International
The real problem uncovered
Of Western media conspiracy, profiteers in UK Rwanda asylum deal
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.”