When Belgian national Vincent Lurquin arrived in Rwanda on August 16, he proceeded to apply for a visitor’s visa. For starters, Rwanda has, since January 2018, been issuing visas on arrival to all visitors from anywhere in the world. So, the Directorate of Immigration and Emigration rightly granted his request. Essentially, he was to visit people and places within the 30 days duration of his visa. If you want to work, you need to apply for a work permit. And so it came as a complete surprise when photos of Lurquin, clad in a barrister’s gown, emerged August 20 from the courtroom where the High Court Chamber of International and Cross-Border Crimes postponed verdicts in the FLN case involving Paul Rusesabagina and 20 others. The Belgian attorney was seated next to Gatera Gashabana, Rusesabagina’s lead lawyer, and the two stood up together to confirm their presence. This was a blatant abuse of Lurquin’s visitor’s visa and it shows utter disrespect for Rwanda’s immigration laws. Most importantly, he lied to immigration authorities about the intentions of his travel. Worse still, the Belgian has no licence to practise law in Rwanda. Indeed, Lurquin last year attempted to get a licence but the Rwanda Bar Association made it clear to him that it was not possible because the professional associations for the ‘learned friends’ from both countries had no reciprocal arrangement to allow for that to happen. But it was not without effort to help him. The president of Rwanda Bar Association had reached out to his Belgian counterpart inquiring whether they were ready to allow Rwandan lawyers to practise in Belgium going forward (since the latter had seconded Lurquin’s application to practise in Rwanda). The response was unambiguous: No. The reason given was that Rwanda is not a member of the Europe Union and the two countries had no special arrangement for their citizens to offer legal services in the other jurisdiction. The Brussels Bar Association wanted the Rwanda Bar Association to allow their members to practise in Rwanda but they were not ready for Rwandan lawyers to practise in their jurisdiction. Like, rule of law doesn’t exist in Africa. Talk about sheer arrogance. So, Lurquin chose to circumvent the rules, this time lying to immigration authorities and subsequently going to court in a brazen violation of international ethical principles and Rwandan laws. Now, Africans who are found to have lied to authorities in the West during immigration proceedings are held to account. In most cases, they are not just deported, they first serve time in the host country for lying on visa applications. In Lurquin’s case, he was simply deported under the status of a prohibited immigrant. He is lucky not to be behind bars. On another day, he could have rightly been handcuffed and taken to courts. Yet, detractors will look to milk this situation to attack Rwanda as we have grown used to. Nonetheless, we must not accept anyone, certainly not white supremacists, to violate the laws of the land simply because they are from the West or anywhere else for that matter. Regardless of what critics will say.
