A group of Rwandan exiles, Congolese activists, and scholars will be holding a conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on August 3rd to, for one, call on the U.S. not to recognize the validity of the election.
Another pertinent forum would be: "What is the reality of Rwanda's vaunted 'economic miracle'"?
Consider this study published on the website of the Rusesabagina Hotel Rwanda Foundation: "Rwanda Today: When Foreign Aid Hurts More Than It Helps."
Consider this passage from "False Reconciliation," an essay by Canadian academic Susan Thomson, who has done field work in Rwanda, though she reports, in an unfinished chapter of a book, that authorities picked her up and deposited her in a re-education camp, after telling her to stop talking to a lot of lying Rwandan peasants, who are the majority of Rwandans.
Some 90 per cent of Rwandans are peasants who rely on subsistence agriculture. Few of them have benefited from the country's rapid reconstruction. The gap between the wealthy urbanites and the poor rural dwellers is on the increase. Government policies favour the urban elite, many of whom are Tutsi who returned to the country after the genocide. --A False Reconciliation, http://goo.gl/MrFX
These questions, are most relevant in the US and UK, which are the dominant foreign powers in East/Central region, and the most generous foreign donors to Rwanda. The US has donated over $1 billion, $34 million in United States taxpayer-funded foreign assistance to Rwanda since 2000, and President Obama proposes another $240,200,000 fiscal
year 2011 budget.
Many, including Professor Susan Thomson and I, and Rwanda's newspaper editors who have fled to Uganda, expect extremes of violence on election day as rural Rwandans are forced to the polls, though press may not venture, or, may not be allowed to venture close enough to observe this.
Though many Rwandan exiles and supporters of democracy in Rwanda think that the U.S. and Commonwealth election observers should not go, Susan Thomson has said that she believes the election observers should go to protect Rwanda's majority rural peasant population from further election violence.
Defense Minister Gen. James Kabarebe (R) speaks to US AFRICOM chief General William Ward, on a recent visit in Rwanda.
Can Rwanda have a free and fair election given US military influence in the region?
The BBC will never produce that Have Your Say, but that might be the real question that needs asking.
I don't believe we know the cost of U.S. military "assistance" to Kagame's Rwandan Defense Force, because the Pentagon often doesn't commonly share those numbers, but U.S. citizens should consider our military's operations and influence in Rwanda, as reported in the Rwanda News Agency (RNA), with the comic headline: "US military not intending to control Africa - says military chief":
"Kigali: A new US military program training African armies including Rwanda is not a US move to dominate the African continent, a senior Rwanda military chief said Monday.
"We are not blind. We know what we want," said RDF Chief of Staff for Land Forces, Lt. Gen. Caesar Kayizari, at a press briefing on the sidelines of a continental conference on the Africa Endeavor 2010 program.
Close to 150 participants from 33 African nations - from East Africa and the ECOWAS sub-regions are meeting in Kigali for a four-day conference preparing for a joint military exercise dubbed Africa Endeavour (AE) 2010, scheduled for August in Accra, Ghana."
Here's another RNA report, about a U.S. defense contractor, Northrop Grumman with a renewed contract to train Rwandan soldiers: "US firm wins contract to continue training Rwandan soldiers":
"Kigali: Defense firm Northrop Grumman Corporation on Tuesday won the extension of its contract to continue training Rwandan soldiers, the U.S. Department of State announced.
Under the deal, Northrop Grumman Corporation continues providing staff to conduct peacekeeping operations and humanitarianism assistance training for Rwanda and other countries as part of the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program."
American should consider the consequence of AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, in Rwanda, arming, "advising," organizing, dispatching, and otherwise exercising huge influence over that country's army, the Rwandan Defense Force, which Umuseso Editor Charles Kabonero calls "its most influential institution. " President Paul Kagame, when he was the head of the Rwandan Defense Force, trained at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where future generals learn to plan invasions, and his son Ivan Kagame is now a student at West Point.
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