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Rwanda
Ten Years after the Genocide
The International
Response to the Crisis
By Gerald Caplan
Around the world,
commemorations of the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide
are about to be launched. The central actors responsible for
allowing Hutu extremists to perpetrate the genocide are well
known: the government of France, the United Nations
Security Council
led by the USA with British backing, the UN Secretariat, the
government of Belgium, and, by no means least, the Roman
Catholic Church. The Organization of African Unity also refused
to condemn the genocidaires and proved to be largely irrelevant
throughout the crisis. As a consequence of these acts of
commission and omission, 800,000 Tutsi and thousands of moderate
Hutu were murdered in a period of 100 days. . . . The following
is a selection of some of those events. ...
1. Time and
again in the months prior to and during the genocide, the
Commander of the UN military mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) pleaded
with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York to
expand his very limited mandate. The only time his request was
ever approved was in the days immediately after the Rwandan
president's plane was shot down, triggering the genocide. UNAMIR
was then authorized to exceed its narrow mandate exclusively for
the purpose of helping to evacuate foreign nationals, mainly
westerners, from the country. Never was such flexibility granted
to protect Rwandans.
2. Heavily
armed western troops began materializing at Kigali airport
within hours to evacuate their nationals. Beyond UNAMIR's 2500
peacekeepers, these included 500 Belgian para-commandos, 450
French and 80 Italian troops from parachute regiments, another
500 Belgian para-commandos on stand-by in Kenya, 250 US Rangers
on stand-by in Burundi, and 800 more French troops on stand-by
in the region. None made any attempt to protect Rwandans at
risk. Besides western nationals, French troops evacuated a
number of well-known leaders of the extremist Hutu Power
movement, including the wife of the murdered president and her
family. All non-UNAMIR troops left within days, immediately
after their evacuation mission was completed.
3. From the
beginning of the genocide to its end, no government or
organization other than NGOs formally described events in Rwanda
as a genocide.
4. From
beginning to end, all governments and official bodies continued
to recognize the genocidaire government as the legitimate
government of Rwanda.
5. The
months of the genocide happened to coincide with Rwanda's turn
to fill one of the non-permanent seats on the Security Council.
Throughout those 3 months, the representative of the government
executing the genocide continued to take that seat and
participate in all deliberations, including discussions on
Rwanda.
6. Almost
all official bodies remained neutral as between the genocidaires
and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the mostly Tutsi rebels in the
civil war that was being fought at the same time as the
genocide. As if they were morally equivalent groups, both the
genocidaire government and those fighting to end the genocide
were called upon by the UN, the Organization of African Unity
and others to agree to a cease-fire. They did not call on the
genocidaires to stop the genocide. Had the RPF agreed to a
cease-fire, the scale of the genocide behind government lines
would have been even greater.
7. Only days
after the genocide began, 2500 Tutsi as well as Hutu opposition
politicians crowded into a Kigali school known as ETO, where
Belgian UN troops were billeted . . . the Belgian soldiers were
ordered to depart ETO to assist in evacuating foreign nationals
from the country. They did so abruptly, making no arrangements
whatever for the protection of those they were safeguarding. As
they moved out, the killers moved in. When the afternoon was
over, all 2500 civilians had been murdered.
8. After 10
Belgian UN soldiers were killed by Rwandan government troops the
day after the Rwandan President's plane was shot down, Belgium
withdrew all its troops from the UN mission. So that Belgium
would not alone be blamed for scuttling UNAMIR, its government
then strenuously lobbied the UN to disband the mission in its
entirety.
9. Two weeks
after the crisis had begun, with information about the magnitude
of the genocide increasing by the day, the Security Council did
come very close to shutting down UNAMIR altogether.
Instead, led by the USA and the United Kingdom, it voted
to decimate the mission, reducing it from 2500 to 270.
10. After
the deaths of 18 American soldiers in Somalia in October 1993,
the United States decided to participate in no more UN military
missions. The Clinton administration further decided that no
significant UN missions were to be allowed at all, even if
American troops would not be involved. Thanks mostly to the
delaying tactics of the US, after 100 days of the genocide not a
single reinforcement of UN troops or military supplies had
reached Rwanda.
