The Power of Horror in Rwanda

Fifteen years ago, efforts at genocide killed about 800,000 Rwandans. Now that tragedy is providing the government with a cover for repression.

by Kenneth Roth

During a gruesome three months in 1994, about 800,000 Rwandans were murdered as part of a calculated effort by a group of Hutu extremists to eradicate the country's Tutsi population.

The genocide ended only with the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a rebel group founded by Rwandan exiles who ousted the Hutu extremists. The front's austere and savvy commander, Paul Kagame, now serves as Rwanda's president.

In the 15 years since the extremist government was ousted, Rwanda has become an island of stability in a volatile region. The economy is booming, the distinction between Hutu and Tutsi is officially downplayed, and ethnic and political violence has been largely eradicated. Kigali, the capital of a country that likes to portray itself as the Switzerland of Africa, is orderly and manicured.

But Rwanda has a long way to go. Despite the facade of occasional elections, the government essentially runs a one-party state. And ironically, it is the genocide that has provided the government with a cover for repression. Under the guise of preventing another genocide, the government displays a marked intolerance of the most basic forms of dissent.

There is no meaningful opposition. The press is cowed. Nongovernmental organizations are under attack. When parliamentary elections held last September produced a whopping 92% victory for Kagame's ruling party, evidence collected by the European Union and Rwandan monitors suggested that the government actually inflated the percentage of opposition votes so as to avoid the appearance of an embarrassing Soviet-style acclamation.

One tool of repression has been the gacaca courts -- informal tribunals run without trained lawyers or judges -- which the government established at the community level to try alleged perpetrators of the genocide. The original impetus was understandable: Rwandan prisons were overpopulated with tens of thousands of alleged genocidaires and no prospect of the country's regular courts trying them within any reasonable time. The gacaca courts provided a quick, if informal, way to resolve these cases. In theory, members of the community would know who had or had not been involved in the genocide, but in reality the lack of involvement by legal professionals has left the proceedings open to manipulation.

Today, 15 years after the genocide, people are still coming forward and accusing their neighbors of complicity in it, suggesting that gacaca has morphed into a forum for settling personal vendettas or silencing dissident voices. The prospect of suddenly being accused of past participation in the genocide, with little legal recourse against concocted charges, is enough to make most people keep their heads down in the political arena.

The government says it will close the gacaca courts in June. But the government has another tool of control -- the crime of "genocide ideology." Formally adopted last year, the law outlawing "genocide ideology" is written so broadly that it can encompass even the most innocuous comments. As many Rwandans have discovered, disagreeing with the government or making unpopular statements can easily be portrayed as genocide ideology, punishable by sentences of 10 to 25 years. That leaves little political space for dissent

Pressing the government to amend these repressive laws and practices is not easy, as I discovered in recent meetings with senior officials from the prime minister on down. They are understandably sensitive about political invective that can lead to renewed ethnic slaughter, but the public faces the very real danger that any political criticism of the government will be construed as fomenting genocide.

Western governments, guilt-ridden at not having stopped the genocide and impressed by Rwanda's stability and economic growth, have been all too willing to close their eyes to this repressive sleight of hand.

But Kagame's strategy is shortsighted and dangerous. He claims to be building a society in which citizens are only Rwandans, not Tutsi or Hutu, but his repression of civil society means that avenues to forge alternative bonds among people are limited. That makes it more likely that in moments of tension Rwandans will resort to their ethnic identity, as so often happens in repressive societies.

The challenge for world leaders 15 years after Rwanda's genocide is to overcome guilt and look beyond the enforced peace to convince Kagame and his government to build the foundation for more organic, lasting stability.

The best way to prevent another genocide is to insist that Kagame stop manipulating the last one.

Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Japan: Speak out for Human Rights

(Tokyo) - The Japanese government, parliament, and bureaucracy should become much stronger proponents for human rights in Asia and worldwide, Human Rights Watch said today at a news conference to open its Tokyo Office.

Human Rights Watch released a letter to Prime Minister Taro Aso, urging the Japanese government to press Burma's military government to free political prisoners, hold free and fair elections, end rampant torture, and stop attacks on ethnic minorities.

"One of our most important tools for defending human rights is our capability to persuade powerful governments to use their leverage on behalf of victims of human rights violations," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, who is in Tokyo for the opening. "As a major power and one of world's largest aid donors, Japan can play a much stronger role in promoting human rights. We are opening our new Tokyo office to help Japan live up to its potential on human rights."

Human Rights Watch said that Japan has been vocal about human rights abuses in North Korea, but has otherwise been more inclined to use quiet diplomacy.

"For Japan to promote human rights successfully and be taken seriously internationally, it needs to use a mixture of private and public diplomacy," said Roth. "Too often, as with the current crisis in Sri Lanka, Japan's voice is missing when it could be a powerful force to protect people from harm."

Human Rights Watch works in more than 80 countries to expose human rights violations and to urge governments to develop policy to protect and promote human rights. In Asia, it is working to raise awareness worldwide of abuses in countries that include Burma, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, where Japan is the single-largest bilateral aid donor.

"We hope, through our Tokyo office, to contribute in various ways to Japan's more active support for human rights, particularly in Asia," Roth said. "The accurate, detailed, and impartial human rights information collected by Human Rights Watch researchers around the globe can help the Japanese government to shape policy and act in a timely and effective manner to address such abuses."

Human Rights Watch is headquartered in New York and has offices in London, Brussels, Washington, DC, Paris, Johannesburg, Moscow, and many other cities around the world. To maintain its independence and impartiality, it receives no funding from any government.

"The opening of our Tokyo office demonstrates Human Rights Watch's commitment to advancing human rights across Asia, and we welcome the participation of the people of Japan in assisting us in this important effort," Roth said.

Roth said that Human Rights Watch intends to share its research with the Japanese press and people in the hope that this will encourage the government to use its influence to promote human rights. Providing more information about human rights issues in countries that benefit from Japanese largesse will help the Japanese people and government evaluate aid programs, he said.

The opening of the new office will be celebrated at a dinner on April 9 in Tokyo. The hosts for the dinner will be 19 major figures in Japan: Minora Fujita, Glen S. Fukushima, Sakie Fukushima, Nobuyuki Idei, Joichi Ito, Yuko Kawamoto, Aki Kinjo, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, Kathy Matsui, Oki Matsumoto, Krishen Mehta, Makoto Miyazaki, Aiko Okawara, Thierry Porté, Ken Shibusawa, Yu Serizawa, Mamoru Taniya, Kimiya Yamamoto, and Yoshinori Yokoyama.

The guest of honor is Ko Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner in Burma and the co-founder of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma (AAPPB), who is the winner of the 2008 Human Rights Watch Defender Award.