Rwanda is the great success story of a post-conflict state in Africa. The country’s preferred narrative — one of redemption and renewal after the experience of unspeakable atrocities during the 1994 genocide — is an irresistibly inspiring one that has won Kagame and his leadership team friends in high places around the globe. Whether it is a response to an experienced journalist pointing out the Rwandan military forces’ role in perpetrating mass killings in Zaire/DRC after the genocide or Kagame’s backing of the Congolese M23 rebel movement, Kagame can count on support from his powerful friends to defend his behavior and his interests, regardless of how undemocratic and human rights-violating his behavior might be.
Kagame’s defenders tend to focus on the substantial economic and development gains Rwanda has made under his leadership over the last 15 years. The country’s official development statistics are impressive. Its poverty rate dropped from 56.7 percent in 2005 to 44.9 percent in 2010. Primary school enrollment has skyrocketed, and life expectancy is steadily growing. Modeling the country on Singapore and using the same authoritarian techniques that allow virtually no public dissent, Rwanda’s leaders have re-created Kigali as a model African city. Most visitors, upon arriving for the first time, are delighted by the city’s clean and well-paved streets, its Western-style coffee shops and restaurants, and smooth access to incredible tourist adventures such as communing with the country’s mountain gorillas during a high-end safari.
All this perfection comes at a cost. Kigali itself is now largely devoid of “unsightly” poor people, thanks to forced removals from the city and locking away “undesirables” in a harsh detention center. The highly touted improvements in development outcomes are unevenly distributed, with those in urban areas having far more access to improved services and opportunities while those opportunities are often much harder to access or absent in in rural spaces. Full Story