11. Bill
Clinton later apologized for not doing more to stop the
genocide. However, his claim that his administration had not
been aware of the real situation was a lie.
12. French
officials were senior advisers to both the Rwandan government
and military in the years leading to the genocide, with
unparalleled influence on both. Virtually until the moment the
genocide began, they gave unconditional support as well as
considerable arms to the Hutu elite. . . . To this day the French
have never acknowledged their role nor apologized for it.
13. After 6
weeks of genocide, France, which offered no troops to the UN
mission, suddenly decided to intervene in Rwanda. Within a week
of the decision, Operation Turquoise was able to deploy 2500 men
with 100 armored personnel carriers, 10 helicopters, a battery
of 120 mm mortars, 4 Jaguar fighter bombers, and 8 Mirage
fighters and reconnaissance planes---all for an ostensibly
humanitarian operation. The French forces created a safe haven
in the south-west of the country which provided sanctuary not
only to fortunate Tutsi but also to many leading Rwandan
government and military officials as well as large numbers of
soldiers and militia---the very Hutu Power militants who had
organized and carried out the genocide. ...
15. The
Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda was the largest and most
influential denomination in the country, with intimate ties to
the government at all levels. It failed to denounce the
government's explicit ethnic foundations, failed to denounce its
increasing use of violence against Tutsi, failed to denounce or
even name the genocide, failed to apologize for the many clergy
who aided and abetted the genocidaires, and to this day has
never apologized for its overall role. The Pope has refused to
apologize on behalf of the Church as a whole.
16. Within
months of the end of the genocide, relief workers and
representatives of the international community in Rwanda were
telling Rwandans they must "Quit dwelling on the past and
concentrate on rebuilding for the future" and insisting
that "Yes, the genocide happened, but it's time to get over
it and move on."
17. George
W. Bush, during the campaign for the 2000 Republican
presidential nomination, was asked by a TV interviewer what he
would do as president if, "God forbid, another Rwanda"
should take place. He replied: "We should not send our
troops to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide outside our own
strategic interest. I would not send US troops into
Rwanda."
18. The new
Rwanda Patriotic Front government inherited a debt of close to
$1 billion, some of it incurred by the previous government in
genocide preparations---expanding its army and militias and
buying arms. After the genocide, the RPF was obligated to repay
in full the country's debt to its western lenders.
19.
Following the genocide, the World Bank was left with a $160
million program of aid to Rwanda that it had extended to the
previous government. . Even though the new government was
penniless, the Bank refused to activate that sum until the new
government paid $9 million in interest incurred by its
predecessor. A Bank official told a UN representative:
"After all, we are a commercial enterprise and have to
adhere to our regulations. " The sum was eventually paid by
some donors.
20. In the
first nine months after the genocide, the donor community
provided $1.4 billion in aid to the Hutu refugee camps in
eastern Zaire and Tanzania. Since, as was universally known,
genocidaires had taken over the camps, a good part of these
funds went to feed and shelter them and to fund their
re-training and re-arming as they planned cross-border raids
back into Rwanda. For Rwanda itself, while donor funds for
reconstruction were generously pledged, in the first year after
the genocide only $68 million was actually disbursed. To this
day, Rwanda has never received reparations remotely commensurate
with the damage that the international community had failed to
prevent.
21. Once the
genocide ended, the UN military mission was finally expanded. As
UNAMIR II, it remained in Rwanda for almost two more years as a
peacekeeping force, costing the UN $15 million a month. But the
main challenge had become less one of peacekeeping and more one
of peace-building -- the reconstruction of a totally devastated
country. UNAMIR had the equipment, the skills and the will to
play a major role in reviving the country's shattered
structures. What it lacked was the mandate and modest funding
from the Security Council to perform such a role. But UN
headquarters never sought such authorization from the Security
Council, nor did the Council ever initiate such a move. ...
22. So far
as is known, not a single person in any government or in the UN
has ever been fired or held accountable for failing to intervene
in the genocide. In fact, the opposite is true. Some careers
flourished in the aftermath. Several of the main actors were
actually promoted. We can consider this the globalization of
impunity.
23. Despite the unanimity of every major
study undertaken and in the face of the testimonies of survivors
and the first-hand accounts of international humanitarian
workers in Rwanda at the time, denial of the genocide persists.
