 President Paul Kagame of Rwanda is known to use many forms of public relations mediums throughout the world in order to boost the image of Rwanda and highlight the remarkable progress that the country has made in the development sector since the 1994 genocide. He has been invited to many universities to speak on growth and development in a post war country as well as to genocide prevention programs. The Government of Rwanda pays a hefty sum of money for these services and has done this since taking power. Thoughts about Rwanda and the history of genocide/conflict have been the subject of many scholarly works and are fiercely debated among those who have interest in the country. The debate is often quite polarized between those who believe the Government of Rwanda is doing a great job and those who question the human rights record of President Kagame. There is rarely a middle ground of productive discussion regarding the current ruling government of Rwanda or the future of the current president. A disturbing new development has come to the attention of this journalist and it deserves discussion. Professor Michelle Martin of DePaul University in Chicago, IL has been contracted as a paid consultant with the Government of Rwanda for the last few years although her story and connection to Rwanda do not start there. In 2008, Providence Rubingisa, a Rwandan living in the US, met her for the first time when she was volunteering at World Relief Dupage in Wheaton, IL. Dr. Martin then invited Mr. Rubingisa to give a speech in one of her classes regarding Rwanda. She then began to express interest in supporting the FDLR, and her argument was that you could not bring democracy to Rwanda with peaceful means with a dictator like Kagame in power. With time, she began to express interest in the Rwanda National Congress and its ability to take power in Rwanda. Email exchanges between Dr. Martin and Mr. Rubingisa have been obtained by this writer in which Dr. Martin urges RNC leaders to “cozy up to Kenneth Roth” and as well as Carina Tertsakian of Human Rights Watch in order to assist with their political aspirations. So who is Dr. Michelle Martin? Numerous emails were sent to her by this writer from information obtained from her blog as well as on twitter but there has been no response from her at the time this piece went to press. What has been learned about this individual is that she, “has an MSW from University of Illinois at Chicago, an MSocSci in global policy studies from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and is a PhD candidate in the Peace Studies program at the University of Bradford, also in the United Kingdom. Her area of research focuses on the role of refugees (diaspora) generated from conflict, in peace and conflict in post-conflict societies. She is particularly interested in the ongoing conflicts in the Great Lakes Region of African, including Rwanda’s history of ethno nationalist Hutu/Tutsi conflict, and the 1994 Tutsi genocide.” This information was gained from her profile on Amazon.com as well as her blog. She has written several books on the topic of Social Work Practice and is a current professor at DePaulUniversity in Chicago. Dr. Martin is working on a current book project in the area of “international relations and focuses on the role Rwandan diaspora (political exiles) living in the West in homeland conflict using social media, and the impact of their engagement in homeland conflict and political affairs on the conflict cycle in Rwanda and the DRC, 20 years after the genocide against the Tutsi.” The proposed title of this book is “Rwandan Diaspora’s Facebook War against their Homeland: Is Anyone Paying Attention?” This book will have a proposed focus on how the Rwandan conflict-generated diaspora use social media to engage in homeland conflict, and the impact of their engagement on peace processes. She also researches how social media is used for the purposes of genocide denial and historical revisionism. FULL STORY
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