The "Inner-Ring" of Paul Kagame

This is a paper I wrote for a War and Theology Class

Introduction:

            C.S. Lewis describes an “Inner Ring” as something that is “morally neutral” and “unavoidable” in its existence. The overwhelming desire to be part of an Inner Ring that leads people to neglect former friends or derive pleasure from the humiliation of outsiders is what causes Inner Rings to become dangerous and evil.[1] Paul Kagame, the current president of the African nation of Rwanda, has built his presidency around an Inner Ring attempting to bring himself to messiah-like status to the people of his nation out of both fear and cult-like respect.

Demographics and A Brief History:           

In order to understand Paul Kagame’s Inner Ring, one must understand the demographics and a brief history of Rwanda. Rwanda is comprised of three tribes: Hutus (85% of the population), Tutsis (14%), and Twa [also called Pygmy] (1%), with the main tribal conflicts being between the Hutus and the Tutsis.[2] Colonial rule by the Germans and the Belgians held to the pre-colonial custom that the Tutsis were the superior ruling tribe. The colonial powers used the Tutsis as their “in-country” ruling power.[3] Between 1959-1961 there was a revolution that overthrew both Belgian (which had replaced Germany after world War I) authority and Tutsi sub-authority and established Hutus as the ruling elite.[4] During this time, many Tutsis (including Kagame, age 2) went into exile into neighboring nations (in Kagame’s case, with his family, in Uganda).[5] The political climate and the ruling Hutus, including subsequent President Juvenal Habyarimana (president from 1973-1994) would not allow the exiled Tutsis to return to Rwanda.[6] A group of Tutsis, including Kagame, formed a militia (the Rwandan Patriotic Front – RPF) and launched a civil war that would last four years culminating in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 (mainly killing Tutsis[7]) and their eventual takeover of the government of the nation.[8]

The Inner Ring Begins:           

C.S. Lewis states, “Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire [to be part of an Inner Ring] is going to be one of the chief motives of your life…”[9] It is my assertion that Kagame made this determination very early in his military and political career and quite possibly early in his life [to form and be part of an inner ring]. While no one can be sure, he may have desired so desperately to be an “insider” because he was an “outsider” for so long as a refugee.  First, Kagame was a commander in the RPF military. When Kagame came to power in the Rwandan government, he was first the Vice-President. As Vice-President, however, he was actually leading the government and military from that position. To begin to create his Inner Ring by showing his strength and positioning his allies, under the guise of eliminating the enemy soldiers and genocidaires (those who committed the genocide of 1994) who had fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC – Then called Zaire), Kagame ordered a secret full invasion of Zaire with the RPF army fighting along side the militia of Laurent Kabila in 1996.[10] The goal was to depose then Zairian President Mobutu and replace him with Kabila, thought to be an “insider” with Kagame.[11] The Kagame-Kabila alliance destroyed thousands of innocent human shields used by Mobutu’s army whom they were fighting.[12] Kagame repatriated “two and a half million [Rwandan] refugees [hiding from the RPF] in broad daylight.”[13] Together, Kagame and Kabila fought until May 17, 1997 when Kabila was officially part of Kagame’s Inner Ring as president of neighboring Zaire (which Kabila renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo).[14]

As reported by the United Nations, having Kabila as part of his Inner Ring meant that Kagame had access to large amounts of gold, diamonds, and coltan (a vital component in cell phones) – minerals found in large quantities in the DRC.[15] Kabila also appointed Rwandan Colonel James Kabarebe, a staunch Kagame ally, to General and Chief of Staff of the DRC,[16] no doubt under the influence of Kagame’s power of building an Inner Ring.

Kabila overstepped his boundaries with Kagame and was quickly removed from Kagame’s Inner Ring when he began listening to the Congolese people about the disproportionate Rwandan influence in the Congolese government. In 1998, Kabila fired Kabarebe and removed all Rwandan troops from the army of the DRC.[17] These actions by Kabila and an incursion by attackers from the DRC into a Rwandan city prompted another invasion by Rwanda into the DRC in 1998. Aside from attacking military targets, there is much evidence that the RPF also attacked civilians.[18] Under mysterious circumstances, President Laurent Kabila was assassinated on January 16, 2001 and succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila.[19] One has to beg the question if C.S. Lewis’ question applies here: “…[Have] you ever derived actual pleasure from the loneliness and humiliation of the outsiders after you yourself were in…?”[20] Did Kagame gain pleasure from his newfound power and ability to make Kabila an “insider” and then an “outsider?” One can speculate that the answer points to the affirmative based upon his actions in subsequent years.

