Rwanda is not an Authoritarian Regime
Michael Fairbanks, The New York Times
19 September, 2012
Michael Fairbanks is the co-founder of the SEVEN Fund, a philanthropic foundation in
Cambridge, Mass.
Paul Kagame's critics say that he foments the war in Eastern Congo and suppresses opposition
parties at home. These views prosper in the absence of facts.
The government of Rwanda has been accused of cracking down on so-called opposition
newspapers. On April 13, 2010, the government issued six-month suspensions to two
Kinyarwanda-language newspapers, Umuvugizi and Umuseso, for publishing language such as
the following:
"He who refuses a peaceful political revolution makes a bloody revolution." (Umuseso)
These words reflected reality on Feb. 19 and March 4 of that year, when terrorists threw
grenades into public establishments in Kigali and killed innocent civilians. Rwanda knows a lot
about freedom of speech and the role of the press. After all, the Hutu Power press helped ignite
the 1994 genocide.
Paul Kagame has successfully built modern institutions on traditional values.
Today, Rwanda is a different place: growth has averaged almost 8 percent over the last decade,
wages have increased by 30 percent in the key export sectors, street crime is almost unknown
and corruption measures among the lowest in Africa. Two weeks ago, Rwanda was named the
third most competitive economy in all of Africa, after South Africa and Mauritius.
The secret to Rwanda's success is that Kagame has built modern institutions on traditional
values. In the aftermath of the genocide, modern courts were incapable of handling the hundreds
of thousands of perpetrators. International legal advisers were flummoxed. Kagame introduced
the traditional Gacaca system to give the perpetrators of the genocide the opportunity to tell the
truth and ask the community for forgiveness. The National University of Rwanda found that 95
percent of the survivors and even 80 percent of the detainees viewed the system as more
efficient than any other form of justice.
Kagame's team rewrote the constitution such that his party could not have more than 50 percent
of the seats in parliament. Though Kagame is from one ethnic group, his prime minister and 70
percent of his cabinet are from the other. And a world-leading 56 percent of parliament is now
women. The country is secure and the World Bank's Doing Business report recognized Rwanda
as the greatest reforming nation in the world.
According to Gallup, 95 percent of Rwandans are confident in their national government.
Seventy-seven percent of Rwandans are satisfied with their freedom of expression, belief,
association and personal autonomy, and the same percentage considers their local area to be a
good place for ethnic and racial minorities. Confidence in the military and the judiciary is high,
with approval ratings of 98 percent and 84 percent, respectively. And 86 percent of Rwandans
believe the electoral process isfair and honest.
Rwanda now invests in biotech, software and communications. Young, highly qualified members
of the Rwandan Diaspora are returning in droves; remittances from the same, knowledgeable
Diaspora communities in northern Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States defy gravity
and may be as much as $1 billion per year. Global leaders like Nestlé and Marriott are making
huge investments in human capacity, plant and equipment.
This isn’t an authoritarian regime; it is just a poor, confident nation that defies conventional
Western categories, and has found its own voice.
© The New York Times Company