by ANN GARRISON
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame (left) with former US president Bill Clinton
Paul Kagame, the dictator that presides over Rwanda’s minority government, is the darling of the U.S., the former colonial powers, and Israel. Bill Clinton claims “the economic and social gains in Rwanda have been nothing short of astonishing under Kagame.” So, it may surprise his sponsors that Rwanda is in the grip of famine. Kagame also requires that candidates in the current election submit their media messages to the state for approval.
“More than three million Rwandans are at the verge of starvation and more than 150,000 Rwandans have emigrated out of the country, mostly to Uganda, due to a ravaging famine.”
Several brave souls have actually declared their intention to run against Rwandan President, aka Dictator, Paul Kagame in this year’s election, even though two of the country’s three viable candidates landed in prison last time and a third fled the country after his party’s vice president was found by a riverbank with his head cut off. ?This week the Rwandan government announced that all presidential candidates’ social media messages—text, photos, and video—must be approved by the national electoral commission. Since the Rwandan government has long since assassinated or frightened any real journalists out of the country, this will severely hinder candidates’ efforts to get their message out, even to the tiny percentage of the population who have both cell phones and electricity in their homes and the larger percentage who have cell phones but have to leave their homes—often walking miles—to charge them. Or to those of us outside Rwanda who might be trying to follow this election year.??
What is Rwanda’s president trying to hide???
A great deal, no doubt, but one word Kagame most certainly does not want broadcast to the world outside is “famine.” That word might embarrass both him and his powerful friends, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Howard Buffett, and Reverend Rick Warren, all longtime champions of his so-called economic miracle. Bill Clinton and Howard Buffett aren’t likely to be pleased by reports that their agricultural aid to Rwanda is helping starve rather than uplift Rwandans, so would they want Rwandan presidential candidates to have the freedom to Tweet “Rwandan famine” or related images? Clinton has said that he is willing to tolerate some of the Rwandan government’s failings in the area of human rights because, “They have achieved so much,” and “Nothing’s perfect.” ?Indeed. A recent investigation published by London-based Global Campaign for Rwandans’ Human Rights reports that “since November 2015 more than three million Rwandans [a quarter of the population] are at the verge of starvation and more than 150,000 Rwandans have emigrated out of the country, mostly to Uganda, due to a ravaging famine, particularly in the Eastern Province Districts of Rwamagana, Nyagatare, Bugesera, Kayonza and Kirehe as well as Nyanza and Gisagara Districts in Southern Province.”
Black Agenda Report for more