Deniers include Hutu Power advocates, many of them still active
in western countries, as well as lawyers and investigators
working for Hutu clients at the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda. Denying the Rwandan genocide is the moral equivalent
of denying the Holocaust.
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[Gerald Caplan was
on the staff of the International Panel of Eminent Personalities
appointed by the Organization of African Unity to investigate
the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and is the founder of
"Remembering Rwanda: The Rwanda Genocide 10th Anniversary
Memorial Project".]
Source:
The full text of this
editorial originally published in Pambazuka News for February 5
is available at
http://www.pambazuka.org * * *
* * History of the
Genocide in Rwanda
As the smallest country in Africa
with the largest population, 7 million, Rwanda has had to overcome
famine, overpopulation, and, most recently, a massive genocide which
reduced their population by a huge amount. The country of Rwanda has had
an interesting history due to their two supposed ethnic groups, the
Hutus, the majority, and the Tutsis, who consist of about 15-18% of the
population. The Tutsis were more prominent in the royalty and hierarchy
of the country but most of them were still peasants. The Hutus were the
farmers and the Tutsis ran the cattle. During the time of European
Colonization, the Belgians came to Rwanda and decided to further the gap
between the peaceful Hutus and Tutsis. The Belgians saw the Tutsis as
more like themselves; therefore, they took them under their wing and
educated them and brought them up to be the upper echelon of society.
The Europeans created tribal cards to differentiate between the two
groups. Believing that they were just furthering what the Tutsis had
created, the Belgians created a class system. Due to their presence, the
Belgians made the discrimination between the two groups greater and yet
the Hutus and Tutsis were still living together peacefully. The Hutus,
having no power, accepted the role of the oppressed.
In 1962,
Rwanda gained their independence from Belgium. The Europeans, however,
left the country in a state of discord due to the majority of Hutus who
were able to gain back their power from the Tutsis, who were viewed as
feudal overlords. Soon the Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement (PARMEHUTU)
came into power. The once oppressed Hutus decided to take revenge and
many Tutsis were killed. 200,000 Tutsi refugees fled to neighboring
country to escape the violence that was taking place in their country. .
. .—Trincol
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* * A Brief History
1400 - 1994
Once, Hutus and Tutsis lived in
harmony in Central Africa. About 600 years ago, Tutsis, a tall, warrior
people, moved south from Ethiopia and invaded the homeland of the Hutus.
Though much smaller in number, they conquered the Hutus, who agreed to
raise crops for them in return for protection.
Even in the colonial era—when
Belgium ruled the area, after taking it from Germany in 1916—the two
groups lived as one, speaking the same language, intermarrying, and
obeying a nearly godlike Tutsi king.
Independence changed everything.
The monarchy was dissolved and Belgian troops withdrawn—a power vacuum
both Tutsis and Hutus fought to fill. Two new countries emerged in
1962—Rwanda, dominated by the Hutus, and Burundi by the Tutsis—and the
ethnic fighting flared on and off in the following decades.
It exploded in 1994 with the civil
war in Rwanda in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate
Hutus were killed. Tutsi rebels won control, which sent a million Hutus,
fearful of revenge, into Zaire and Tanzania.
In Burundi, the Tutsis yielded
power after a Hutu won the country's first democratic election in 1993.
He was killed in an attempted coup four months later, and his successor
in a suspicious plane crash in 1994, in which the Hutu leader of Rwanda
was also killed.—CNN
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* * Why is there
conflict between Tutsis and Hutus?
The bloody history of
Hutu and
Tutsi conflict stained the 20th century, from the slaughter of
80,000 to 200,000 Hutus by the Tutsi army in Burundi in 1972 to the 1994
Rwanda genocide in which Hutu militias targeted Tutsis, resulting in a
100-day death toll between 800,000 and 1 million.
But many observers would be
surprised to learn that the longstanding conflict between the Hutu and
Tutsi has nothing to do with language or religion—they speak the same
Bantu tongues as well as French, and generally practice Christianity—and
many geneticists have been hard-pressed to find marked ethnic
differences between the two, though the Tutsi have generally been noted
to be taller. Many believe that German and Belgian colonizers tried to
find differences between the Hutu and Tutsi in order to better
categorize native peoples in their censuses.
