We are scarcely into President Kagame’s new term, but the drumbeat of hate and negativity against Rwanda (from the usual suspects) already is deafening. It is as if these individuals, or the groups associated with them, are desperate to obfuscate the fact that the Rwandan public has just defied their most fervent hopes – which was that the country would turn violent and unruly during the just concluded elections – and instead joyously returned the president and the ruling RPF-Inkotanyi to power. It is driving some of them to be berserk because there were no riots, no running battles in streets, no bloodshed. But instead, the Rwandan voter cast his or her ballot in a convivial, brotherly atmosphere, and went back home to carry on with their lives. The haters are vexed by it all. They don't know what to do to make Rwanda fail! So, they are doubling down with what they’ve already been doing. These are the governments of the two most notoriously failed states in the Great Lakes Region, which are run by utter incompetents, one of whom has resorted to outright ethnic cleansing of a section of his country’s population as the only way to deflect criticism for his failures of governance. He and his sidekick of the smaller, much poorer country, are strenuously trying to stoke ethnic divisions within the wider region, with their constant demagoguery that dehumanises people of Tutsi ethnicity everywhere, amplifying the hideous lie that “the Tutsi are the enemy of Bantu”. Then there is the Englishwoman who has slowly become unhinged in the intensity of her vitriolic attacks against Kagame, such that she now is practically frothing around the mouth. And there is the charlatan old Belgian “professor” from Antwerp – often credulously, but very erroneously, referred to as “an expert in Rwanda” though he hasn’t stepped in this country for decades – who among other things happens to be a mastermind of the Habyarimana era constitution. There also are the Europe-based sons and daughters of the architects, as well as perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, who operate under the umbrella of something called Jambo Asbl that’s based in Brussels, where they are free to spout their genocidal ideology though that should be illegal, which it nominally is anyway. Rounding up this rogue’s gallery of haters are people like Paul Rusesabagina – aka Rusisibiranya – whom some liberal groups in the West have chosen to promote as some sort of warrior for democracy or “freedom” in Rwanda, despite the fact the man was implicated in attacks (by his armed militias) that cost lives in Rwanda, ample proof of which was available in the court process that convicted him of acts of terrorism in September 2021. These individuals and groups support each other, amplify each other’s propaganda, attack Rwanda from different angles, and target all aspects of its achievements under the RPF administration – its economic transformation, its reputation for clean, efficient governance, its smart investments in promoting its image through sports, and everything else. For them it is now or never, to bring down Kagame! Prior to our most recent election, they had spent years trying to stoke up hate, discontent, even upheaval using everything in their arsenal: social media, international media articles and interviews, books published, everything. They have strenuously tried to create an alternate narrative of Rwanda as some sort of hellscape where “political repression”, “suppression of press freedoms”, and all sorts of oppression are the order of the day. Their main problem is that their campaign is based purely on lies, which collapse at the slightest scrutiny. One can shout all they want that there is no media freedom in Rwanda – which in their dishonesty they insist should be absolute here. Yet this is a country of laws. You will for instance face prosecution if you attempt to dredge up ethnic divisions, attempt to negate genocide, play songs that genocidaires used in 1994, slander and smear people or institutions, and so on. Some journalists (no need to mention any here) have broken laws. Some of them in pursuit of clicks and views, others because they were paid to promote divisive ideologies. They found themselves in court, and paid for their transgressions with jail sentences. One woman repeatedly claimed on her YouTube channel that the president of Rwanda “was dead” and that “we were being ruled by a corpse”, and afterwards threw in divisive rhetoric about an oncoming “war”. Despite repeated cautions to stop such dangerous rhetoric by media regulations, she kept it up. Until the law caught up with her. Incidents like these are what international media pressure groups, falling for the lies of the negativists, claim that show “lack of media freedoms.” The fact is, not one media personality is in jail in Rwanda “because they criticized Kagame or the RPF”. Same case with politicians. The outwardly extremist Victoire Ingabire is in her house in Kigali, carrying on with her anti-administration propaganda, even when, in September 2018, she received a presidential pardon that relieved her of a substantial part of the sentence she was serving in prison. She had been convicted for the crimes of genocide negationism, and of forming illegal armed groups (to attack Rwanda). Going by reports in international media, one would think Ingabire would be dead “under the draconian Kigali regime” (as per their tendentious formulation). One could go on and on with examples that disprove this avalanche of propaganda, all of which are stoked by the professional negativists. Other than that, think for instance of how a media organisation like ESPN in the US has gone all political to demonise President Kagame – using the allegations of some American politician with an agenda of her own – to try to shame the NBA into undoing all the work Rwanda’s done with it to promote basketball on the African continent. What is wrong with people!! What exactly has ESPN – or anyone else criticising Rwanda – ever done to promote basketball in Africa? Why on earth are they trying to torpedo this opportunity for Africa’s youth, which they can realise playing in the newly created Basketball Africa League (BAL)? Why is ESPN attacking the only country that’s ever come up with an initiative like this on the African continent, throwing dangerous lies carelessly around, not caring what harm they are doing? The good thing is, they will fail. Like all the other negativists. Lies and evil cannot defeat good.
