We are pretty familiar with Rwanda: It is paradise….or it’s a prison. President Paul Kagame is a savior and a visionary…or Kagame is a tyrant and a war criminal. What you hear varies widely depending on whom you ask. Why is the Rwanda conversation so polarized?
As the year of the 20th Anniversary of the Rwanda genocide approached, many journalists and observers–both in and outside Rwanda–remarked that no outlet existed for unbiased news on the country. Last year I tried to create an online newswire for unbiased reporting on post-genocide Rwanda. Though I had been impressed with Rwanda’s leadership and have long been considered a pro-government, even pro-Kagame journalist, I was aware that more balance was needed. Growing discontent with the status quo required a space for multiple points of view.
Too Close for Comfort
I’ve run into plenty of roadblocks while writing about Rwanda. But perhaps because I was viewed as sympathetic to the government, I found officials to be somewhat cooperative. Government communications staffers often contacted me wanting to be sure I had what they saw as the complete picture on big stories. We had a friendly, if sometimes tense, relationship. When I tried to become more nuanced, there was noticeable pushback, but it was not completely rejected. In fact, my contact at the government communications office told me to contact him directly if anyone in Rwanda ever tried to interfere with my work.
As I began aggregating Rwanda news, I noticed some strange online trends. It seemed that anonymous websites and social media accounts were dominating the Rwanda conversation. I kept watching.
After the murder of Rwanda’s former spy chief in South Africa in January, I accidentally uncovered a program of online harassment of journalists, human rights workers and diplomats. The program was being run from inside the Office of the President of Rwanda. This was quite a story. I doubted I could report on it without having problems in Rwanda. Instead, I wrote directly to the president’s office. I told them what I was seeing and suggested they shut down this program before it became a larger story. They declined that suggestion.
Then in March, one of the harassing accounts tweeted to me directly from the official account of President Paul Kagame. That tweet was quickly deleted, but not before the secret was out and, ironically, many had the misimpression that I was the one who had exposed it. When the Washington Post and BBC picked up the story they contacted me for comments and I obliged. After that, I assumed– even hoped–the story would fade. The 20th Anniversary of the Genocide was approaching. I was to cover the commemorations for multiple outlets (including Al Jazeera Digital Magazine). No story was more deserving of undivided media attention. But that was not to be.
Entry Denied
When I arrived to cover the commemorations, I was blocked from entering Rwanda. Despite a holding a valid passport with a visa waiver, I was told I would have to return to the United States. When I phoned my contact in the Rwanda Government’s Communications Office, he hung-up on me. I then tweeted that I was being denied entry to Rwanda and called the US Embassy in Kigali. The American consular asked me to call him back after five minutes. As I waited to make that call from the gate in the Kigali airport, a strange tweet came from the official account of the Rwanda Immigration Service. It said I was being blocked because of a drug arrest two years earlier in the US. The tweet linked to an outdated news report.
I had in fact been arrested two years earlier in the United States on drug charges. Prosecutors later said they had been mistaken and the original charges were dismissed. However, I did admit to having possessed drugs for personal use at one-point years ago. This was a misdemeanor. Despite misleading news reports, complete details of the case remain sealed. I hope one day soon I have all the facts and will be able to publish them.
Shortly after immigration sent that tweet, I was surrounded by police, handcuffed and placed in a jail cell. My phone was taken. Someone didn’t want me tweeting or calling the embassy until I had left Rwanda. When I told the plain clothed officer who stood outside my cell that I was worried it might not be great PR for Rwanda to lock up a visiting journalist, he smirked and replied, “So what.” FULL STORY
