The exaggeration of international politics

Editor, RE: “Burundian refugees assured relocation will not be rushed” (The New Times, February 24). It is rather interesting to see how the incessant givers of lessons on human rights and humanitarianism can then turn around and abuse the most vulnerable of human beings—those who have fled their homes and lost everything—in their attempts at smearing those who have really shown real humanity to these vulnerable people. As a Rwandan who spent my formative years and much longer in a similar situation as that of our brethren in Mahama and other refugee camps, it feels so painful to have to ask them to get ready to pull up stakes again and move. Unfortunately the world we live in is like that. I hope those, in the self-described international community, who have tried to instrumentalise Rwanda’s hospitality to these poor refugees against this country feel so proud about the consequences. But, of course I am being naive: the very people who claimed that Rwanda has been recruiting refugees from these camps for the anti-Nkurunziza rebellion have already turned around to attack Rwanda for wanting to ‘expel’ refugees! That is the problem with these kinds of information warfare (for don’t be misled that is exactly what is afoot); you will be attacked by those who are engaged in it for allegedly doing something they have manufactured, then they will use whatever you decide to do in response to their allegations to attack you again. And, by the way, there is little you can do to dispel the allegations or rumours, because they are not a result of ignorance by those who make them, but deliberately made in full knowledge of their falsehood as tactical instruments of policy. This is the world we live in: one of global politics of destruction and domination in the thoroughly threadbare garb of humanitarianism. The kind of politics that is completely comfortable with the murderousness, if the situation that murderousness creates can be used to advance other policy objectives, whatever those might be. MweneKalinda

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The exaggeration of international politics