A measure of how insignificant Africa and African affairs are in world affairs is in full view in the universal outrage that greeted the recent forced landing of a Ryanair passenger plane in Minsk, capital of Belarus by the authorities of that country in order for them to arrest a dissident journalist, Roman Protasevich, who was in the flight that was bound for neighouring vilius
A similar or exact outrageous act was carried out by the dictator of Rwanda, Mr. Paul Kagame, who I described in a recent article as a ‘holy dictator’, and the world did not seem to have noticed or heard of it or they simply felt that from Africa always comes something stupid so they should just leave us with our endless acts of stupidities.
Like president Llukashenko of Belarus, Paul Kagame of Rwanda is a dictator par excellence. As I said recently in a piece on Kagame, he has, with puritanical zeal, recreated Rwanda in his own image and seems inclined to brook no contrary views. First, he started with a massive conscientisation programme in which no one is allowed to say or show that Rwanda has a population of Tutsi, Hutu and other tribes, whether real or artificial. Second, he proceeded to change the country’s Constitution, abolishing term limits to allow him to run again and again and to win and win again. This is precisely what some of his friends on the Continent and elsewhere do and they are treated as the worst scums of the earth. What makes his own different?
Inexplicably, Kagame has embarked on a determined career of making implacable enemies for himself mostly from the Hutus. Most of these enemies who have left the country for him and have found themselves refuge in neighbouring countries, especially South Africa, are hunted down and brutally murdered on the streets of South Africa by his hit squads. Yet, the world says nothing and does nothing to Kagame. He is the poster boy of an Africa Arise narrative of a good dictator who has saved his country from anarchy.
Like his co-traveller on the dictatorial highway, Kagame, the strong man of Rwanda, spends heavily on intelligence and security. Well, a man who is as paranoid as he is cannot afford to act otherwise. His intelligence officers are everywhere in the world, especially in France, South Africa, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates, the USA and where not else, masterminding assassinations, torture and kidnappings of Rwandan dissidents.
His latest act of infamy along that line which the world has, surprisingly, kept quiet about is the kidnapping in Dubai of an opposition leader, the well-known Paul Rusesabagina, the hero of the genocide who had inspired the acclaimed 2004 Hollywood movie, ’’Hotel Rwanda’’, in Dubai and his being paraded before the media in Kigali, Rwanda, the next day in handcuffs, shows how much the messiah of Rwanda spends on security and espionage.
For now, no one can tell how Rusesabagina was lured away from his home in the USA to Dubai and tricked to board a flight that was supposed to take him to the neighbouring country of Burundi but which, instead, landed him in Rwanda to face trial for the trump-up charge of terrorism. Rusesabagina kidnap, obviously with the collaboration of the authorities in the UAE, is against international law but who cares when the mastermind is Kagame and when what happened took place in Africa and not civilized Europe or America?
As it seems to be true of all countries where dictators are in-charge in the world, Rwanda under Kagame has dissidents, that is, persons who do not agree with his dictatorial ways as is the case with his friend and co-traveler in dictatorship, Mr. Alesander Lukachenko of Belarus.
One of Kagame’s most hated dissidents is Mr. Paul Rusasebagina, whom he hijacked in a plane much the same way Lukashenko did to Roman Protasevic.
Dictators are very fearful persons. They are cowards. They are even afraid of their shadows despite the tough guy image they try desperately to wear or create. If not what goes on in their minds that they will even go to the ends of the earth, commit the unheard of, do the unthinkable in order to get at the people they call dissidents or their political enemies? It is amazing that while everyone in the country is often cowed by the violence they visit on the people yet if there is one man that wants to be different, they cannot forgive such people or let them just be even if such persons are as harmless as babes?
