Why I frequent Uganda, explains Kagame

The Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, was in Kampala last week to receive an award during celebrations to mark NRM’s 26th anniversary. Paul Busharizi talked to him and below are the excerpts of the interview. 

QUESTION: Given your history with this country, coming as a toddler, returning to Rwanda, the friction with Uganda and now improvement in relations, how does receiving these medals make you feel?

ANSWER: I was reading what some people were writing and they were wondering why and how I can come to Uganda three times in a period of six weeks. At the back of my mind I was thinking, I lived in Uganda for 30 years, what is wrong with coming here three times in six weeks?

Uganda for me and for many others in Rwanda and probably elsewhere is a second home. I grew up here and there are many Rwandans who were born here.

We spent decades of our lives here and there is more that people should be happy about and should be proud of instead of talking about a few negative things that happened here and there. The good things in my view are certainly more significant than anything else that could have happened.

Whatever negative things happened are regrettable and maybe we need to leave them in the past and move forward. So the medals were generously awarded with a feeling of gratitude and a deep sense of honour.

We are also saying maybe there is a lot more to be grateful about that we gained in the years we spent in Uganda than the contribution we were able to make. In my opinion, I think there was more we received than we really gave.

Today, we still stand challenged to make sure that things can only get better and this is what we are dedicated to do and this is what these moments and events remind us of.

The public perception is, whenever you, President Kagame of Rwanda and President Museveni meet, something is happening. What is happening?

I think there is good reason for anyone to imagine something is happening whenever the two of us meet. Indeed, we always meet to discuss about the two countries, bilateral relations and cooperation, regional issues and global issues that affect our two countries and the region. Currently it’s about the bilateral issues, how we can work together and how we can make the East African Community (EAC) a reality

I don’t think there is need to worry about our getting together. Instead people should be more positive about it.

Former President Thabo Mbeki was here last week and said the African Renaissance was stalling and because of our continent’s weakness other people were making our decisions for us. What is your view?

I agree with President Mbeki on the issues he raised, but that is only a small fraction of the story. We need to strengthen ourselves to be able to address many of our problems. The deeper part of the problem which has not been addressed is why do we fail yet in most cases we know what needs to be done. We have known this for decades.

One, African countries need to strengthen themselves internally. Whether it is an issue of democratic governance, the economy, investing in developing capacities in our people through education and imparting skills in our people to enable them fit in the labour market. We should be able to achieve this really given the resources at our disposal.

The other issue is regional integration. If our countries make progress and then we come together, we even become stronger. But I am afraid Africa remains fragmented and the would-be fragments, the individual nation states are also wobbly, they are just not holding.

Leadership problems maybe?

Leadership may not be the only cause of the problem but it is definitely central to the problem. There is the sense that everybody in the region does not share the same urgency for regional integration.

Isn’t there a risk of you becoming a John Baptist, pointing to the promised land and never getting there?

There is always such a danger and I think we need to work with that in mind. We really need to walk the talk and fulfill some of these promises. It is not bad to have big dreams, you dream and then you start working towards that. You make sure that you do not waste any time or resource.

You cannot say that since the other country is not doing it, so I will not do my part. Try to do your part and maybe someone else will do their part. We also have many examples to learn from, look at other parts of the world that are moving.

Sometimes it is amazing, we sit here and lament and some of our people are the ones going to those places that are developed and doing for them the very things that those countries are known for.

French Judge Mark Trevidic’s report came out recently exonerating the RPF from shooting Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane, an event that triggered the genocide. Is that a relief?

This report or incident or whatever you may call it has a lot of falsehoods around it. First is the distortion of history of genocide itself. Some people even say the genocide happened because plane was shot down. This is not true, it is false.

Because as we were just discussing a while ago, even talking about my own history, how I became a refugee here in Uganda in 1960 and hundreds of thousands of others in other parts of this region and many thousands losing their lives.

That was 1960 and it started in 1959 in fact, through all these years. Genocide had taken place in Rwanda at different times at different scales, this was the extreme.

Secondly, there have been many reports in fact exonerating RPF and probably others because there has been a list of people, groups accused of bringing down the plane of Habyarimana in 1994.

There have been so far three or four reports resulting from independent investigations, and this last one by the French judge was one in a series of the four. Maybe because this has come from France by a French judge maybe it’s going to be believed but there was another one by Judge Mutsinzi with a very competent investigative team.

He is a senior Judge in Rwanda, he has worked for COMESA and the OAU and he and his team almost gave the same conclusion. Lines of investigation and facts were established but were not valued because they were saying this African, this Rwandese.

Now the recent report, however, I will say really did we have to wait until a French judge says so in order to believe it, happily he has said so.

For us in Rwanda, we need to focus on very important issues that affect millions of Rwandans and our future and stop being hostage to one case that is fabricated and played around with. In as far as that point is concerned, I think we are happy that report has come out exonerating RPF. But it is like nothing will come out of that until somebody comes to judge and give a blessing and say this African can walk free; it is really pathetic.

Can the Rwandese model of reconciliation be replicated in Congo, Somalia, South Sudan and other areas that have had conflict?

For us we have really had to deal with many odds, very strange odds some times. We have even experimented on a number of things. We have tried things out that we had never tried before.

At least we have made sure that one of the options we have is not to just sit and say we can afford to do nothing. If we get it wrong, we try something else but we have to do something. Really we have tried to bring the country that had been back together, the country completely torn apart, and the message has been clear.

We have been talking to each other, looked at each other in the eyes and questioned each other and questioned ourselves and said what is it that made all this happen or what is it that anybody benefited from this kind of situation, and then we come out with another fight altogether trying to get something positive out of our differences.

We have taken this matter to the grassroots level and we have even applied in most cases our traditional means of justice, of reconciliation and in everything, even in the social and economic development we are trying the old traditional ways but modernising them.

I am sure you have heard of the Gacaca and in the rural areas there is something called obudehe which means bringing people’s efforts together. These are things that are decades old in our culture, tradition but we have put some modern touch to them with very good results. Since they have worked for us, some of these methods should be able to work for us.

The most important thing, and this cuts across everything we do: how is the ordinary person involved? How is he being affected by it? How is he associated with it, making them feel they are part of the process and are indispensable?

However, things will not just happen. At some level, leadership will have to be there to try and make things happen. With that in place, we shall ensure that what works is consolidated and not abandoned and then we move on.

Somalia would be the same case, they just need some leaders from clans or groups to get together and say, look, what are we gaining from this? And it will never be done by somebody else from outside, the outside only helps they never substitute the internal mechanism.