NEW HAVEN >> A group of Yale students and faculty members Tuesday criticized Yale officials for not acknowledging the human rights limitations in the administration of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who spoke on campus after the “teach-in.”
Approximately 50 people gathered in a large circle outside Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall, where Kagame addressed a crowd of several hundred later Tuesday afternoon. The crowd at the indoor event was respectful and warmly applauded Kagame but several students during the question-and-answer session asked him about the free speech problems in his country.
Those who organized the teach-in said they were not objecting to Kagame speaking at Yale, conceding he had a right to do so. But in a statement issued at the teach-in, the group said, “We oppose Yale’s decision to invite him to give a prestigious lecture at Yale and then to provide a one-sided and inaccurate account of his record.”
Yale student Samar Al-Bulushi speaks during a teach-in to counter a talk by Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Yale Law School student Elizabeth Leiserson said, “We are dismayed that Yale would honor someone who has presided over countless arbitrary arrests and detentions, summary and arbitrary executions, enforced disappearances, due process violations and unlawful restrictions on the freedom of expression and association.”
She noted the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies announcement of Kagame delivering the annual Coca-Cola World Fund lecture did not mention “this record of rights abuses.”
Marilyn Wilkes, director of communications for the MacMillan Center at Yale, said in an email, “President Kagame was invited to Yale to speak in an open forum and to answer questions from students. No one was censored and could ask whatever they wanted after his lecture. His visit allowed students to debate a variety of views and express them freely.”
The announcement did note Kagame led the Rwanda Patriotic Army in its defeat of the genocidal Rwandan government in 1994.
“The RPF subsequently set Rwanda on its current course toward reconciliation, nation building and socioeconomic development,” the MacMillan announcement stated.
The news release also noted Kagame became president in 2000 and “won the first-ever democratic elections held in Rwanda in August 2003 and was re-elected to a second seven-year mandate in August 2010.”
“President Kagame has received recognition for his leadership in peace building and reconciliation, development, good governance, promotion of human rights and women’s empowerment and advancement of education,” the release added.
The teach-in participants particularly objected to Kagame being credited for the “promotion of human rights.”
Yale Law School student Andrew Udellsman, who lived in Rwanda from 2010-12, said during the teach-in he witnessed economic gains there, such as new roads and the arrival of electricity. “But you don’t speak about politics in public. You don’t speak without looking continually around you to see who’s listening,” he said.
Udellsman added, “If you consider freedom of speech to be an important human right, you cannot honor this man as a human rights supporter.”
During his talk, Kagame said the rest of the world makes unfair “assumptions” and has prejudices against Africans. He called this a “moral superiority.”
When questioned about his human rights record, Kagame repeatedly reminded the audience of the economic gains his country has seen since the “devastating” days of genocide. “The people say, ‘We want security, we want health, we want food, we want to help our children.’ And that’s what Rwanda is providing its people,” he said.
Call Randall Beach at 203-680-9345.
Source: nhregister.com