What the arrest of Rwandan military and security chiefs reveals about Kagame’s leadership style
Last week, President Paul Kagame ordered
the house arrest of four top military and security officers; three of
them generals. Among them, I know the chief of military intelligence,
Brig. Gen. Richard Rutatina and the chief of staff of the reserve force
Lt. Gen. Fred Ibingira, fairly well. I can even claim them to be my
friends. The head of Rwanda’s external security, Col. Dan Munyuza, I
know, but not closely. I know little about the Commanding Officer of the
3rd Division, Brig. Gen. Wilson Gumisiriza.
All the four officers are among the most
influential and powerful figures in the military and security
establishment in Rwanda. And the three that I know do not have any
political differences with the government. On the contrary, they are
very loyal officers to the army and to Kagame personally. Under normal
circumstances, especially what we know as Standard Operating Procedures
in Africa, they should not be under house arrest. We would expect the
president to turn a blind eye to their dirty dealings given that they
are not a threat to his power.
Their arrest instead demonstrates
Kagame’s rare ability to separate his personal feelings towards a loyal
lieutenant from his official responsibilities as a president. It does
not matter how loyal someone is to him or how hard working that official
has been or how best they perform their official duties. If there are
allegations of improper conduct against a lieutenant, Kagame will not
hesitate to make them face the law. Because it is personal to his
character, one wonders how Rwanda will sustain this strict adherence to
the rule of law when Kagame retires in 2017.
No one close to Kagame and no one
distant from him can exercise impunity and get away with it. In fact the
closer you are, the more careful you have to be. Every public official
in Rwanda knows that. Some have done wrong things and gotten away with
it. But that would be largely because Kagame did not get to know.
Therefore contrary to what we have always known in most of Africa, an
officer, minister or other government official does not have to be
disloyal for Kagame to order his/her arrest.
Many “experts” on Rwanda who do not
understand this aspect of Kagame’s leadership style see in such arrests
hidden tensions in the army. So conspiracy theorists will claim that the
arrests are a reflection of some wider discontent in the military. They
will speculate that there was a plot by the arrested officers to stage a
coup; that there may have been a meeting where they expressed positions
in conflict with the leadership. These “experts” will predict regime
collapse.
These were the speculations that took
place when Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa escaped from Rwanda in early 2010. I
listened or read in silent wonderment tall tales of discontent in the
Rwandan army; of how Kayumba was only a tip of an iceberg etc. I tried
to explain to those who cared to listen that Kayumba was alone and
lonely; that whatever following he had in the army was not sufficient to
allow him move even a platoon and that hopes of regime collapse were as
fantastical as hopes that you will wake up to find a million dollars in
your pillow.
A few months after Kayumba has escaped,
Kagame ordered the house arrest of four top generals including Lt.
General Charles Muhire and Major General Emmanuel Karenzi Karake. This
added fuel to the speculation that there was some bigger problem.
Sections of the mass media claimed that these officers were “independent
minded” (read were critical of the government); that their arrest was
to forestall some wider plot to overthrow the government. Friends in
Uganda who are always keen to criticise President Yoweri Museveni for
not arresting thieving ministers and army officers were coming to me and
asking: “what is wrong with Kagame? Why does he arrest these army
officers?”
We African elites live a contradictory
life. Having been brought up in villages and socialised at home to
peasant notions of justice and fairness, our instincts tell us that you
don’t arrest those close to you. But having been educated in western
intellectual thought and public sector ethics, our minds tell us that
the law must be applied to everyone equally; that we must not create
exceptions for our friends and allies.
So, while in our official comments on a
public matter we may call upon the president to arrest a thieving
minister, our instincts tell us such action is not “appropriate” and
this is especially true when the minister is from our tribe. Thus, the
very people who criticise Museveni in Uganda for inaction on corruption
are the same who criticise Kagame for action on it. Museveni’s inaction
may be the basis of many Ugandans considering him to be “democratic”
i.e. allowing freedom for impunity. Kagame’s action is often the reason
he is accused of being an intolerant despot, taking away people’s
freedoms to loot public resources.
I often sympathise with the holders of
such views because they are rooted in the experience of most of Africa
over the last 50 years. For instance, in 1971, President Milton Obote
tried to arrest the army commander Idi Amin and was instead overthrown.
In 1980, President Godfrey Binaisa fired the chief of staff David Oyite
Ojok and his government fell the next day. In 1985, Obote fired another
army commander, Tito Okello Lutwa, and immediately thereafter his
government fell.
And this experience is not unique to
Uganda. African nations from Nigeria to Ghana, Chad to Liberia and
Mauritania to Niger have gone through this experience. The problem for
Rwandan experts today is that it is simply not the case under Kagame.
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