[BRIEF NOTE] More on Rwanda

[rfmcdonald]

Back in April, I wrote about how Rwanda's RPF government, under Paul Kagame, has been blatantly misusing the events of the 1994 genocide in that country to support its claims to power. Abiola Lapite has more, linking to this article from AllAfrica.com:

After three days of debate, the Rwandan parliament on Wednesday asked the government to dissolve the League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (Ligue Rwandaise pour la promotion et la défense des droits de l'homme, or Liprodhor) and four other civil society organizations because they allegedly supported genocidal ideas. The action was recommended by a parliamentary commission that also called for the arrest of leaders of the organizations.

"Dissolving Liprodhor would call into question the Rwandan government's commitment to such basic human rights as freedom of expression and association," said Alison Des Forges, senior adviser for the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.

During the parliamentary debate, the commission made sweeping and unproven accusations against Liprodhor and the other organizations, including a rural association for improving agricultural output and an association of widows whose husbands were killed during the 1997-99 uprising in northern Rwanda.

The commission interpreted 'genocidal ideas,' prohibited by law in Rwanda, so broadly as to include even dissent from government plans for consolidating land holdings.

I can't disagree from Abiola's conclusion:

What fighting "terrorism" is to many a repressive Arab state, battling "genocidal ideas" has become for Rwanda's rulers - a useful way to bludgeon dissenting voices into silence with the acquiescence of the outside world. Kagame is no saint, not even a great but flawed figure, and it isn't necessarily the case that there's no alternative to his Tutsi-minority government, any more than it's necessarily true that the only alternative to the likes of Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali is anarchy. If anything, Kagame's repression of all organizations not under his thumb is a cynical ploy meant to ensure that "there is no alternative" to the indefinite rule of his coterie.