Creating and Maintaining an Inner Ring:

            Lewis says that the desire to create Inner Rings is one of the great permanent mainsprings in human action and that unless measures are taken to prevent it, the desire will always be one of the chief motives of life.[21] As he transitioned from Vice-President into President, Kagame used many calculated moves to form an Inner Ring to gain and maintain power.

            After gaining power, the RPF (read Kagame) decided that they could not allow politics to unfold in a conventional manner for fear of another genocide. While many individuals and nations supported this idea for the first few years of RPF control, many have come to believe that this ban on “genocide ideology” is a manufactured effort to repress all political rivals to the RPF.[22] The first official leader of the RPF, a Hutu, President Bizimungu, resigned in protest in 2000 making Kagame the official President, thus centralizing his power to an official capacity. Several Hutus in the RPF government followed Bizimungu’s lead and resigned their positions showing that they were merely in office to show a false attempt at multi-ethnic governing.[23] An official presidential election was scheduled for 2003, and Bizimungu decided to run against Kagame. Being an authoritarian leader, Kagame had Bizimungu arrested under trumped up charges of “corruption” and “divisionism.” He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Kagame won the election with 95% of the vote against a rival candidate who received little press attention due to RPF authority.[24]

            Kagame began his presidency from the start by running an authoritarian regime and creating an Inner Ring. He appointed Tito Rutaremara as “ombudsman” to search through personal records of all government officials for suspicious increases of wealth. Anyone caught with any indication of corruption is thrown into disgrace without the chance for rehabilitation.[25] At first glance, strict oversight may seem honorable, but what is not immediately seen is that Kagame is the arbitrary judge of the definition of “corruption.” For example, claiming governmental excess spending Kagame ordered police to stop and impound luxury cars from hundreds of government officials,[26] but this same “anti-corruption” Kagame stayed at a $16,000-a-night luxury hotel in New York City during a meeting at the United Nations.[27]  

            Kagame also uses those outside of the government to form his Inner Ring. Rwandan Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana is an outspoken supporter of Kagame, and Kagame has welcomed him into his Inner Ring. Bishop Rucyhahana’s role is to give Christian blessing to Kagame’s person and regime.[28] While Kagame is not overtly Christian (or identifiable with any religion), Bishop Rucyhahana insists that, “he’s a divine prescription from God to this nation [Rwanda].”[29] He continues that this apparently non-religious president should not be called “non-religious” because “he may even be more religious than some so-called religious people. It all depends on what you call religion…”[30] Kagame has capitalized upon Bishop Rucyahana being in his Inner Ring to blur the line between church and state, thus even further centralizing his own power.

            Mainly, Kagame maintains his Inner Ring of loyalty by fear and guilt. Those who are in the Inner Ring may profess that they are loyal out of Kagame’s accomplishments, but many will argue that the facts on the ground are just too blatant and prove otherwise.  As already stated above, Kagame fires and throws anyone into disgrace who is caught in corruption. This causes others in government under Kagame’s authority to obey him out of fear. Kagame is also known for disappearances, arrests, and murders of rivals. Seth Sendashonga, an anti-Kagame figure exiled in Kenya was shot and wounded. A former RPF exile, Theoneste Lizinde who had joined Sendashonga in Kenya was assassinated.[31] Using guilt, Kagame also maintains his Inner Ring by use of the “genocide credit.”[32] The “genocide credit” is a “slang”[33] term of Kagame’s Inner Ring. The premise of the “genocide credit” is to guilt outsiders by telling them that they (or their nation) did nothing to help Rwanda during the genocide, or that they are adding pressure that could cause another genocide, and now they have no authority with which to speak (mainly against Kagame and/or the RPF). Victore Ingabire, a native Rwandan Hutu politician, returned to her homeland to run against Kagame in the most recent presidential election. She was arrested in October 2011 on charges of divisionism, genocide ideology, and inciting revolt. Her “crime” was that she gave a speech at the Rwandan National Genocide Memorial and said that the Hutus killed in the genocide are forgotten, and their families should be given recognition, and that there is a need for national reconciliation and justice for the Tutsis who were murdered.[34] On a personal level, I, myself have received e-mails and messages via Twitter accusing me of genocide ideology from both Rwandan citizens and Government officials including Minister of Defense James Kabarebe (mentioned above) because of activism[35] related to the recent accusations[36] by the United Nations that Rwanda was sponsoring and maintaining a militia that was destabilizing and murdering civilians in the DRC.