Generally, the Hutu-Tutsi strife
stems from class warfare, with the Tutsis perceived to have greater
wealth and social status (as well as favoring cattle ranching over what
is seen as the lower-class farming of the Hutus). The Tutsis are thought
to have originally come from Ethiopia, and arrived after the Hutu came
from Chad. The Tutsis had a monarchy dating back to the 15th century;
this was overthrown at the urging of Belgian colonizers in the early
1960s and the Hutu took power by force in Rwanda. In Burundi, however, a
Hutu uprising failed and the Tutsis controlled the country.—WorldNews
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Hutu vs Tutsi
With the arrival of catholic
missions in the African great lake Region, there was a resistance from
Tutsi community against conversion. The missionaries were successful
with the Hutu. Properties of Tutsis were taken away from them and given
to Hutus. This was the beginning of the conflict between the two ethnic
groups.
Culturally, Rwanda has a monarchy
system of Tutsi monarch, the Mwami. The other area that is the
northwestern part is ruled by Hutu society. The rule of the king was
demolished after it received independence. Currently there seem to be no
cultural difference between the Tutsi and Hutu and they speak the same
Bantu language. There were marriages between a Tutsi and a Hutu. The
child was reared up as per the father’s culture. The impression is that
Tutsi is a class and not an
ethnic identity. But there are several dissimilarities in the two
groups of societies.
German rulers gave special status
to Tutsis as the rulers found them to be superior to Hutus. Tutsis are
well turned-out people in relation to Hutus, who are shy and timid. This
earned Tutsis the chance to get educated and find a place in the
government. The Hutus were in majority and this special status sparked
off conflicts between the two groups. This policy was followed by the
Belgians who took over control of the region after World War I. Finally
in the year 1959, Belgians changed their stand and allowed Hutus to form
the government through proper mandate.—DifferenceBetween
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* * Tutsi, Hutu and
Hima—Cultural Background in Rwanda
Burundi and Rwanda had already
become separate Tutsi kingdoms before European occupation as the Tutsi-Hima
empire broke up. The Tutsis were a minority in both territories, and
currently make up about 15% of the Burundi population and about 9% in
Rwanda. But do not overlook the fact that the Tutsis and Hutus had
intermarried considerably, even with the tribal class distinctions.
Some Tutsis have more Bantu
features than the "pure" Tutsis. But the Tutsis have commonly been
referred to as "the tall ones" and the Hutus "the short ones." Many
observers of the region comment that there has been no real difference
other than superficial differences in features, and that the "tribal"
division referred to in recent history was a class distinction exploited
by the Germans and treated only by the colonialists as a difference in
ethnicity.
The Colonial Era
Animosity between the "indigenous" people and the Tutsis increased due
to the German, then the Belgian,
colonial pattern of indirect rule. The colonials chose the Tutsi
minority as their ruling class under the suzerainty of the Belgian
Empire.
Under German colonial domination
from 1890, Germany first occupied what is now Burundi until the end of
World War 1, when Burundi and Rwanda were joined by the League of
Nations under Belgian administration as Rwanda-Urundi.
Initially Belgian indirect rule
supported Tutsi power, but tension built between the two tribes.
Clashes have broken out periodically in both countries. The Tutsis
have remained dominant in military and politics in Burundi, though
recently Hutus have been brought into the government.—OrvilleJenkins
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* * Hutu and Tutsi
It has been theorized that the
distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi were not emphasized until the area
was colonized by European settlers. When conducting census counts, the
Belgians separated Africans into Tutsi and Hutu groups based solely
on appearance or wealth. The colonists believed that the Tutsi were
superior because they were taller and had longer noses and therefore
more similar to Europeans. On this basis, only Tutsi were allowed to
participate in government or seek education. Naturally, this caused
dissatisfaction among the Hutu majority. In
1959, the Belgian government reversed this practice and implemented
a Hutu government. Civil wars and genocides instigated by both sides
have occurred periodically ever since.—Mahalo
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* * Hutus vs. Tutsis
The ethno-racial clashes between African tribes
have been particularly murderous in Rwanda and Burundi because these two
small areas are the densest in Africa. Rwanda, for example, has about
seven million people in an area the size of Vermont – not a lot by
Western European standards, but very dense for Africa. In this
relatively small area there have lived for centuries, side by side and
at each other's throats, two very different racial tribes: the Hutu and
Tutsi. The Tutsi are familiar to all those who saw the grand epic movie,
King Solomon's Mines (the 1950 version with Stewart Granger and
Deborah Kerr); they are a tall, slender, graceful, noble-looking tribe,
there called the Watusi. The Tutsi are an Ethiopid, Nilotic people. The
Hutu, on the other hand, are short, squat Bantu, a closer approximation
to what used to be called "Negro" in America. "Negroes" are now called
"black," but the problem here is that the skin color of both the Tutsi
and the Hutu are much the same. The real issue, as in most other cases,
is not skin color but various character traits of different population
groups.
