Category: Politics

The Government of Rwanda would like to affirm that there are no unofficial detention centres in the country. This comes after Human Rights Watch (HRW) falsely names Gikondo Transit Centre in Kigali as a detention centre. The transit centre has and continues to play an important role in the rehabilitation of those who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Commenting on the report, Rwanda’s Minister of Justice, Johnston Busingye, emphasised that all detention facilities in Rwanda are properly legislated and run in accordance with United Nations standards, and national laws that affirm those principles.

Minister Busingye further reiterated that the country’s recent history has involved a lot of trauma and family conflict: “Victims of such situations, even if they end up in crime or delinquency, are better off when offered another chance in life. The Government of Rwanda stands by its policy of rehabilitation rather than incarceration. This policy has worked in the past and will continue to do so into the future.”

While HRW insists that Rwanda should charge drug addicts and other criminals with serious crimes that carry jail terms, the country has instead chosen to focus on rehabilitating and reintegrating them to offer the chance for a better life. This policy of rehabilitation over incarceration is one example of how Rwanda has found unique solutions to the challenges the country faces.

“Gikondo is not a detention centre. It is a transit centre and people are held there for a short period before longer term remedial or corrective measures are taken. The later consists of rehabilitating and reintegrating former drug addicts and city dwellers – through drug rehabilitation and learning a trade to prevent repetition – and supporting them to reunite with their families,” Minister Busingye said.

Over 7,000 Rwandans have completed the transition programme and are now working in carpentry, masonry, welding, tailoring, and bee-keeping cooperatives – improving their wellbeing for a brighter future.

The Government of Rwanda takes all allegations of human rights abuses seriously, however speculative they may be. Any information related to possible abuses is welcome and will be thoroughly investigated and appropriate action taken. To facilitate this, the National Police has a toll free hotline which can be used anytime to report any abuses. The office of the Ombudsman and the National Commission for Human Rights also welcome any information on human rights violations so that they can be fully investigated.

It is unfortunate that Human Rights Watch has again chosen to deliberately mislead people with false statements that serve only to undermine Rwanda’s efforts to provide a better life for its citizens. HRW has a Memorandum of Understanding with Rwanda’s Ministry of Justice through which human rights concerns can be raised and addressed by the institutions responsible. The Government of Rwanda encourages HRW to use this MoU to address any concerns it has in a constructive manner. However, it has become increasingly clear that HRW refuses to engage through the mechanisms established under the MoU and instead seeks to spread falsehood and speculation.

The Government of Rwanda invites Human Rights Watch to provide information on the alleged cases – according to its report – and any others so that they may be investigated and due process undertaken.

The contrast between Burundi and Rwanda is quite striking. The havoc on one hand, and the evident serenity on the other.

Ending the dogma of presidential term limits in Africa

Beyond this, there is the awareness that African countries are not as identical as we think and that certain groups of people do not vilify their leaders.

And lest I forget. The calm of the Rwandan people is apparently due to the terror of the Rwandan Robespierre, which would make Kagame more tyrannical than Nkurunziza.

Let’s try a thought experiment to test this idea.

Rwanda is an exception in recent African history. In the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide, the fate of this East African country was sealed: without resources, it was destined to join the long list of African countries whose ambition seemed to be to remain insignificant.

From chaos, the Rwandan leader was to build a modern state and a true nation. Not an easy feat. Yet 21 years after the destruction of the country, Rwanda is one of the most promising countries on the continent.

Appreciating the true value of Rwanda’s journey is difficult if one does not see it from a historical perspective.

Western countries have developed modern states – impersonal and efficient – gradually from the late 17th century, which is late considering their long history.

Modernization before democratization

In most of these countries the modernisation of state institutions preceded democratisation. The context of permanent wars at the time forced these reforms. The lack of the “‘Human Rights-ism’” (pejorative expression of excessively tolerant implementation of the human rights concept or its distortion) was a catalyst.

Germany is emblematic of this phenomenon. Under constant military pressure from its powerful neighbors, Prussia was forced to modernize a patrimonial state. Initiated around 1648 after the Treaty of Westphalia, this transformation was completed with the implementation of the Stein-Hardenberg reforms in the early 19th century.

Like Germany, and in similar contexts, several European countries first built effective states and ensured the law ruled over the arbitrary before developing democratic systems.

National unity of the great Asian and Western countries seems miraculous when you look at it from the African perspective. Ethnic or religious tensions here are still latent. Forging a national identity is in fact achieving utopia.

As Ernest Renan recalls in “What is a Nation”, “the existence of a nation is a daily plebiscite”.

The emergence of a nation is not a natural phenomenon – people of different backgrounds and cultures coming together is not a spontaneous reaction but the result of political will.

