When a western journalist or an NGO pretends to advocate for human rights on the African continent, who do they do it for?
Do they seek the salvation of African migrants drowning at sea at the indifference of Europe? Do they feel for Libyan families in disarray, after their country was bombed by NATO; or Syrian children left in ruins, after a drone attack by American air force killed their parents?
What of schoolchildren in Yemen, whose school has been destroyed by American and Saudi missiles?
More importantly, do they defend mother earth, our cradle, being destroyed, suffocated by the insatiable greed of capitalists - who happen to own the media for which they work, who donate to their funds or just sitting in power?
Who are they speaking for? Let us examine what are the pressing human rights issues on the planet right now? Libya, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Iraq and planet earth: compared to tragedies in Africa - in terms of body count the difference in casualties is colossal. Who is responsible?
At any given time in known history, western armies have been decimating communities around the world in hundreds of thousands, while their corporations destroyed animal, marine and atmospheric life in equal measure.
Any man who has stood in their way was killed. Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian activist who sought to denounce the large-scale pollution of his native Niger Delta by British and American oil companies, was promptly assassinated.
Thomas Sankara, the Burkinabè president who denounced the West’s support to the apartheid regime in South Africa, and the French dominion on West-African countries too was assassinated.
To get away with this, western nations hired sophists to lie at wish and mislead the masses: Journalists, NGOs, and evangelists, to deliver ‘democracy, human rights and God’. Imagine sharks sending emissaries to promote fish welfare…
Their biggest lie is that Africa lives off western aid; the opposite is actually true: Aid represents less than 2% of Africa’s GDP and shrinking. On the other hand, a study by Ndikumana, Boyce and Saloum Ndiaye (2014) estimate capital flight from Africa to the west to represent 39.5 percent of Africa’s GDP as of 2010.
‘Capital flight implies less spending on social services such as education and health, and this, too, undermines human development, which in turn seems to validate the job of NGOs and journalists - what President Kagame calls the ‘western superiority complex nonsense’.
Their mission is diabolic, in the sense that they know the truth, but chose to lie! They intentionally misspell and mispronounce names of African leaders and their countries; inflate aid statistics, underestimate growth progress and sweep capital flight under the carpet. They lionize our oppressors and disparage our heroes.
In the case of Rwanda, killers, thieves and criminals are given sanctuary in the West, while freedom fighters are ostracized. Despots, stooges who protect western interests are sponsored and maintained in power while popular leaders are undermined.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Europe-Africa cooperation, a journalist working for a French channel wanted to question Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s human rights record.
He could have given her a candid answer and he did, at first, except he was soon disappointed by her lack preparation and manifested bias, constantly interrupting him to rehash narratives that have been built in the west to paint Paul Kagame as a villain, namely a leader who jails opposition and journalists and kills political opponents.
I will come back to the interview in the next article. Here, let us examine those allegations:
First: Killing political opponents: the most prominent Rwandan who was assassinated in exile was Karegeya in South Africa. Karegeya was no politician, he was a terrorist. A former chief spy who frequently and publically declared (on BBC, in Ugandan media) pursuing the overthrow of the Rwandan government using violence.
Karegeya orchestrated several terrorist attacks in the City of Kigali between 2009 and 2014, which killed 17 innocent people and injured 407 others. He was our Osama Bin Laden, but British media called him Rwanda’s Jamal Khashoggi - a civilian, peaceful journalist who was killed in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey…
Immediately after Karegeya’s death in South Africa, western media pointed fingers at the Rwandan government. In reality, it has never been proven who was behind his killing – the related trial in South Africa has lasted seven years and still no single conviction has been made to date.
Jailing political opponents: When anyone dares abusing president Kagame and his government, they become overnight Mahatma Gandhis. All their crimes: past, present and future are absolved as they multiply interviews with fascinated journalists and experts from the four corners of the globe.
We the humble locals who’ve known them all along aren’t obviously as aroused – and there lies misunderstanding number one.
Also, one can repeat an abuse only so many times, beyond animosity against the person of the president, to rally the masses, one ought to have a societal programme of some sort.
This is where our overnight sensations become criminals. Ethnic prejudice is a crime in Rwanda – just like in Germany, in Israel and many other places which have a post-genocide history.
It isn’t the case in America and other places where racial stigmatisation and prejudice are efficient political messages – and there lies misunderstanding number two.
Through some strange form of triangular trade, known Rwandan outlaws are resold to us as enlightened political figures worthy of our reverence, except the resell value is high and we can’t afford it, given that we have other priorities, namely unity, reconciliation, safety and fast development.
In any event, every ‘politician’ who had issues to answer in court got a fair trial, was sentenced and jailed, but the president eventually pardoned and freed all of them, like he pardoned the genocide perpetrators…
Other western based political activists who have cases to answer in Rwanda, feed off the superiority complex. They and western nations are mutually manipulating each other to achieve their respective goals. One says he is a politician to evade justice, others are happy to sponsor him/her to undermine Rwandan leaders.
For instance, this article in The New York Post https://nyp.st/2XrW8h9 narrates how a young Rwandan intern was raped repeatedly by a former Rwandan diplomat - one Eugene Gasana.
All western feminists, journalists and NGOs are astonishingly quiet. Why? Because the man has now declared himself to be anti-Kagame. In their eyes he is a saint!
The views expressed in this article are of the author.
The writer is an Attorney ang Governance Consultant based in Kigali.