When it comes to migration and emigration, Rwanda is one of the most open countries. Its visa regime is very generous and visitors receive them at the point of entry. While a few African countries are beginning to relax their emigration policies, many were still beholden to their former colonial masters and other western countries who were given free access but not to their African neighbours. When it came to work permits, it was easier to climb a glass wall. Rwanda’s position has always been that intra-African trade would always be a pipedream if countries did not open up. Free trade was the continent’s only salvation but that would not pick up if bureaucratic bottlenecks remained in place. However, Rwanda is welcoming for even stronger reasons. For decades many Rwandans did not have a place to call home, travel documents were a luxury. So when it gave a safe haven to refugees who were stranded in Libya, it was reacting from experience because it knew the pain of being stateless. Now it has given asylum to someone no one else wanted, Adham Amin Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian who had emigrated to the US and found himself on the wrong side of the law. After completing his sentence, he risked staying in detention indefinitely if no country accepted him. Rwanda has opened its doors for him on humanitarian grounds, just as it did to the refugees in Libya, and those from Burundi and DRC. One can call it pay-back time because many Rwandans were hosted in many countries and some still have dark memories of mistreatment and suffering. It only makes sense for it to spare its wards from the same fate.