And because “unity is always achieved through violence” political will in the past was shaped through violence.

But, fortunately, “amnesia and omission in history are essential factors in the creation of a nation”, due to “acts of violence that occurred at the origin of all political processes.”

History is politically incorrect. But it has a formula: different types of dictatorship – not democracy – built great European and Asian nations. Democracy can empower people but it makes building systems difficult.

Peaceful transformation

Our era differentiates itself from previous ones by the importance we place on human dignity. It is an undeniable progress. The career of a dictatorship has never been so uncertain. But in the eyes of history, ‘Human Rights-ism’ is also a constraint on the visionary leaders of our time.

According to the World Economic Forum 2014-2015 ranking, the Government of Rwanda is the most efficient on the continent and the 7th most efficient in the world. Furthermore, indications show that Rwanda is gradually taking shape as a nation. Since 2000, the country has been radically transformed, without any instability.

Historically, that is unheard of in Africa.

This small miracle is the result of a consensus between the people of Rwanda and their representative.

Rwandans have agreed not to be the Dutch. In return, Kagame has promised to emulate Lee Kwan Yew.

Before longing for freedom in the Western sense, Rwandans are fond of order, stability, and economic opportunities. True freedom comes from these three elements.

For a long time swans were known to be white. Then Australia was discovered. And with her, black swans. The theory of Black Swan was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to describe phenomenon that are not easily predictable but do occur (the election of Barack Obama is one example). The metaphor of the Black Swan is also an indicator of our ignorance.

We are used to dictators in Africa: leaders despised by their people and who cling to power beyond constitutional limits. Perhaps, with Paul Kagame, we are in the presence of a black swan: a leader appreciated by a people that in its majority want him to continue his masterpiece. If this is the case, then the least one can do is put an end to the dogma of presidential term limits in Africa.

The writer is a Cameroonian entrepreneur and essayist. A graduate of Sciences Po Paris, he lives and works in Cameroon.

This article was first published in Jeune Afrique in French and Republished by The New Times in English

By JENDAYI FRAZER
Nairobi, Kenya

President Obama arrived in Kenya on Friday and will travel from here to Ethiopia, two crucial U.S. allies in East Africa. The region is not only emerging as an economic powerhouse, it is also an important front in the battle with al Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Islamic State and other Islamist radicals.

Yet grievances related to how the International Criminal Court’s universal jurisdiction is applied in Africa are interfering with U.S. and European relations on the continent. In Africa there are accusations of neocolonialism and even racism in ICC proceedings, and a growing consensus that Africans are being unjustly indicted by the court.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After the failure to prevent mass atrocities in Europe and Africa in the 1990s, a strong consensus emerged that combating impunity had to be an international priority. Ad hoc United Nations tribunals were convened to judge the masterminds of genocide and crimes against humanity in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. These courts were painfully slow and expensive. But their mandates were clear and limited, and they helped countries to turn the page and focus on rebuilding.

Soon universal jurisdiction was seen not only as a means to justice, but also a tool for preventing atrocities in the first place. Several countries in Western Europe including Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium and France empowered their national courts with universal jurisdiction. In 2002 the International Criminal Court came into force.

Africa and Europe were early adherents and today constitute the bulk of ICC membership. But India, China, Russia and most of the Middle East—representing well over half the world’s population—stayed out. So did the United States. Leaders in both parties worried that an unaccountable supranational court would become a venue for politicized show trials. The track record of the ICC and European courts acting under universal jurisdiction has amply borne out these concerns.

Only when U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld threatened to move NATO headquarters out of Brussels in 2003 did Belgium rein in efforts to indict former President George H.W. Bush, and Gens. Colin Powell and Tommy Franks, for alleged “war crimes” during the 1990-91 Gulf War. Spanish courts have indicted American military personnel in Iraq and investigated the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.

But with powerful states able to shield themselves and their clients, Africa has borne the brunt of indictments. Far from pursuing justice for victims, these courts have become a venue for public-relations exercises by activist groups. Within African countries, they have been manipulated by one political faction to sideline another, often featuring in electoral politics.

The ICC’s recent indictments of top Kenyan officials are a prime example. In October 2014, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta became the first sitting head of state to appear before the ICC, though he took the extraordinary step of temporarily transferring power to his deputy to avoid the precedent. ICC prosecutors indicted Mr. Kenyatta in connection with Kenya’s post-election ethnic violence of 2007-08, in which some 1,200 people were killed.

