Rwanda's Comeback

Hi, I'm Ginny, I'm Astrid and welcome to it's a continent that podcasts that decolonises history of one story at a time. So we're here to challenge the common misconception that Africa is a country and essentially appreciate the identity of each nation and through each episode we'll be exploring key historical moments which have shaped the continent. Welcome to episode 4 of It's a Continent, we're trying out recording at home as our local studio is obviously closed so do forgive us if the sound quality is a little bit off. Yeah, we are trying our best with this, we've tested it out, it should be all good, it should be all fine and I just decided to make a list of other things to blame the poor sound quality on other than us too. So first one being Carol Baskin, she'd be blamed for everything to be honest, anything in everything, Mother Nature's Revenge, a potential other candidate and anything else that's coming through on whatever WhatsApp chain message you're linked to at the moment, blame on her. Whatever your auntie has sent you, whatever your auntie has sent you, that is the reason why this sound quality is patchy so we move, yeah we keep going, we keep going. In this week's episode we're discussing Rwanda and its rebirth into a successful thriving and sustainable country following colonisation and genocide. So considering Rwanda's difficult recent history, it's really a testament of the steps the government took to bounce back. So for us, we really thought it was important to recognise that not only did Rwanda have a comeback after its genocide but today it does still continue to face economic and political issues but the way in which the government at the time, the country handled its come back following colonisation and genocide was for us quite interesting and it's something it was important to also bring that positive element to light as well but still recognising some of the issues and difficulties that the country does still face. Definitely. And Arsenal fans among you, like myself, may notice that a visit Rwanda is our sleeve sponsor and I think that's probably the first time I've seen an African tourism campaign that doesn't involve a picture of Lyon so that's quite rare isn't it? Yes, we're finally doing it, we can have other connotations other than just the Lyon. You can just be a country. We've had it up of Lyon big go, we've actually moved on to other forms of tourism. So whilst it's great that none of the Lyon can cast and make an appearance in the visit to Rwanda campaign, it's kind of been looked at with some measure of scrutiny as Rwanda has spent £30 million on this deal which for some seems frivolous as Rwanda's president Paul Kagame just happens to be a huge Arsenal fan and this is all happening whilst Rwanda has received financial aid from countries such as the UK. Imagine that the country you're giving for an annual aid to is then spending, I'm not saying that's spending that money but spending that much on your. I just want to meet my hero, okay, I just always wanted to meet Hector Belorin and that is why I'm spending this money. Obviously this guy is just like just not care after all, he's got no shame, no shame he's just like no, no, no, obviously we're going to invest in tourism, we're going to invest in tourism, we'll go for the UK Arsenal, that'll be a great one, they're also giving us money so hey, what a coincidence, wow, wow, so proponents of this deal have argued that this came from a different port to the international aid port and that Rwanda is actually seeking to bring in £300 million of new revenue via tourism, seeing as Arsenal is one of the most popular football clubs in Rwanda and the UK has one of the most like the highest number of tourists in the world. This indirectly shows away in which Rwanda has reorientated from a francophone country to an anglophone country, so they're removing their former colonial legacy by adhering to another coloniser. See, I fully get the whole tourism thing, you know what I mean, that's how much you're trying to bring in, but I don't, I don't know, there's something funny about going on investing in your favourite club, you know what I mean? It's bit dodgy, you know what I mean. So, for context, we wanted to give you a bit of a short overview in terms of what happened during Rwanda's genocide before we get into how they kind of came back from this. The genocide was one of the most brutal and horrific tragedies in recent years. We mentioned in episode one how Nigeria's civil war seemed to start a theme of General Sidal acts taking place in other African countries. For many of these countries, this is a result of different ethnic groups being forced to collaborate in a new nation, so let's just put you all together and name you something new. These colonisers are not creative, I can tell you that. So in Rwanda's case, the war took place between two ethnic groups, the Tutsis and the Hutus. Essentially, these groups spoke the same language and citizens could change between the two based on the number of cattle they acquired or who they married. Tutsi originally meant someone who had the most cattle. However, when Germans came along in 1894, they gave the Tutsi's responsibility. Then when Rwanda was handed over to the Belgians in 1916, after the Germans lost Rwanda as a colony after World War I. Can I just say? Handed over. Handed over. Really what is this? A game of past the parcel? Like, seriously? Like, you don't think it was a waste like, oh sorry, can you look after my dog? I've just, I'm just going away from them and that's pretty much what's happening here. This is, you just can't even believe that this was possible, but hey, it happened. Here's Belgium guys, here they are. Hey, there they are. Honestly, they are fully making their colonisation derby, third place ranking official here now. Pretty much, and in our previous episode on the DRC, we can see how Belgium treated the DRC whilst it was a colony of Belgium. So, I mean, we can't really expect anything less from them, to be honest. No, definitely not. And so, once the Belgians took over, they pitted the Tutsis and Hutus against each other. Under