I don’t understand why the Kagame presidency is able to fly under the radar of critical international scrutiny. I know he has been feted by a BBC documentary and the Cameron Government when William Hague was Foreign Secretary. Now it appears to have enabled Commonwealth acknowledgement too. I imagine it is more than just any influence from Andrew Mitchell. The sneaky way they tricked the Rwandan Hotel hero into arrest should have had an international response; as well as the evidence of the elimination of other critics who escaped to other countries. Perhaps a resourceless country has no economic value, which makes the effort not worth getting principled about. I’m glad Ian is raising the situation here.
Perhaps Rwanda is seen as a convenient back door to the Congo and its mineral resources, and therefore worth keeping on side. I think the Congo also has substantial rare earth deposits which are becoming strategically significant as China tries to get a stranglehold on them.
Also, our record on getting rid of unpleasant dictators has not been very successful in recent years. Perhaps they’re reconsidering that approach. Better the devil you know . . .
Rwanda is loved by the Western development community because, as it is a police state, it is relatively easy to deliver planned programmes there. The same was true of Ethiopia. Thus, while ostensibly improving health, education, water, women, poverty etc, we actually end up supporting dictators who can then focus on things that matter to them rather than improving the life’s of their people.
I don’t understand why the Kagame presidency is able to fly under the radar of critical international scrutiny. I know he has been feted by a BBC documentary and the Cameron Government when William Hague was Foreign Secretary. Now it appears to have enabled Commonwealth acknowledgement too. I imagine it is more than just any influence from Andrew Mitchell. The sneaky way they tricked the Rwandan Hotel hero into arrest should have had an international response; as well as the evidence of the elimination of other critics who escaped to other countries. Perhaps a resourceless country has no economic value, which makes the effort not worth getting principled about. I’m glad Ian is raising the situation here.
Perhaps Rwanda is seen as a convenient back door to the Congo and its mineral resources, and therefore worth keeping on side. I think the Congo also has substantial rare earth deposits which are becoming strategically significant as China tries to get a stranglehold on them.
Also, our record on getting rid of unpleasant dictators has not been very successful in recent years. Perhaps they’re reconsidering that approach. Better the devil you know . . .
Rwanda is loved by the Western development community because, as it is a police state, it is relatively easy to deliver planned programmes there. The same was true of Ethiopia. Thus, while ostensibly improving health, education, water, women, poverty etc, we actually end up supporting dictators who can then focus on things that matter to them rather than improving the life’s of their people.
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