WITH a month now left exactly to the Rwanda presidential elections, the international media has turned its spotlight on the East African country, with quite a measure of bias, false distress calls and inaccurate reporting.
Surprisingly, so much devotion has been dedicated to misrepresentation and sheer distortion of facts in the count-down to the elections, her intent and resolution to forge ahead notwithstanding.
An incredible number of websites, mostly blogs and opinion news sites, churn out fib on a daily basis, with a common gradient; ‘Repression ahead of Rwanda polls.’
Is Rwanda losing its PR footing?
For a country renowned for its remarkable upturn in just a decade and a half, and used to favorable media coverage and praise by world leaders, authorities now find themselves on the defensive, overwhelmed by negative publicity, arising from a series of recent events.
As is often the case with election period in third world countries, we are made to believe that no election can come to pass without incidence and Rwanda comes as no exception. The effect of all this is that a climate of fear, tension and uncertainty have now been unduly flung on this rising nation, with fault lines coming easy on the upcoming polls.
It therefore comes as no surprise that reporting on recent events, including the attempted murder of a dissident general, the killing of a suspended newspaper editor and the arrest of an American lawyer, have all been slanted towards repression ahead of elections.
While it is natural to raise suspicion when protagonists such as individuals in this narrative, face problems, the tilt in angle with which media outlets and critics have reacted to or respond to breaking stories in Rwanda today amounts to alarm mongering.
When news broke that an attempt had been made on the general’s life at an upscale Johannesburg suburb, most people including his wife, were quick to point an accusing finger at the government of Rwanda, which issued a prompt denial.
Stories abound that suspects arrested shortly after were Rwandans, sent by the state to finish off the general, who stands accused of among other crimes, being behind a spate of grenade attacks that rocked the country early, this year.
Conspicuously, the media has chosen to follow one lead; the possibility of Rwanda being behind the attack with slant. It is common knowledge that South Africa has one of the world’s high crime rates and that Johannesburg is its crime capital. Popular musician, Lucky Dube, is perhaps one of the common high profile victims who was gunned down about four years ago.
Only a police probe into the incident may ever tell the circumstances why the gunman did not demand any valuables. But in the court of public opinion where the international media has become de facto prosecution and judge, Rwanda has automatically and conclusively been the villain behind this “operation.”
Although none of the four suspects charged in the case are of Rwandan nationals, conspiracy theorists refuse to take it. A blogger with regular appearance on western tv channels last week added a sensational twist to the incident – that the general’s woes arose out of clash of clans (pun not intended) within the ruling RPF party. Suffice to say that both the general and President Paul Kagame come from the same clan. It is a tantalizing new tale of fiction, but does this fall out have any bearing to upcoming elections?
Another incident that has been deceitfully associated with the impending elections is the shooting to death of a recently suspended local newspaper journalist and the arrest of an American lawyer.
I contest the notion that the journo was killed while investigating the general’s attempted murder, owing to circumstances surrounding the victim, shortly before he met his demise. For his exiled editor and the news hounds unwilling to investigate further, the easy target, of course, is the state!
While I condole with the journo’s family and the media fraternity over an attack on our own, I find it strange that he could be targeted, given his life as a cocktail of characters; an ex-soldier in the genocide regime, is integrated in the new RPA (now RDF), becomes a journalist, is tried and prosecuted over murder of a banker, serves three years for the same but acquitted for insufficient evidence, re-joins a recently suspended publication…then meets his killers.
It now emerges that one of his supposed killers has confessed to Police that he killed the victim to get even, claiming the journo had killed his (suspect’s) brother during the genocide.
The arrest and arraignment in court of an American lawyer early last month was another long media tale with false facts and dramatic exposé.
Rather than dwell on real facts, involving Prof. Erlinder’s long campaign of genocide denial, distorting facts and hosting known genocide suspects on the run in Europe, foreign media cleverly claimed he had been incarcerated for trying to help an opposition presidential hopeful, who has been charged with a similar case!
It is the same case, of genocide denial and the prospect of new divisive brand of politics that the Electoral Commission denied Victoire Ingabire her dream opportunity to contest for the highest office in the country.
On his part, the good lawyer has, since his release, given interviews and this time, he denies he ever denied that genocide occurred in Rwanda but that both sides suffered in equal measure. His trial waits.
There was also the suspension of critical publications too. I can not envisage any country that would tolerate any media house preaching hate in this era. Yet this is what happened in Rwanda, with a measure of restraint for years before a clampdown on unprofessional media houses was launched.
I believe the state did not adequately explain the circumstances of suspending the said publications – namely; inciting the army against the state, or publishing images of any head of state side-by-side with Hitler and his infamous Nazi emblem.
That election time is around the corner is by no means reason that people are not held for their actions. Impunity is a deplorable act which other countries would better emulate from Rwanda.
