The real problem uncovered

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel and Rwanda's Foreign Minister Dr Vincent Biruta signed the "Migration and Economic Development Partnership Agreement" in Kigali, Rwanda on April 14.

 

The Brits said it is a plan to end illegal people smuggling across the English Channel.

 

“The relocation applies to illegal entries into the UK. Criminal gangs are facilitating people into Europe, resulting in loss of lives. The relocation will help the asylum seekers to resettle and rebuild their lives. Global systems have failed to address the migration crisis,” Patel told reporters at a news conference in Kigali.

 

The UK government is dealing with a catastrophic issue beyond its ability to solve and is looking for assistance on how lives can be saved. Rwanda had a bad history of human loss after suffering a genocide against the Tutsi, in 1994. Rwanda also has the experience of her own people who lived in horrible conditions as refugees for more than 30 years.

 

These two bad experiences are the reason why Rwanda is always ready to help where necessary to save lives. It is not because Rwanda is a rich country or because it has ample land to settle refugees and asylum seekers. It is not that it wants to benefit financially.  It is the big heart to avert human suffering because the leadership of Rwanda knows well the pain refuges and asylum seekers feel.

 

Before the ink dried on the asylum seekers’ deal, some groups went to court to challenge the deal as illegal. Western media jumped on the band wagon awash with bad publicity about Rwanda as a country with a poor human rights record, where people are killed like flies.

Western media concluded that Rwanda was not a country where asylum seekers can live in peace because, for them, Rwanda even ‘kills her own people.’

 

Looking at headlines in Western media on the UK-Rwanda asylum deal, Rwanda is wrongly accused by conspirators and profiteers who are making huge sums of money out of the asylum seekers’ presence in UK.   

 

Take the case of an article written by BBC’s Senior Africa correspondent, Anne Soy, on May 20, under the title, “UK-Rwanda asylum seekers' deal: Good news for Kigali hotels.”

 

Soy interviewed the management of Rouge by Desir hotel in Kigali on their expectations about the UK-Rwanda asylum deal. “Operations manager Jackie Uwamungu cheerfully shows me around… So the migrants deal is a welcome relief.”

 

From interviewing the hotel manager and concluding that the UK-Rwanda asylum deal is good business for Rwandan hoteliers, the BBC journalist now jumps to make a political statement by interviewing Ingabire Victoire, always ‘dressed’ as an position politician by Western media, regardless of the fact that the laws of Rwanda do not allow her to practice politics. Ingabire was jailed for more than six months on genocide related charges. The BBC journalist therefore, wanted to show that the deal will make money for Rwandan hoteliers, but the opposition is also against asylum seekers being brought to Rwanda.

 

After the first flight to Rwanda of UK asylum seekers was cancelled, the UK Home Secretary,  said she would not be deterred from "doing the right thing.” She told MPs that she believed the policy was "fully compliant" with the law. The legal battle going on in a UK court is an absurd example of how people with vested interests in profiteering from the presence of asylum seekers tarnish the image of Rwanda, using false human rights abuse claims usually created by the likes of Human Rights Watch. 

 

The real problem

 

Reliable sources say that when the UK National Asylum Support Service (NASS) provides assistance to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, they apply for accommodation and financial assistance, or one of the two. Accordingly, NASS finds accommodation for the asylum seekers through housing companies and associations, city councils and private real estate owners.

 

 

The house owners and associations that rent houses to NASS make good money from the presence of asylum seekers in the UK.

 

 

As revealed, relocating the asylum seekers to Rwanda, actually kills big business for house owners in the UK, and benefits Rwandan hoteliers, as Soy, in the BBC story, wanted to highlight. This is the real problem.

 

Since British home owners fear losing big money, they desperately turn to corrupt Western media to make noise, or lies, claiming that the asylum seekers will not be safe in Rwanda. Their weak hearted readers and followers will believe the lies because what is said by Western media is taken as gospel truth.

 

 

The human rights record and safety of people in Rwanda is far different from what is written and portrayed by the Western media. To the contrary, there are more human rights abuses and insecurity in Western countries that their media will not bring to light. In UK, a statistical bulletin, published by the Judiciary, shows that 371 people died in prison custody in 2021. This is a 17 per cent rise on the year before, when 318 people died. In Rwanda, when one prisoner by the names of Kizito Mihigo was found dead in a prison cell in 2020, Western critics and media quickly blamed it on the government. In the UK, where hundreds of prisoners died in prison, there is no accusing finger towards their government. This is the hypocrisy of the two worlds we live in. 

 

Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world contrary to Western media claims.

 

 In a 2018 Global Law and Order study by Gallup, 88 per cent of Rwandans felt safe to walk alone at night, the same figure as in Finland, Slovenia and Tajikistan.

 

The claim of human rights abuse is spread mainly by Rwandan detractors some of whom are on the run for genocide crimes, and their Western sympathizers.

 

Rwanda is not a perfect state. It has its own challenges. But that does not make it hell on earth as biased and ill-intentioned critics want the world to believe. There are others who ran away from Rwanda for other crimes, and will never say kind words about Rwanda and its leadership.    

 

 Rwanda, for decades, has been home to thousands of refugees from other countries especially the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi. In 2019, Rwanda agreed to take in hundreds of African refugees and asylum seekers held in detention centres in Libya under an agreement reached with the UN refugee agency and the African Union. If Rwanda hosts other refugees and asylum seekers who are safe and comfortable, what is special about UK-asylum seekers? 

 

The UK has earmarked an upfront investment of £120 million (about $157 million) to facilitate the implementation of the UK-Rwanda asylum seekers agreement, according Priti, who hailed the deal as “a major milestone.” Profiteering sharks in the UK, however, are looking at how they can keep pocketing a chunk of these figures. They are not bothered by the lives of asylum seekers who need also to live a dignified life that the UK-Rwanda deal provides.

 

When outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned home after the Commonwealth Summit in Rwanda, in June,   he invited critics of the UK-Rwanda asylum seekers deal to visit Rwanda and see how the country is "really going places".

 

Johnson told LBC's Nick Ferrari at a breakfast show that the country needs to be seen, to be believed. "You didn't come on the Rwanda trip. You should've done, because lots of people did, the scales fell from their eyes," he said.

 

"And if you talk to Paul Kagame and the government, they are rather shocked by some of the coverage in the UK.”