In April 2022 the British and Rwandan governments signed a five-year Asylum Partnership Agreement (APA) under which asylum seekers arriving in Britain will be deported to Rwanda to ‘process their claims’ and after which, if successful, they will be forced to stay in Rwanda with no possibility of returning to Britain. From 20-26 June Rwanda hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, attended by Rwandan president Paul Kagame, British prime minister Boris Johnson and Prince Charles on behalf of the Queen of England. According to the imperialists, Rwanda is a model and blueprint for other African countries to follow. In reality, Rwanda is a ticking timebomb. The economic crisis precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic has led to a renewed invasion of neighbouring eastern DRC by the Rwandan army in support of its proxy militia ‘M23’ as Rwanda seeks to carve out for itself DRC territory rich in mineral resources.
Rwanda’s ethnic amnesia
The largest ethnic groups in Rwanda are Hutus and Tutsis, making up 85% and 14% of the population respectively. Following the Rwanda genocide in 1994, the current regime took power and declared ethnicity a thing of the past. This is ostensibly a noble goal given that a 2003 study found one in three Tutsi households was reported to have had all its members exterminated in 1994, with only 8% reporting losing no one. In contrast, 91% of Hutu households reported losing no members. Pointing out someone’s ethnicity in Rwanda is considered ‘divisionism’ or promoting ‘genocide ideology’, both illegal. Despite making up the majority of the population, Hutus are afraid to announce their ethnicity publicly. Yet Tutsis still occupy the majority (80-90%) of powerful (and wealthy) positions in Rwandan society. Professor Filip Reyntjens has reported how in his analysis of 209 most senior office holders (African Arguments, 24 November 2021), Tutsis made up:
- 66% overall;
- 31 (86%) of 36 ambassadors, 13 (86%) of 15 major security services officers, 26 (96%) of 27 top positions in major parastatals and public agencies;
- all positions in the senior staff in the Office of the President, and the heads of the major religions;
- the top roles in the national sports federations and major media houses;
- and 20 (70%) of 29 identified district mayors.
In addition, disloyal Tutsis have been excluded from power, jailed, assassinated or forced into exile. 2017 presidential candidate Diane Rwigara, a Tutsi, was jailed for ‘inciting insurrection’ but acquitted in 2019. Former presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire, a Hutu, was jailed for eight years for ‘genocide denial’, spending six years in solitary confinement, after she called for all victims of the 1994 genocide, including Hutus, to be remembered. Kagame has demanded that under the APA, ‘genocide deniers’ in Britain be deported to Rwanda.
Rwandan economic crisis
53% of Rwanda’s GDP is accounted for by the services sector. GDP fell by 3.4% in 2020 and again by 2.3% in the first quarter of 2022 and its annual inflation rate increased to 16.1% in June 2022, the highest since March 2009. Food inflation is 26.1%. Before the pandemic hit, in 2020 Rwanda’s extreme poverty rate ($1.90/day) was 56% and increased to 62% in 2021. 73.8% of Rwandans exist below the lower middle-income poverty rate of $3.20/day (2020) and 92% below the upper-middle-income rate of $5.50 (2016). Unemployment rose from 14% in Q12021 to 24% in Q42021. Rwanda’s current account deficit (exports minus imports) was $1.2bn in 2021, and its external debt continues to balloon from $1.32bn in 2012 to $5.39bn in 2020. 33% of children under 5 years of age are stunted due to malnutrition, and 17% of women and girls aged 15-49 have anaemia. Only 68% of 6-7-year-olds complete primary education, and only 50.6% of females were even enrolled in secondary school in 2019 (UNESCO). The poorest 20% of the population owned 6% of total wealth, whilst the richest 10% owned 35.6% (in 2016).
Bogus economic growth?
Rwanda was already amongst the ten poorest countries in the world, yet the World Bank claims that Rwanda ‘aspires to Middle Income Country status by 2035’, and that ‘Rwanda has made important economic and structural reforms and sustained its economic growth rates over the last decade until Covid-19 and its impact threatened to reverse the trend.’ Yet Professor Reyntjen’s analysis shows that there was a rise in the proportion of Rwandans living in poverty from 33% in 2010/11 to 39% in 2013/14. The Financial Times reported ‘analysis of the same data … suggest[s] there has been a consistent attempt since 2015 to misrepresent the results’ (23 August 2019). Other academics at the Review of African Political Economy (roape.net) have exposed Rwanda’s so-called poverty reduction statistics between 2010-2014 as faked, with the complicity of the IMF and World Bank. This casts doubt on GDP growth claims over the last decade, and blaming the pandemic is disingenuous.
Also complicit in ‘sportswashing’ the Rwandan state is Arsenal football club which signed a three-year deal with the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) in May 2018, a contract worth £30m, and renewed in 2021 for £40m. ‘Visit Rwanda’ became the Gunners’ official tourism partner and first sleeve sponsor. A similar three-year deal was signed with French club Paris-Saint Germain (PSG) in 2019. All tea and coffee served at the Parc des Princes stadium will be exclusively from Rwanda. RDB admitted these deals were to ‘affect…the overall perception globally’ of Rwanda. RDB claim the Arsenal deal resulted in tourism benefits worth £36m in one year, a claim that has to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Ethnic divide-and-rule
Kagame could be planning to change the ethnic equation between Hutus and Tutsis by bringing into the mix other ethnic groups through the APA, particularly from the Middle East. If new groups are given or perceived to be given refugee convention protections, housing and jobs as promised, then the already building resentment amongst the oppressed Hutu majority in a densely populated and impoverished country will only increase. A time bomb that may go off as happened in east Africa in the 1970s, when some Asians were driven out. In Rwanda in the 1950s and neighbouring Burundi in 1970-1990s the elites claimed ethnic amnesia and refuted accusations of discrimination by outlawing references to ethnicity. Things eventually ended in genocidal eruptions with hundreds of thousands killed. The Rwandan government with the complicity of Britain is playing with fire yet again.
Charles Chinweizu
