Rwanda Information Portal

Westerners no longer swallow my story, says Kagame

by Olivier Nyirubugara.

Rwandan president Paul Kagame has brought to the public place the increasing divergence of views between his administration and its Western partners, formerly known to be unconditional supporters.

“When one walks out, another walks in, saying: ‘I heard that you have a genocide law, a law repressing genocide. We don’t trust you. It is a way to oppress political opponents’, Kagame said on 7 October, during the inauguration of his not-changed government. He was referring specifically to former colonial power Belgium, and to the Netherlands.

In a mixture of local language Kinyarwanda and English, Kagame said his former allies have shut their ears, as many of them are no longer satisfied with his explanations:

“Look”, he said, “I explain to them, persistently”, but some shut their ears, unwilling to listen. He added: “Even the one who listens is not satisfied because your story is not the one he wants to hear’.

He further indicated that the envoys of the former unconditional allies often queue every morning in front of his door, “and when ones walks out another walks in and tells you the same story as the previous one”

In a rather astonishing move, Kagame accuses the former allies of having pushed him into corruption, of having shared its fruit with him. However, as we live in a “funny world”, they are now turning back as judges:

“Even when you have collaborated with them in corruption, you will be the culprit, they will be the judge. Imagine a situation in which you get corrupt together another person and, at the end, that person turns back to you and becomes your judge”, he said, in what analysts saw as a clear reference to the UN mapping exercise that concluded that Kagame’s troops might have committed genocide against the Hutu in the DR Congo.

These developments occur as opposition leaders Victoire Ingabire, Bernard Ntaganda, Deo Mushayidi and others, are in jail: they are all accused of terrorism and are likely to spend the rest of their lives in jail.

1 comment

1 Lily Inga { 10.31.10 at 4:59 am }

I can recall Abraham Lincoln writing that you can’t cheat all people all the time. If Mr Kagame were a genuine stateman, he should know that. Further more, he might understand that envoys, journalists, humanitarians…enjoy all kinds of freedom elsewhere and that the entire World can’t be turned into an Animal Farm. LI

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