Why an Intolerant and Proud Kagame is the Biggest Enemy to Rwandans

By Josephine Mukagasana

Former US President John F. Kennedy once said, that the war against hunger is truly mankind’s war of liberation. While Rwanda was militarily liberated in 1994, Rwandan President Kagame has up to now failed to liberate it economically, thanks to his selfish ego and poor foreign policy. Kagame and his inner team (Akazu) have mastered the art of cooking up figures and paying thousands of dollars to international Public Relations organizations to paint Rwanda as a country on the economic rise, yet the actual figures on the ground show something totally different.

Hundreds of Rwandans leave the country every week through porous borders to come to Uganda for greener pastures, while formerly prominent businessmen in commercial centres like Mateus and Commercialle streets, have for so many years left for Southern African countries like Zambia to forge new lives. “I left home in Ruhengeri (Northern Rwanda) in 2019 and came to Uganda because there is bigger consumer power here and the government is quite receptive to us compared to other countries in the East African region. Two years down the road, am now able to build my own house here and rentals,” said Jerome Habyarimana, who requested we don’t reveal his location for fear of witch hunt by the government back home.

“Back in Rwanda, Kagame tells us not to come to Uganda, but he hides the fact that Uganda only follows up criminals (killers) he sends here not hustlers like us who are looking for a living. So, of the two; Museveni who hosts us here and Kagame who has economically crippled Rwanda forcing us to flee, who is a friend to banyarwanda?” Jerome asks rhetorically.

The exodus of business people and the economic migration of small-scale traders like Jerome in Rwanda’s districts that border Uganda are facts that you will never read about in any of Rwanda’s media. Jerome is just one of the tens of thousands of Rwandans that have fled the country either because they uttered words not sweet for the regime or because of hunger in a country where even a chapatti seller is taxed to the bone.

“Do the research and you will find that RPF has an invisible hand in the businesses of the most successful traders in Rwanda like Egide Gatera of Petro Rwanda, Makuza of Rwanda foam and many other big business people in Rwanda. There is no fair play in business in Rwanda because even mineral water companies like NIL and Huye have been outcompeted by RPF’s Inyange. It is mandatory for all meetings and conferences to sell Inyange water and not any other product. That is the same case with all other sectors like construction, real estate, and others. All tenders go to RPF companies, and this has for so many years weakened the private sector. But they can’t speak out because of the fear the regime has successfully instilled in its people,” said Jean Claude Kalisa, another Rwandan trader operating in Kikuubo, a Kampala business centre.

While other Presidents concentrate on working on bilateral relations with other countries to enable their people access markets for their produce, Kagame devotes his energy on lamentations about unfriendly neighbors in the media every day, and paying huge amounts of taxpayers money on individuals to clean his dirty house of its terrible human rights record, while singing praises of a clean city Kigali. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, in a report published about 11 years, found that Rwanda has “excellent public relations machinery” which has succeeded in “persuading the key members of the international community that it has an exemplary constitution emphasising democracy, power-sharing, and human rights which it fully respects”. It concluded: “The truth is, however, the opposite. ”Rwanda’s constitution, the report said, was “a facade which hides the exclusionary and repressive nature of the regime”, “basic human rights are in an unsatisfactory state”, “censorship is prevalent” and there are “serious concerns about the level of political freedom”.

Geraldine Umutoni, a mother of four married to a Ugandan man recently said that Kagame is leaving a terrible legacy for the banyarwanda tribe. She argues that because of Kagame’s killing of opponents and openly bragging about it, banyarwanda all over the world are described as killers. “I don’t think he minds about his tribesmen who majority of them leave outside Rwanda. My first boyfriend left me because he was told by his friends that banyarwanda are ruthless killers, and I had heard the same from fellow women all over. I was hurt by the statement. I didn’t get angry at the person who mentioned that to me, but I got angry with Kagame who is giving us terrible names because of his dirty characters,” she said. Kagame’s egoistic character goes beyond him knowing that – him being the President of Rwanda, banyarwanda across the world are judged by what he does. His arrogant and insensitive character came out in the open again recently when he implied that Rwanda doesn’t use PEGASUS, a military-grade spyware leased by the Israeli firm NSO Group. He denied using the spyware only saying that Rwanda relies mainly on human intelligence. “With such a reckless statement, how do you think people all over the world where we live view banyarwanda? They view us as Kagame’s spying and killing tools, yet we are here struggling to find food and school fees for our children. He doesn’t mind whether the public or governments where we live harm or kill us. He uses his sycophants to kill his opponents and that bad name is put on all of us. Of course he cares less, because he and his family live first class world treatment, courtesy of poor tax payers in Rwanda, “said George Kalimba, a business man operating in Kenya, Nairobi. But the most pertinent question like Musaazi Namiiti, a columnist in the Daily Monitor wrote recently, is whether Kagame’s rule will leave Rwanda stable once he leaves power or once he breathes his last as all people who are breathing will in the course of time.