The US is no paragon of democracy

A recent article by Vince Chadwick titled “Samanta Power says Rwanda lacks environment that allows criticism” published by Devex on November 19, is very much misleading and inflammatory.

It is full of tired cliches about Rwanda and its leader Paul Kagame and is out of touch with realities on the ground and Rwanda’s historic context. Samantha Power is currently the administrator of the US Agency for International Development.

It is wrong for her to claim that in Rwanda there is no environment that allows criticism, or pluralistic party development or “the criteria that you would have a textbook for liberal democracy.”

The mistake some Westerners make is to believe that their type of democracy can be exported to Africa in total disregard of the history and facts on the ground for each county. Democracy is not a one size fit all.

After the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, Rwanda adopted a unique democratic system called “consensual democracy”. It is characterized by a plurality of political parties agreeing to disagree but working for the same goal: rebuilding our shattered social fabric. This was the only way to conjure the demons of ethnic division which were the root cause of the genocide against the Tutsi.

Rwanda has a dozen opposition political parties. But they do not oppose the government just for the sake of opposing it. In Rwanda, the consensual democracy means that the winner does not take it all; even the losers have a place in the running of the country unlike in the West.

Rwanda had a bitter experience with the so-called multi-party politics. Following the Franco-African Summit in the French resort of La Baule on August 30, 1990, the Hutu extremist ushering in multipartyism. However, as pointed out by President Paul Kagame in a recent interview with Al Jazeera, all the parties espoused the Hutu Power extremist ideology and joined the mass-killings of the Tutsi which ended up in the loss of more than one million innocent lives.

Given this background, Rwandans will never let themselves be duped by some Westerners who wants us to do things their way and let devious politicians bring back the era of destructive policies in the name of free speech and freedom of expression.

Kagame recently told Al Jazeera that each country has its own context and circumstances in which it operates and, therefore, “you don’t want to establish just a template and say each country must follow the way of doing things.”

In the article, Chadwick refers to the speech of Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, in Nigeria and insinuates that he may have talked about Rwanda when he said that the democratic norms were backsliding with African leaders changing the two term limits.

By the way, I don’t know where this “two term limits” concept came from. Does it supersede the will of the people? It is false to allege that Kagame amended the constitution. That was not the case. The amendment followed a popular demand to have Kagame continue to lead the country because of the progress Rwanda achieved under his leadership.

The demand was put to a people’s vote, and it was acquiesced to massively. All the talk about Paul Rusesabagina’s alleged renditioning and the reference to the book by British journalist Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, is just aimed at hyping Samanta Power’s groundless accusation against Rwandan leadership. Rusesabagina was never abducted, and Wrong’s book was a hit job paid by enemies of Rwanda with the aim of hurting its leadership.

If one must look for a democratic model, the US in its current situation does NOT inspire many.  People should let us chart our own destiny. After all when things go wrong it is us who suffer big time.