been rendered more likely (e.g., sabotage, terrorism, flight or internal withdrawal until the opportunity for change emerges [perhaps best signified by the high levels of unhappiness reported by the population]). Externally, there are numerous episodes of violent behavior that have been associated with the current government. There have been repeated direct incursions from the existing Rwandan government into the Congo under the guise of responding to the looming threat presented by former genocidaires but this situation is complicated by accusations of the Rwandans also being in country to extract resources. There has been indirect incursion from the existing Rwandan government as well through their support for M-23 rebels. There has been consistent effort to return political opponents from around the world back to Rwanda on the basis of government accusation regarding participation in genocide alone. Recently revealed through the Paul Rusesabagina and Pegasus case, there has also been a global network of covert repressive activityidentified which seeks to identify, constrain or eliminate political threats. This is added to the efforts to discredit all of those who challenge the regime through extensive use of marketing as well as political/legal leverage.
The political system is, at best, now consistently characterized as autocratic in nature if not fully personalist in the nomenclature of more recent work or, invoking an older conception, “totalitarian” with increasingly negative evaluations coming back regarding election fraud and limited rule of law (again placed on global display during the Rusesabagina trial). Most human rights groups who monitor political institutions now clearly place Rwanda in a non-democratic category. Perusing the hundreds of characteristics found in the Varieties of Democracy project or Polity Project or Freedom House, one is struck by the increasing consistency of this position. Most prominently, the shift has occurred over three elections which left Kagame the leader of the country but amidst serious questions about even the possibility of political competition in the evolving Rwandan landscape and serious concerns regarding the magnitude of each victory with 99% of the vote in the last election of 2017. The future suggests more of the same. Kagame has already declared that he will run for a fourth term which he is officially allowed to do since he successfully altered term limits. This would leave him in power to at least 2034, if not longer. In many respects, the myth of Rwanda political system as something to emulate has been tarnished. They are less the darling of the foundation world. Even American Universities, once a place where Kagame would consistently find a willing audience, has begun to step away from him.
And finally, once believed to be a developmental model, over the last 30 years Rwanda has revealed itself to be something of a developmental failure. Indeed, the economic system has been identified as one of the poorest 25 on the planet. Not only has there been no economic miracle but the Rwandan economy has been exposed to be largely propped up by foreign aid. What is intriguing is that this is nothing new. Rather, it has been found that the level of aid to Rwanda was more or less comparable to what other “poor”, “indebted” and “fragile” nations received. This makes the miracle more of an artifact than a reality. Data has emerged to reveal that key individuals manipulated information to make it look as if development had taken place. Moreover some scholars have noted that one could view “amazing growth” in the Rwandan economy as something largely derived from the exceptionally low starting point it began from in 1994.
And thus we arrive at the thirtieth anniversary of Rwanda’s emergence from political violence with many more questions. How much leeway and freedom to act should political leader’s be given in their efforts to recover from massive human tragedy? How could Kagame get away with the failures across violence, politics and economics noted above? While individuals in the Times like Anjan Sundaram have highlighted Kagame’s ability to use shame and guilt to hinder scrutiny from the West, there is an alternative explanation. It is the principle of “commitment escalation” – once humans have committed to something (like backing an individual or institution to remedy a problem) rather than open themselves up to updating and new information, they double down on the earlier decision, they close themselves off to new insights as well as updating and they even will attack those challenging their earlier judgement. I was once told regarding my research Rwanda (trying to understand what took place during 1994) that I would be hated for what I was doing. Not because I was wrong mind you but because the horror and evil of Rwandan political violence and the desire to have Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front deal with the problem was so clear in the popular imagination that it would not easily let go of it. Clearly some have moved in this direction. The revelations across the themes identified above have revealed massive shifts over time. Clearly thirty years later, there are still some minds yet to be changed. There are still some invitations, aid decisions and humanitarian efforts yet to be reconsidered. Hopefully it will not take another thirty years to shift these as well.
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