The crucial point is that, in both Rwanda and
Burundi, Hutus and Tutsis have coexisted for centuries; the Tutsi are
about 15 percent of the total population, the Hutu about 85 percent. And
yet consistently, over the centuries, the Tutsi have totally dominated,
and even enserfed, the Hutu.—LewRockwell
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Hutu and Tutsi
By
Aimable Twagilimana
Gr 5-9—A Rwandan
linguist explains the people of Rwanda and Burundi. He deals
primarily with Rwanda, and a large portion of the book (17
pages of 60) concerns Hutu/Tutsi politics and violence since
1959. This emphasis tends to obscure the roots of the
problem in the colonial period. Twagilimana accurately
stresses that the Hutu, Tutsi (and Twa) share language,
religion, and space, with their identities having been
somewhat flexible and based on unequal status.
He discusses the European colonials' racial stereotypes but
does not specify the profound impact of European
"scientific" racism, which assumed that Tutsi and Hutu were
different "races," with the Hutu born to be forever
inferior.Western-educated Africans absorbed this view.
Moreover, the Belgians therefore recruited Tutsi to dominate the Church,
army, and civil service; most secondary school places went to the Tutsi
minority; Hutu kingdoms were "Tutsified"; and changes in land rights
benefited the Tutsi. —School
Library Journal |
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As We Forgive: Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda
By Catherine Claire
Larson
Rwanda—bloodied,
scarred and nearly destroyed by the 1994 brutality of the
Hutu genocide of Tutsis—is now called an uncharted case
study in forgiveness by author Larson, who was inspired by
the award-winning film As We Forgive. Individual stories
form prototypes: there is Rosaria, left for dead in a pile
of bodies, who forgives her sisters killer. And Chantal,
whose family is brutally murdered yet who forgives her
neighbor for the crimes. Devota, mutilated and left for
dead, survives, forgives and eventually adopts several
orphans. Each story is horrible and deeply personal as
Larson mines the truths of forgiveness deep in each ones
tale. Helpful interludes offer readers hands-on ways to
facilitate forgiveness and take the next step to
reconciliation in their own lives. This isn't an easy book to read or digest, yet its
message is mandatory: Forgiveness can push out the borders of what we
believe is possible. Reconciliation can offer us a glimpse of the
transfigured world to come.—Publishers Weekly |
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Rwanda Ten Years after
Rwanda
Genocide Conference Clinton Administration
The Struggle Odes
Ode #95
The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo (Film
Review by Kam Williams)
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Rape Crisis in Congo Tied to Mining Activity—Washington
Eve Ensler, author of
The Vagina Monologues, helped launch an
international awareness raising campaign called V-Day in
2007 to end sexual violence in eastern Congo. UNICEF
estimates that hundreds of thousands of girls have been
raped in the last decade in the two eastern provinces of
North Kivu and South Kivu. "Corporate greed, fueled by
capitalist consumption, and the rape of women have
merged into a single nightmare," Eve Ensler said at U.S.
Senate hearings on May 13. "Women's bodies are the
battleground of an economic war." Ensler said that
international mining companies with significant
investments in eastern Congo value economic interest
over the bodies of women by trading with rebels who use
rape as a tactic of war in areas rich in coltan, gold
and tin.
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"Military solutions are no longer an
option," she said. "All they do is bring
about the rape of more women." The United
States has invested more than $700 million
in humanitarian aid and peacekeeping to
Congo, according to the U.S. Department of
State.