Belgian rule, Rwandans had to carry identity cards stating if they were Hutu or Tutsi. The Belgians felt that Tutsis were superior to Hutus. So, Tutsis generally appeared taller and thinner with perhaps a lighter complexion. And I kind of felt like whether this idea of, you know, lighter complexion really played on this idea of, you know, colourism, you know, I got him colourism right here, but, you know. Yeah, I mean, that's what happens, it's, you know, colourism kind of looks at those Africans who may perhaps have slightly more Eurocentric features, and then they treated more favourably. And this is something that has been going on for centuries. So, it's no surprise that the colonisation decided to bring that mentality over to Rwanda. Yeah, definitely not. And as a result, Tutsis, despite being only 10% of the population, received better jobs and educational opportunities. As a result Hutu's built up resentment and they took power post-colonisation. On the 6th of April 1994, Rwandan's president Juvenal Habiyanema, Hutu, I am so sorry if I've mispronounced his name, was shot down by a totalitarian regime. Hutu extremists took over the Rwandan government blaming Tutsis and started their slaughter campaign. Between April and June of that year, 800,000 Rwandans were killed in 100 days. Tutsis were killed by the Hutus and a massive campaign of violence spread from Rwandan's capital throughout the country. The rest of the international communities stood by and watched. So, you know, this World War II and the Holocaust had taken place, so this is after those events, and the UN had after those events, defined genocide as a crime under international law. So, it kind of begs the question, why didn't they step in here? And Linda Melvin, an investigative journalist from Britain, and the author of two books on the Rwandan genocide's vote. The whole focus at the time was on the former Yugoslavia. When the genocide began, the Balkans were being bombed and the whole focus of the UN Security Council was on the former Yugoslavia, as well as the focus of the Western press. Even when genocide was determined on April 29, 1994 by Oxford I'm in a press release, British newspapers hardly covered that story at all. So, it's in media failure, as well as a political one. It's just so frustrating, and you see that, you know, you've had, like you said, these two big things happen in terms of World War II and the Holocaust, and nothing, what we're not recognising this, we're not learning any lessons, we're not trying to stop it before it gets to the fact that you're losing 800,000 people in a hundred days. Like, what even is, what people think of why, yeah, for stracing that no one thought to intervene, and really stop this, because to a certain degree, this was all rooted if we're looking at it from two communities, two groups who were similar, no one had ever really created these divides, this divide is created, and everyone's like, buy Felicia, go and figure out your problems. Like, you're creating a problem. Exactly. Should they not be a held accountable for what they caused, and why does it seem that humanity is not allowed to care for one more than one cause at a time, because this is quite similar to what Frederick Fourthscythe said in our first episode, we talked about Nigerian Civil War, and Frederick Fourthscythe was saying about how, because the Vietnam War was happening, the BBC wasn't really going to cover the war in Nigerian Biafra at the time. And I think it, yeah, it just goes to show like the media, the media just can't handle too many, too many news at once, too much, we can only do one at a time, but. I mean, as we know, there has been one new story that's been going on for the past god knows how many days, so as we know, the media can only report one story at a time, and I'm feeling that right now. Oh my gosh, tell me about it, it can't get away from it. It just calops, escape it. So, the aftermath of the Rewanda genocide saw economic and political disarray across the country. Its physical and social structure was now non-existent, with the destruction of all government and social institutions, two million Hutus fled Rewanda, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rewanda was formed to prosecute those responsible for the genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rewanda is also known as the ICTR. It was found that some of the trials held under the ICTR were essentially a political white wash. Rewanda could have been a failed state, however, its government can and should be used as a model for nations seeking reconciliation. The following stats go to show the lengths of Rewanda's development since the conclusion of the genocide. Life expectancy increased by 100% in 20 years, essentially doubled. One million people had been living out poverty. Women had become the majority of legislators. 95% of people had health insurance. It became one of the safest places to live, and citizens were living longer, with better education prospects and healthier lives. I think it's incredible just how much they were able to achieve in such a relatively short space of time. Like, very in mind, this was, you know, the genocide happened in the 90s and, you know, within that 20-year time period following it and everything, they were able to literally really help to come back and bring themselves out of all of this situation. Yeah, I think it's amazing. Yeah, it's crazy that they were able to rebuild. They're rebuilding after the war was just happened on such such a crazy timeline. This is probably just under a generation, and already they're doubling life expectancy, which is just madness. So we're going to go through some of the policies and the ways in which the country was rebuilt. So to reconstruct Rwanda, an emphasis was placed on nurturing a shared national identity, essentially restoring the country to what it was before colonialism, where there were no strong defiers between Hutu's and the Tutsis. As mentioned earlier, there wasn't much of a difference between the two groups until the Belgians came along, and started pitting them against each other. The Rwandan government decided to