Steven McDonald, Consulting Director, African Program at  Woodrow Wilson Center for Scolars in Washington, DC is a rare breed of experts on Africa. A former press assistant to Senator Stuart Symington, he served as a foreign service officer in several U.S. Embassies in Africa, especially in Uganda, South Africa Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe and has worked on and lead several initiatives on Africa, including African Great Lakes Region. His career started, well.., more than 40 years ago.  He is a veteran expert, and as an expert, he knows what he is talking about. Hence, when he talks, people listen.  Especially those in Washington.

Steven McDonald recently returned from Rwanda with a load of bad news. As a diplomat he prefers to call the news: disturbing. The “disturbing” news include brutal repression against journalists, the opposition, and other suspected dissenters. That would be disturbing enough. But there is more: assassination attempts on exiled Rwandans, assassination of journalists and decapitation of opposition figures.  So, Steven McDonald must have been  ... shaken!

"The fear is palpable, the nervousness, the feeling that there is no freedom of speech and association and gathering in the society and I think this could be disastrous," he told the press, before quickly defending the rather timid reaction from the West.

"Kagame is an extremely energetic, extremely intelligent man who has fully taken advantage of many of the hot buttons that he knows the West cares about, that is economic progress, that is environmental concern, that is furthering information technology.  He is taking the lead on the international stage that originally put him among these new African leaders during the Clinton administration, including Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, and  Museveni in Uganda."But Steven MacDonald ends up  putting a nail in the coffin, by admitting that all of these leaders, hailed by the Clinton Administration as the new breed of African leaders have failed their countries in terms of democracy and human rights.

Paul Kagame has none of that. In one of  the rally meetings by the Tutsi minority ruling RPF, in which  hundreds of thousands of Rwandan peasants are hauled from their villages at gun point to listen to the self styled leader, he asked the West to hang themselves if they believe he is a dictator.  The meeting, held on Monday August 2, 210 in the former prefecture of Byumba, was ironic. It was at the same place where in 1994, Paul Kagame invited thousands of ethnic Hutu civilians. Once the civilians gathered, he allegedly gave  his rebel army soldiers specific orders to shoot  and not spare anyone.

In  recent meetings with the press, both President Kagame and his foreign Affairs Minister, Louise Mushikiwabo argued that the Rwandan government could not be that stupid to kill the journalists and the leading opposition figures.

"Why would government be that stupid?  I never knew I would be in a government that would be seen as that stupid, that would kill journalists, opposition leaders, one after another, you kill and you kill, as if there is anything to gain from it," said  General Paul Kagame, echoing Louise Mushikiwabo.

But that is exactly the point, and General Paul Kagame, a military general, strategist and former intelligence officer, knows it: committing such blatant crimes that no one, using  such a simplistic argumentation, would suspect.  Unfortunately for General Paul Kagame and, Ms Louise Mushikiwabo for the matter, this kind of defense justification is so lame and so childish than only fools may bite the bait. It rather reinforces what people have suspected all along.

Paul Kagame’s quickest answers to most of his challengers appear to have been assassinations. In an interview with a Ugandan Newspaper, Observer, on Monday August 2, 2010, one of the former Rwandan Intelligence officers and Kagame’s closest aid during the good old times, Colonel Patrick Karegeya, now exiled in South Africa,  alluded to that in the following exchange:

[Observer]: How do you explain the mysterious death of Col. Rezinde in 1996 and former Internal Security Minister Seth Sendashonga on May 16, 1998, both of whom were assassinated under your watch as the Director, External Intelligence?

[Colonel Karegeya] It is not only Col. Rezinde and Sendashonga who died mysteriously around that time. Many people, especially politicians, died under mysterious circumstances. I can’t say I don’t have information regarding those cases, but Kagame was the boss so he is in a better position to explain those assassinations and mysterious disappearances of people. Families of people who lost their relatives and friends in mysterious circumstances have the right to seek answers from Kagame and if they want they can go ahead and institute a legal measure because they have the right to know what happened. When time comes for me to present my version of information, I am prepared to do that. “

And Colonel Karegeya has a solution for Kagame: “A dictator can never step down, they are brought down. It’s only Rwandans who can stand up now and fight for their freedom. Kagame will have his breaking point and I think it will be very soon.
There is no one who will come to save Rwandans from the dictatorship of Kagame and there is no time to fold hands. They should stand up to him and say look; we are tired, you have to go. Obviously some will lose their lives in the process but those who will die will have lost life for a worthy cause, and I am prepared to support Rwandans who want to fight the dictatorship of Paul Kagame. “

©AfroAmerica, 2010