Prendergast said this money will do nothing
to root out the economic causes of eastern
Congo's conflict and sexual violence.
He said
a comprehensive long-term strategy to combat
rape needs to change the economic calculus
of armed groups. Prendergast asked senators
to support the Congo Conflict Minerals Act,
which was introduced by Kansas Sen. Sam
Brownback, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and
Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold in April of
this year. |
The bill aims to
break the link between resource exploitation and armed
conflict in eastern Congo by requiring companies trading
minerals with Congo or neighboring states to disclose
mine locations and monitor the financing of armed groups
in eastern Congo's mineral-rich areas.
"The sooner the
illicit conflict minerals trade is eliminated, the
sooner the people of Congo will benefit from their own
resources," said Prendergrast. U.S. consumers,
Prendergrast said, can also help by pressuring major
electronic companies - from Apple to Sony - to certify
that cell phones, computers and other products contain
"conflict-free minerals," a campaign tactic popularized
by the Sierra Leone-based film
Blood Diamonds. Such a process would use a
tracking system for components, similar to that
developed in 2007 under the Kimberly Process. This
international certification scheme ensures that trade in
rough diamonds doesn't fuel war, as it did in Angola,
Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Sierra Leone during the 1990s.
Germany has already
developed a pilot fingerprinting system for tin that
could be expanded to other minerals and help establish
certified trading chains, linking legitimate mining
sites to the international market.
Truthout
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Congo has attracted
attention in the media [as a place that is suffering]
systematic rape in war. One statistic quoted is 200,000
rapes since the beginning of the war 14 years ago, and
it is certainly an underestimate.
When in Congo, I met government representatives and
particularly women who had been raped and violated. It
was interesting but also disappointing - nothing is
getting better and more and more civilians are
committing rapes.
But I should be fair and say that there has been
progress, the government has introduced laws against
rape, it has a national plan and there is political
will. There is a lot to do to implement the legislation,
but now there is an ambitious legal ground to stand on
to be implemented by the police, judiciary and health
care.
Margot Wallstrom - "There Is Almost Total
Impunity for Rape in Congo"
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How did Rwanda cut poverty so
much?—16 February 2012—The small African nation of Rwanda recently
announced that it had cut poverty by 12% in six years, from 57% of its
population to 45%. That equals roughly a million Rwandans emerging from
poverty -- one of the most stunning drops in the world.It's a remarkable
achievement for Rwanda, which has emerged from civil war and a bloody
ethnic genocide in the 1990s. How did it happen? The Times quizzed Paul
Collier, director of the
Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University,
about the numbers.
How did Rwanda cut its poverty
so much?—There were one or two helpful events, notably the rise in
world coffee prices, which pumped money into the rural economy, but, of
course, overall the global economy since 2005 has not provided an easy
environment for success. Hence, most of the achievement is likely due to
domestic policies. Rwanda is the nearest that Africa gets to an East
Asian-style “developmental state,” where the government gets serious
about trying to grow the economy and where the president runs a tight
ship within government built on performance rather than patronage. There
were strong supporting policies for the rural poor—the “one cow” program
[that distributed cows to poor households free of charge], which spread
assets, and the improvements in health programs. Alongside this, the
economy was well managed, with inflation kept low, and the business
environment improved, both of which helped the main city, Kigali, to
grow. Growth in Kigali then spread benefits to rural areas—the most
successful rural districts were those closest to Kigali.
When you say well managed, what
do you mean? What choices did the government make that were signs of
good management?—Basically, [President Paul] Kagame built a culture
of performance at the top of the civil service. Ministers were well
paid, but set targets. If they missed the targets there were
consequences. Each year, the government holds a whole-of-government
retreat where these performances are reviewed: good performance
rewarded, and poor performers required to explain themselves.An example
is the strategy to improve Rwanda's rating on the World Bank's “Doing
Business” annual rating, where over the course of six years the country
moved from around 140th to 60th in the world rankings. Each component of
the ratings was assigned each year to an appropriate minister. So over
time, a cadre of government officials has been built up who believe in
their ability not just to strategize but to get things done.—
LaTimesBlogs
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.— WashingtonPost
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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