Of Human Rights Watch's systematic bias against Rwanda

A keen observer who follows reports about Rwanda published by the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW), since July 1994, will feel uneasy due to its overt activism against the Rwandan government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

Retired American diplomat turned academic, Richard Johnson, in an analysis of HRW’s bias against Rwanda, “The Travesty of Human Rights on Rwanda,” published on March 19, 2013, shed some light. “What Human Rights Watch (HRW) does on Rwanda is not human rights advocacy. It is political advocacy which has become profoundly unscrupulous in both its means and its ends,” he argued.

Johnson called on HRW’s Board of Directors to hold Executive Director Kenneth Roth, and the HRW personnel who cover Rwandan issues, accountable for this travesty “which has dangerous implications for Western policy toward Rwanda and for the overall credibility of Western human rights advocacy.”

He urged HRW’s funders to think seriously about what causes their money might serve, and urged Western governments to be careful about following HRW advice, and courageous enough to challenge them, publicly if need be.

“HRW’s discourse on Rwanda over the past twenty years has been viscerally hostile to the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which defeated the genocidal Hutu Power regime in 1994, and systematically biased in favour of letting unrepentant Hutu Power political forces back into Rwandan political life.”

The executive summary of HRW’s 2020-2021 annual report proves Johnston’s observations correct. It singles out the RPF, with allegations that seem imagined. “It [RPF] continues to target those perceived as a threat to the government” claims the report, without a shred of evidence for its allegations.

It alleges that “arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture in official and unofficial detention facilities are commonplace, and fair trial standards are routinely flouted in many sensitive political cases, in which security charges are often used to prosecute prominent government critics. Arbitrary detention and detention of street children, sex workers and petty vendors occurs widely.”

It cites former gospel singer Kizito Mihigo, among those it claims were targeted. Mihigo who was arrested in February 2020 for contravening the terms of his conditional early release from prison following a Presidential pardon died in police station. An autopsy confirmed that he committed suicide.  Kizito’ death was, sadly, only one of many deaths by suicide that are all too common in prisons around the world. HRW does not call for international investigations in any of these. So why single out Rwanda?

In the US, in the 12 months of 2020, there were 318 deaths in prison (a rate of 4.0 per 1,000 prisoners) but HRW is not concerned by what is happening in its own backyard. In the UK, these figures are even more alarming. According to data published by the government on April 29, 2021, “In the 12 months to March 2021, there were 408 deaths in prison custody, an increase of 42% from 287 deaths the previous 12 months. Of these, 79 deaths were self-inflicted.

No alarm was raised by HRW, which instead singles out Rwanda, over a single case.  HRW’s animosity against Rwanda is also reflected through two reports published in the last week of September - “Rwanda: Paul Rusesabagina Convicted in Flawed Trial,” and, “Rwanda:  Ups-Linked to Commonwealth Meeting.”

In the report about Rusesabagina, HRW turns a blind eye to his leadership, and financing of terrorist organisations - Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change – Front for National Liberation (MRCD-FLN).

The latter carried out multiple attacks in south-western Rwanda, which claimed the lives of nine people, destroyed livelihoods and destroyed property. The same report makes several outrageously false accusations including that the arrest of Rusesabagina “started as enforced disappearance.”

Luring Rusesabagina to Rwanda is no different from what the Belgians did to capture Somali pirate Mohamed Abdi Hassan, accused of “hijack, taking hostages and belonging to a criminal organisation.”  HRW made no objection to this, and other similar cases.

The charge that Rusesabagina could not get a legal counsel of his own choosing is a red herring debunked several times. Rusesabagina was represented by his Rwandan lawyers. His international team failed to fulfil the requirements of the Rwandan Bar Association.

In its most recent report titled “Rwanda: Round Ups -Linked to Commonwealth Meeting,” HRW claims that “Rwandan authorities rounded up, and arbitrarily detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others, in the months before a planned June 2021 high-profile international conference.”

The report alleges that security services singled out gay or transgender people. According to government spokesperson, Yolande Makolo, the report was made up.  “HRW’s report on Rwanda is a calculated attempt to harm a strategic sector of our economy with fabricated allegations. The allegations are not true. Rwanda does not discriminate, in law, policy of practice, against sexual or gender orientation,” Makolo tweeted.

Those HRW calls “poorest and most marginalized residents” are mostly young, petty criminals, often abusing drugs. They are often taken to Gikondo rehabilitation centre, for assessment and help. Most are then transferred to Iwawa Rehabilitation and Vocational Skills Development Centre located on Iwawa Island, in Lake Kivu, where their rehabilitation continues. There, they are weaned off their addictions, and are given a trade. Most are later reintegrated back into society. The programme boasts a great success rate.  But HRW calls for the scrapping of this and similar programmes.  Johnson observes that this rights watchdog always sides with genocidaires and does everything to thwart justice.

“HRW’s advocacy efforts concerning the international community’s treatment of Rwandan genocide suspects outside Rwanda has been consistent with HRW’s radically negative view of Rwandan governance and justice...HRW has been very active, via its 2008 “Law and Reality” report and amicus curiae briefs to the ICTR and a UK court, in supporting the efforts of Rwandan genocide suspects to avoid transfer or extradition to Rwanda by the ICTR or by national courts, on the grounds that they would not get a fair trial there.”

These efforts were initially successful. In late 2008, the ICTR rejected the Prosecutor’s first request for the transfer to Rwanda of several suspects indicted by the UN Court. Thanks in part to HRW’s urging, in early 2009, a higher court in the UK, overturned a lower court’s approval of a Rwandan request for extradition of genocide suspects, implicated in the murder of thousands in the districts they governed. These suspects continue to live freely in the UK. For more than two decades, the UK is protecting five Rwandans suspected of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

In a licence that is rightly never applied to Holocaust denial, in the name of free speech, HRW defends genocide denial, by among others, Vloggers, Aimable Karasira and Yvonne Idamange, arrested for denying and minimising the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.  Idamage was sentenced to 15 years in prison, for serious crimes of trivialising the genocide against the Tutsi and inciting public revolt. Karasira’s trial is still on-going.

Western rights organisations, may project themselves as defenders of human rights, but they harbour a hidden agenda, something sinister. The likes of HRW are mainly used to protect, project and promote the interests, including multinational businesses scattered globally, of the Global north.