Ian Birrell: man driven by hate for Rwanda’s President

The global north media is replete with people who think that by writing abusive material on Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, they will enter the Hall of Fame.

One of them is a certain Ian Birrell, an old British freelance writer whose career is, clearly, built on writing material aimed at tarnishing the integrity and image of President Kagame.

His recent article in the inews.com published on March 20 - “Westminster may have shunned Putin, but its continued support of autocratic leaders stinks of hypocrisy” - shows a man desperate to prove how bad President Kagame is by comparing Rwanda to Russia, and Kagame to Putin.

But as wisdom dictates, you can only compare things that are comparable.

Comparing Rwanda to Russia - with its war against Ukraine - and President Kagame and his Russian counterpart is a bridge too far.

But for Birrell being factual is not his prime goal. His main goal is character assassination as seen in his previous tirades against the Rwandan President. The internet is replete with such material which could easily land Birrell in court.

All the self-righteous so-called journalists of the global north media assume the right to defame a leader they don’t like by calling him either autocratic or a dictator. By doing so about President Kagame, Birrell is contemptuous of the millions of Rwandans who elected him as president.

It's well-known that Birrell is an ardent supporter of Rwandan genocidaires and has as well thrown his full support behind Rwanda’s terror Kingpin Paul Rusesabagina currently serving 25 years in prison for engaging in terrorist activities against his homeland.

No one, therefore, was surprised that in the same article Birrell uses the argument also used by genocide deniers - that President Kagame used “a state-controlled narrative to further their own rule.” 

Which controlled narrative is he talking about? That President Kagame stopped the genocide single-handedly while the so-called free world was watching passively? That he has been a transformative leader Rwandans have never had before? That he has reconciled Rwandans after the worst genocide of the last century? If that’s what Birrell and the evil-minded global north racist journalists think, lets it be so.

To prove that President Kagame is as dangerous as Putin, he claimed that the former sent death squads to the UK to target enemies. But this accusation was a hoax pushed by anti-Rwanda elements in the diaspora. With the seriousness of the British security services, one wonders why they didn’t arrest a single member of the so-called Rwandan death squads. It turned out that this claim was made up by a group led by Rene Mugenzi, son of genocide fugitive Joseph Mugenzi who was later  imprisoned for pilfering £22000 from a church in London to feed his gambling habits.

But is it a coincidence that Birrell attacked the Rwandan President as Rwanda prepares to welcome the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)? His gaol is to depict Rwanda in a bad light, and thus thwart this meeting. But he’s fighting a losing battle.

Birrell talks of  President Kagame sparking wars with his neighbours. Here one easily understands that he indirectly refers to Rwanda intervening in the DRC wars. Here once again, Birrell shows little knowledge of Rwanda’s recent troubled history with all the threats to its survival which were posed by genocidal forces on its border with the former Zaire, now DRC. Rwanda acted because the international community failed to deal with the menace to its very existence.

Birrell has committed himself to supporting Rusesabagina as seen in his previous writings about Rwanda. In the past he had joined a campaign calling for British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to reject the newly appointed Rwandan High Commissioner in London whose sole crime was to have told reporters that the Rwandan government paid for the private jet that brought Rusesabagina from Dubai to Rwanda, to face justice.

What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with enticing a wanted criminal to go to a location where he could be easily arrested? Everybody does it, including the US, the UK, Belgium, and Germany. Was it criminal to lure Rusesabagina to Rwanda? No!

Birrell should know is that Rwanda's new envoy to the UK, Johnston Busingye, honourably conducted his mandate as Rwanda's Justice Minster and Attorney General for more than eight years, and his reshuffle was not a demotion as he wants people to believe.

He also perpetuates the lie that Rusesabagina, a Hollywood hero, is a real-life hero accredited to have saved over 1,200 people during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

Birrell should come to Rwanda and go tell the people of  Nyabimata in Nyaruguru and Kigeme in southwestern Rwanda that his man is a hero after the terror and devastation caused by Rusesabagina’s armed MRCD/FLN militia.

When one reads Birrell’s new attacks against President Kagame - trying to compare him with Russian President Putin - clearly the aim is to turn President Kagame into a hate figure just as Western media has done to Putin. But his efforts are futile because Kagame is admired both at home and abroad.

Birrell reminds one of the French proverbial saying: “les chiens aboient et la caravane passe.”

Dogs bark but the caravan moves.