No one will lose sleep over Forbidden Stories’ stale tales: we’ve seen it all before

It is a massive media assault. Unprecedented. Fifty journalists from eleven countries, through 17 western media outlets, have launched an attack on Rwanda, a country that to all sane people has done no wrong. Certainly not enough to warrant such a barrage. Little wonder many are calling it terrorism. If the intention is to intimidate Rwandans so that they stop what they are doing, change course or stand still and first seek permission to proceed, they will fail spectacularly. If the aim was to cause panic and despondency, they will be very disappointed. If it is a smear sludge on Rwanda and President Paul Kagame, as it certainly is, I am afraid the mud will not stick. If the target, as it seems likely, are this country’s friends and partners in other countries, organisations or corporations, not much success can be expected there either. The Rwandan character and their achievements and the Rwandan brand are now well known across the world. It will take more than rehashed and debunked stories to tarnish it. Such callous and cynical attacks have become predictable and lost the power to shock or cause the desired outrage. Rwandans have seen similar assaults on their country before. At least once a year, often more, and during known cycles or events. The perpetrators are the same: a coalition of reporters, NGO activists, academics, genocidaires, Rwandan fugitives from justice, and elements in governments of certain western countries. The content, method and medium, the same. The objective the same: distortion, fabrication, obscuring of facts, or their denial, and an attempt to dictate how the history of Rwanda should be written. The only difference is that they are usually done through a single media outlet, not a consortium of 17 as it is this time. Every year since 1994, in the period leading to the April 7 commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, there is a sustained assault on the victims of the genocide, on memory, and on the people who stopped it. The objective of the April attacks is clear. First, it is to deny or trivialise the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Second, it is to deflect attention from responsibility. Many of the countries and individuals behind them were key actors in Rwanda in 1994. Some were the architects of the system that created and nurtured division and the ideology of genocide. Or they have a quarrel with the government of Rwanda, usually arising from past misdeeds and misconduct in the country or their attitudes to it and its people. Third, it is to diminish or discredit Rwanda’s achievements in uniting and reconciling its citizens. At every election time, as if part of the electoral calendar, we have come to expect “a bombshell of revelations” about the government’s terrible deeds. This year, it is Rwanda Classified, stories on Rwanda depicting it as a repressive country by the consortium of 50 journalist In the run up to the referendum on a constitutional amendment in 2015 and the presidential election in 2017, the BBC came up with its Rwanda: The Untold Story in October the previous year. In 2010, it was the UN Mapping Report and the publication a year later of a book, Remaking Rwanda: State Building and Human Rights after Mass Violence, by a group of Rwanda-hating academics. All these have a lot in common. They have been discredited as false or been written by people, organisations with an agenda against Rwanda and President Paul Kagame. They use the same repeated stories about the same individuals that have been debunked, from the same sources of disgraced individuals. The aim is again clear: to disrupt or subvert elections, or undermine the outcome. In 2010, for instance, wild allegations led to withdrawal of support for elections. Rwandans went ahead anyway and funded the elections from their own resources. They have been doing so since. This is the sort of independence that those who think we need their permission to do anything find irksome. Whenever Rwanda does something that is supposed to be out of character for an African country, as defined by the self-appointed custodians of universal standards, expect to be hit hard. Today, several of these supposedly un-African things stand out. One of them is peacekeeping. Rwanda has provoked a reappraisal of international peacekeeping, or at any rate, introduced a new dimension and approach to the maintenance of international security. Not everyone is ready to admit this. Traditional UN peacekeeping involves sending multinational troops to conflict areas, keeping them out of any military involvement, which often means standing aside as either or both sides commit atrocities. Sometimes, as in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), they are not averse to selling their weapons for a quick buck, getting involved in illicit mineral trade, or even siding with one side in the conflict. Rwandan troops in UN peacekeeping missions, in such places as Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, Liberia, and the Central African Republic, have shown a no nonsense attitude to their task and a readiness to enforce the terms of the peace they are meant to keep. They have gone further to engage in community activities with the local population such as building schools, medical outreach programmes and umuganda in order to empower them and lift their livelihoods. In the Central African Republic and Mozambique, they have shown a different approach to collaboration in fighting insurgency. In both countries, Rwandan troops have helped respective governments beat back rebels and insurgents and return large parts to normal life. Both models threaten traditional peace-keeping practices, and more importantly, those who benefit from them. In the recent past, Rwanda has entered the humanitarian relief arena, offering to take in asylum seekers that other countries have rejected or that have been stranded in hostile countries, and helping them settle in Rwanda or facilitate their resettlement elsewhere. First, it was those rescued from Libya. Now, it is asylum seekers from the UK under the UK-Rwanda migrants deal in which they will be brought here while their applications for entry into the UK or other countries are processed. Big mistake, some say. You cannot be allowed to do that. For several reasons. This is the preserve of the rich and powerful countries and organisations of the west. You are threatening an industry that has been built around human suffering. You cannot endanger the livelihoods from it or the moral leverage that a sense of compassion gives. But perhaps a bigger mistake is the idea of a country that the world abandoned to destructive genocidal forces, but defied all odds and predictions of doom and survived now offering fellow human beings what the world denied it. Another big sin: Rwanda is beginning to wield some influence and command respect across the world. It must be checked before it gets out of control and sets a bad example to others. Other areas that rile Rwanda bashers include economic development projects such as the Visit Rwanda deals with European football clubs, the recent Rwanda –EU minerals agreement and infrastructure projects among many. Opposition to them is part of a wider pattern of denial of these achievements and attempts the country down. There is more that Rwanda’s detractors do not like. They do not like the emphasis on self-reliance and right to make own choices about governance and development, or the determined fight against corruption. They hate the fact that Rwandans trust their government, that there is no discontent. But because they cannot wish these and other achievements away, they try to rebrand them as the results of repression and autocratic rule. Forbidden Stories’ Rwanda Classified is part of this grand scheme. It is not intended to inform or enlighten, but to smear and destroy.

Opinions

No one will lose sleep over Forbidden Stories’ stale tales: we’ve seen it all before