Last December the ICC withdrew all charges against Mr. Kenyatta, saying the evidence had “not improved to such an extent that Mr Kenyatta’s alleged criminal responsibility can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.” As U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 2005-09, and the point person during Kenya’s 2007-08 post-election violence, I knew the ICC indictments were purely political. The court’s decision to continue its case against Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, reflects a degree of indifference and even hostility to Kenya’s efforts to heal its political divisions.

The ICC’s indictments in Kenya began with former chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s determination to prove the court’s relevance in Africa by going after what he reportedly called “low-hanging fruit.” In other words, African political and military leaders unable to resist ICC jurisdiction.

More recently, the arrest of Rwandan chief of intelligence Lt. Gen. Emmanuel Karenzi Karake in London last month drew a unanimous reproach from the African Union’s Peace and Security Council. The warrant dates to a 2008 Spanish indictment for alleged reprisal killings following the 1994 Rwandan genocide. At the time of the indictment, Mr. Karenzi Karake was deputy commander of the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping operation in Darfur. The Rwandan troops under his command were the backbone of the Unamid force, and his performance in Darfur was by all accounts exemplary.

Moreover, a U.S. government interagency review conducted in 2007-08, when I led the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, found that the Spanish allegations against Mr. Karenzi Karake were false and unsubstantiated. The U.S. fully backed his reappointment in 2008 as deputy commander of Unamid forces. It would be a travesty of justice if the U.K. were to extradite Mr. Karake to Spain to stand trial.

Sadly, the early hope of “universal jurisdiction” ending impunity for perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity has given way to cynicism, both in Africa and the West. In Africa it is believed that, in the rush to demonstrate their power, these courts and their defenders have been too willing to brush aside considerations of due process that they defend at home.

In the West, the cynicism is perhaps even more damaging because it calls into question the moral capabilities of Africans and their leaders, and revives the language of paternalism and barbarism of earlier generations.

Ms. Frazer, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa (2004-05) and assistant secretary of state for African affairs (2005-09), is an adjunct senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Miss Rwanda 2014 Akiwacu Colombe is supporting the amendment of the Rwandan Constitution so that President Paul Kagame continues to be the head of State because she refers him as a leader that Rwandans still want.

The Beauty Queen has emphasized that president Paul Kagame is a wonderful leader who managed to take Rwanda to a great development and he can still do it as far as he is given the opportunity.

On her Instagram she said, “He took the country far towards development. He can take it further if allowed. HE Paul Kagame is the leader Rwanda still needs. I don’t see any reason of not giving ourselves more chances to changes by giving him more time to lead us to a brighter future”.

Akiwacu Colombe is hardly supporting that the Rwanda Constitution amendment changes for the better future of Rwanda as a country.

Besides the beauty Queen of Rwanda 2014, many Rwandeses are supportive to the Rwanda Constitution amendment so that President Paul Kagame continues to lead the country.

What do Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles and South Africa have in common? The answer is that these four African nations are among the 10 countries with the highest number of women in their parliaments. Rwanda heads that list: 64% of its MPs are women. Seychelles is fifth, with 44%, while Senegal comes seventh, with a parliament that comprises 43% women and South Africa is ninth, with 42% of its parliament women.

The UK doesn’t show up well in this particular set of statistics from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). Women hold 148 of the UK’s 650 parliamentary seats, putting the country at 56th in the list, just below Kyrgysztan. The US fares even worse, coming joint 72nd with Panama. While Sweden (6th) and Finland (8th) unsurprisingly score well, it is tiny Andorra (3rd), with 50% female MPs, that is the highest ranked European country.

Worldwide, only one in five MPs are women and this week, more than 400 female parliamentarians from around the world meet in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to address the complex issue of getting more gender parity into our elected assemblies.

Of the 46 countries in the world where women account for more than a quarter of parliamentarians, 14 are in Africa. One possible reason for there being more female MPs in countries not otherwise best known for equal society or female employment is that often these countries have accepted the need for quotas for female candidates in elections, whereas many western countries, including the UK, prefer other tactics. In Rwanda, 30% of all candidates in elections must be women, while in Senegal, since 2012, it is 50%.

According to the IPU, electoral quotas, which have been used in more than 120 countries have underpinned much of the global rise in women MPs to date. But last year saw the slowest increase so far (0.3%) and the IPU says other measures are needed to complement the use of quotas, if progress is to be sustained.

But the conference in Addis Ababa is about more than just numbers and getting women into power. The real isssue is what women do with that power once they have it and the potential impact of female leadership on policy-making.

The sessions at this year’s conference range include the practical, such as media training for female politicians (or “how to answer stupid questions”), but mainly focus on the complex and interrelated challenges that face us all as global citizens. How can we make sure that prosperity benefits everyone? What kind of leadership will best help us tackle growing security risks around the world?

As Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who chairs the African Union Commission, put it in her welcome to this year’s conference, we are beginning to see a difference in the laws and policies in parliaments where we have a critical mass of women.

Implementing those policies depends on public managers as much as politicians. There isn’t as much data on the number of women in public leadership roles as for political roles, but figures collated by consultants EY (formerly Ernst and Young) on the G20 countries show that countries that tend to be strong on one indicator do well on both. South Africa is relatively high for women in senior positions in politics, public sector leadership and private sector leadership: a testament, according to EY, to the country’s strong framework of targets and affirmative action, while Canada, which has the highest number of female public leaders in the world (45.9%), has a long history of taking positive action to promote under-represented groups in public services.

Perhaps it’s time for the UK to start learning from other countries about how to improve gender parity. Only one female parliamentarian, MEP Linda McAvan, is at the Addis conference. Before International Women’s Day on 8 March, journalist Michael Crick drew up a list of just over 30 of the most influential posts in the UK that have never yet been held by a woman, ranging from chancellor of the exchequer and mayor of London to head of the civil service, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the CBI. If nearly half of cabinet ministers and half of the supreme court justices in Rwanda are women, surely the UK can do better than this.

The Guardian

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel holds its second general election in just over two years on Tuesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved parliament following the breakdown of his coalition government.

Here are brief profiles of the leaders of the main political parties.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

Known as “Bibi”, Netanyahu heads the rightwing Likud party and is seeking a third consecutive term, his fourth overall.

Polls show the centre-left Zionist Union slightly ahead of Likud but analysts say Netanyahu, 65, is best placed to form a parliamentary majority with support from ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties.

The son of a Zionist historian, Netanyahu presents himself as the guardian of Israeli security against Iran and radical Islam.

Educated in the United States, he served in Israel’s special forces and is considered close to the American school of neo-conservative politics.

ISAAC HERZOG

The head of the opposition Labour Party, Herzog has joined forces with the centrist HaTnuah to form the Zionist Union.

A 54-year-old lawyer and son of Israel’s sixth president, Herzog has been a member of parliament since 2003 and held several cabinet posts. A social rights activist, he has repeatedly called for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Despite his political pedigree, critics accuse Herzog of lacking charisma.

TZIPI LIVNI

A former justice minister and chief peace negotiator, Livni was sacked by Netanyahu in December for “acting against the government from within” after opposing a controversial bill aimed at enshrining Israel’s status as the Jewish state in law.

Livni, a 56-year-old lawyer, is a former undercover agent for the Mossad spy agency and a one-time foreign minister who cut her political teeth with Likud.

Often described as Israel’s most powerful woman and compared with former prime minister Golda Meir, Livni has defied her staunch nationalist background and become convinced that the only way to preserve Israel as a Jewish state is to relinquish at least some of the land occupied in the 1967 Six Day War.

NAFTALI BENNETT

The head of the far-right Jewish Home party, Bennett, 42, is a champion of the settler movement and a key challenger of Netanyahu to head Israel’s rightwing.

A slick communicator, he is a savvy user of social media who is fluent in Hebrew, English and French. He held the economy portfolio in the outgoing government.

He openly opposes a Palestinian state and pushes his own “peace plan” which would see Israel annexing 60 percent of the West Bank.

Born to American immigrants, he served as a commando with the special forces before starting a lucrative career in high-tech.

AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN

The outgoing foreign minister and head of the hard-right Yisrael Beitenu party, Lieberman is known to his critics as the “doberman”.

A firebrand with ambition to lead the right, Lieberman, 56, has been dogged by corruption allegations for nearly two decades but in 2013 was acquitted on charges of fraud and breach of trust.

Born in what is now Moldova, he immigrated to Israel at 20 and worked as a nightclub bouncer before entering politics.

He is known for his blistering attacks on Israel’s Arab minority as well as on the Palestinian leadership.

YAIR LAPID

The former finance minister and head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, Lapid was sacked by Netanyahu in December alongside Livni.

A former news anchor and newspaper commentator, the telegenic 51-year-old entered politics in 2012 pledging to defend Israel’s middle class, his party storming to success in elections a year later.

Despite his economics-driven campaign, Lapid failed as finance minister to tackle the soaring cost of living and reduce spiralling rent prices.

MOSHE KAHLON

A popular former Likud minister who left politics before the previous election two years ago, Kahlon returned to set up his centre-right Kulanu party in late 2014.

Kahlon, 54, earned fame as communications minister for smashing Israel’s mobile phone monopoly, cutting prices for consumers.

The son of immigrants from Libya, Kahlon says he backs a two-state solution but sees “no partner” on the Palestinian side.