Michela Wrong gets it wrong, again

Michaela Wrong has, for many years, been working to tarnish the image of Rwanda and its President, Paul Kagame.

On a simple glance, one might think that Michaela Wrong is an ordinary writer. But she is not. Her relentless mudslinging of Rwanda and its President, Paul Kagame, points to something sinister. Wrong has, for many years, been working to tarnish the image of Rwanda. Her recent Op-Ed in British newspaper, The Guardian, titled “The world is slowly waking to Paul Kagame’s brutal actions in Rwanda,” is to be seen in that context.

That article, which coincided with the visit to Rwanda by French President, Emmanuel Macron, is her umpteenth attempt to reboot her faltering anti-Rwanda stance which she initiated with the publication of her inflammatory book, “Do Not Disturb”. The latter is an eulogy to Patrick Karegeya, former Rwandan chief spy who was murdered in a hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa, in January 2014.

It was not a coincidence that in a virtual event held in February 2021 to remember Karegeya, one of the founding members of the terrorist group, Rwanda National Congress (RNC), Kayumba Nyamwasa, hailed Wrong’s “tireless efforts to keep this story alive, which is one of the ways to seek justice, without you very little would have been known."

When her book was launched, the whole global north media; in London, Washington, and New York, saw in it a blockbuster, a masterpiece of good investigation that was going to deal a fatal blow to the image of President Kagame.

But as the French saying goes, la montagne a accouché d’un souris. The mountain gave birth to a mouse. Nothing of the doom and gloom she predicted happened. It will never happen. President Kagame’s reputation remains, to this date, intact, regardless of attempts by Rwanda’s haters and detractors such as Wrong’s unrelenting but unsuccessful efforts.

While Wrong does her best to muddy President Macron’s visit to Rwanda, other journalists, on the same day, had a very positive look at the visit. Kim Willsher and Angelique Chrisafis wrote “Macron visits Rwanda to ‘write new page’ in French relationship”. Writing in the Guardian that same day, May 27, Jason Burke, the Africa correspondent wrote: “Kagame the winner as Macron gives genocide speech in Rwanda”.

Like in her book, which is a hit job for enemies of Rwanda, in her article, Wrong wrongly suggests that by welcoming President Macron in Kigali, President Kagame is effecting “a cynical piece of match-making… a tribute to Kagame’s skill at identifying new sources of support whenever traditional allies appear to tire.”

Wrong missed the whole purpose of the French President's visit. In her analysis, Wrong explains the apparent shift in the perception of Rwanda’s image to what she labels “an increasingly visible campaign of harassment, detention and assassination waged by Kagame’s intelligence services for more than a decade, which has crushed freedom of speech at home and pushed dissent into exile.”

All that Wrong is doing here is rehashing the same unfounded accusations levelled by discredited human rights organisations and Rwanda’s so-called dissidents who are, in truth, people on the wrong side of the law for various reasons. The RNC leaders including Kayumba Nyamwasa, Maj Robert Higiro, Theogene Rudasingwa who are using her as their pawn are cases in point.

Wrong also alleges that President Kagame is now targeting his own Tutsi minority, and refers to the well-known cases of Diane Rwigara, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2017, and the death in detention of Kizito Mihigo in 2020. Rwigara’s candidacy was marred by gross irregularities, including falsification of signatures - of people who backed her bid - and using names of deceased people.

As for Kizito, one recalls Wrong’s praise for his song “The meaning of death”, a song trivialising the genocide against the Tutsi. In “Rwanda: The Dove’s music united a nation torn by genocide. Why did he die in a cell?”  (Guardian, 14 Feb 2021) , Wrong shows her true colours, as a genocide denier herself.

“Kizito’s song The Meaning of Death challenged that narrative, calling on Rwandans to show empathy to both victims of the genocide and “revenge killings”, as these deaths are termed. Eyes shut, clutching a rosary, the famous rescapé sings that death is equally terrible for all,” she wrote.

Kizito, who was on bail because of a presidential pardon, was not arrested because of his revisionist views, but because he broke the law. Investigation into his death found that he committed suicide. Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.  The same applies to Wrong’s efforts to tarnish Rwanda’s image and that of President Kagame.