A Prime Example of Leaving the Inner Ring:

            Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa grew up a Tutsi refugee much the same way that President Kagame did, and when he learned about the formation of the RPF, he joined so that he could be part of the “liberation” of a homeland he did not remember.[37] Rudasingwa met Kagame while the RPF was regrouping from a military defeat in the Rwandan mountains. There, Kagame ordered him to accompany a businessman to “take advantage of contacts” in Belgium.[38] This was the beginning of Rudasingwa’s political career in the RPF and being in Kagame’s Inner Ring.  Upon his return from Belgium, Kagame appointed Rudasingwa as an RPF diplomat though the RPF had not yet taken full control of Rwanda.[39] He would go on to serve in several diplomatic appointments. In 2000, Rudasingwa was appointed as Director of Cabinet to President Kagame; the most senior civil servant position in Rwanda.[40] While at first Rudasingwa prized this office, he later came under much pressure from Kagame who would micro-manage every aspect of his position (and most government positions). In essence, Kagame was (and still is) keeping his government a “we-government”[41] that keeps those that would add any diversity or be outside of Kagame’s control out of the government. The pressure on Rudasingwa became so great that he finally realized that he had to get out of the Inner Ring. After much difficulty, on April 21, 2005, Rudasingwa and his family left Rwanda for the United States as political refugees.[42] After returning to his Christian faith, he realized that the power he had in the Kagame regime was not the life he was meant to live, and though he struggled at first with faith, he found a church home that spoke to his struggling mind and heart and rekindled his faith.[43]

Conclusion:

            President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and his RPF regime came into power through a revolution that culminated in a horrific genocide.  Kagame grabbed power and maintains it to this day by creating an Inner Ring of loyal government officials and supporters in the population. Whether or not this support is genuine is largely unknown because Kagame is known for ruling with fear and guilt. His opponents are often arrested, disappear, or murdered, and he and his supporters use the “genocide credit” to guilt or pull their authority over others by saying that they have a moral authority because of the genocide of 1994.  All of the tactics that Kagame has used and continues to use show that he has chosen the path of becoming a “scoundrel”[44] and a despotic authoritarian ruler bent on maintaining his rule at the expense of human life and dignity as he has shown in the cases cited here and in many more instances that are not in line with the subject of this paper.

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[1] C.S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring,” accessed from http://www.mit.edu/~hooman/ideas/the_inner_ring.htm  on November 25, 2013.

[2] Theogene Rudasingwa, Healing a Nation: A Testimony (North Charleston: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013), 68.

[3] Ibid., 70-71.

[4] Ibid., 73.

[5] Stephen Kinzer, A Thousand Hills (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008), 12.

[6] Ibid., 38.

[7] Facts about the Rwandan Genocide are controversial and questions remain as to who started the killing, who did the killing, and so forth. It is a fact that Tutsis were the main victims. Any more is a very contentious debate and beyond the scope of this paper.

[8] Rudasingwa, 75.

[9] Lewis

[10] Kinzer, 201.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 202

[13] Kagame quoted in Kinzer, 204.

[14] Ibid., 205.

[15] Ibid., 212.

[16] Ibid. 206.

[17] Ibid., 206-210.

[18] Ibid. 210.

[19] Ibid., 218.

[20] Lewis.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Kinzer, 223.

[23] Ibid., 224.

[24] Ibid., 225-229.

[25] Ibid. 235-236.

[26] Ibid., 237.

[27] Ann Garrison, “Rwandan President on the Night of Troy Davis’ Execution” accessed from http://sfbayview.com/2011/rwandan-president-paul-kagame-on-the-night-of-troy-davis’-execution/ on November 25, 2013.

[28] Kinzer, 302-306.

[29] Ibid., 306.

[30] Ibid., 307.

[31] Ibid., 214.

[32] Ibid., 336.

[33] Lewis.

[34] “Victore Ingabire’s Trial” accessed from http://www.victoire-ingabire.com/Eng/victoire-ingabires-trial/ on November 25, 2013.

[35] My own activism includes letters to government officials, being on the founding board of directors of a Refugee Mission, blog postings that are followed by the RPF and Human Rights agencies, and, to date, 3 published articles concerning Kagame’s crimes in the DRC.

[36] Steve Hege, et al., “Letter from the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo pursuant to Resolution 1533,” accessed from http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2012/843

[37] Rudasingwa, 2-60.

[38] Ibid., 101.

[39] Ibid., 109. One can compare this arrangement to Palestinian diplomats before Palestine had any official recognition of statehood.

[40] Ibid., 238.

[41] Lewis. “We” is a term used by people on the inside of an Inner Ring.

[42] Rudasingwa, 319.

[43] Ibid., 324.

[44] Lewis. “Scoundrel” is a term used by Lewis to describe a choice that will come to 9 out of 10 people in their lifetimes. They will have a choice to become a “scoundrel” or to choose to do what is right, but the choice in the moment may not seem very dramatic.