draw on aspects of Rwandan culture and traditional practices to enrich and adapt its development programs to the country's needs. The result is a set of homegrown solutions, and these were culturally owned practices translated into sustainable development programs. So it's interesting to see that some of these initiatives that we'll go through were actually around in pre-colonial Rwanda, and it's interesting to see how they drew upon their heritage when they'd practically been indoctrinated to disown by their colonisers, you know, the courage structures that were in place. And it just goes to show again, it's similar to when we were discussing in the Nigeria episode, like these communities, they're not buying into what you're forcing upon them, they're not going into it, so you go back to what you know, and for the Rwandans, it was, this is our heritage, this is what we know, and this is why we feel, I hate the word most authentic self, but where we feel, I feel like I'm giving myself. Yeah, I feel like I'm giving like a self help talk. Yeah, where they felt themselves, and felt where they could find really the best solution for that community, which I think is great. Let's take a look at some of these initiatives, so the first one being Gekarka. So pre-colonization, so Gekarka take place, and this is essentially a system of community-based courts where criminals were tried in front of the community, whilst also giving victims a space to speak and forgive. This was essentially, you know, similar to your traditional courts, with the idea of reconciliation between the two parties, really kind of differentiating it from kind of what we know, and now. So colonization had a significant impact on this process, with Gekarka reserved only for civil and commercial cases, which involve rwandans. Any cases that involved colonizers and criminal cases were processed under colonial jurisdiction. I wonder why. That was a non-shadee. You can be shady towards the colonizers. So this weekend, the power of Gekarka, as well as to justice systems imported from Europe, didn't stop Gekarka from operating. The number of cases in this environment really dropped. After rwandan independence, regimes and power often appointed administrative officials to Gekarka. So this very much removed the community aspect, and therefore eroded both the integrity and trust within those communities. So like it's very much, you know, weakening and devaluing existence systems that they had set in place, even though this is very much, it has strong similarities to what Europe is doing in terms of having the court system, but you know what, you can't have this community feel. We're not doing community spirit here. You got to check that. It's the idea of how they're saying we're civilising them, but actually there was a civil court type system in place already, so if that didn't necessarily need to be civilised, you know. I know, but I feel like at the time people were thinking, but even though it's the same as ours, we need to make it, it's not ours. So technically they're not civilised. We need to introduce exactly the same thing. It's a bit like, you know what this reminds me of, is being in a meeting, given an idea, and then someone senior up copies that idea and just rewads it and everyone's like, oh my gosh, I'm glad that no one on this thing. Oh, the amount of times that has happened. I cannot. It literally feels like that. It's triggered me. It's triggered me. It's basically like legislation appropriation. Oh my god, it's so true. That's a new term. I just equate that. Good to write a thick piece on that after this episode. Love it! In 2002, Kakako was revived to process millions of criminal cases that arose post-genocide. So the objective of Kakako was to, you know, find out and disclose the truth about the genocide, speed up genocide trials, end a culture of impunity and really holding people accountable as strengthening unity and reconciliation and really demonstrate capacity for Iranians to solve their own problems. In total, just under two million genocide-related cases were tried through Kakako. This laid the foundation for peace, reconciliation and unity. The majority of perpetrators were dealt with in this way as they confessed and pleaded their cases. Survivors with strong encouragement from the government accepted perpetrators into the community and, you know, this kind of Kakako trials process concluded in 2012. It's interesting how the emphasis here is placed on reconciliation rather than vengeance, which is definitely what was needed at the time. Yeah, definitely. They needed to, I think, because they were from the same country and it was important that they, like, focused on rebuilding rather than being, rather than playing the blame game. I don't know, that's what I sense anyway, because I feel like that wouldn't have gotten anyone anywhere, because you're still going to have to live together, be it someone's in prison or whatever, there still be a lot more, it'll be much more fragmented. Yeah, definitely. And I think that our society, we have a lot to learn from these sort of side of things about reconciliation, you know, quite often the western civilization is kind of seen as a blueprint for how other countries should operate, but actually, I think that western civilization has a lot to learn from, you know, these type of homegrown solutions that we see here. Another practice put in place was called Ibudeha. Ibudeha refers to community development through collective action within communities and is a long-standing practice dating back more than a century. In 2001, this practice was introduced with poverty reduction at its core. The process is chaired by the president of the local committee and the village leader. Residents of the community form a key part in this as they define the level of poverty within the village. So essentially, there are poverty levels ranging from the very least being object poverty and then the highest being money rich. So this transforms into an engagement with development of their village. The process is decentralized so communities are brought together and there's a bank account assigned to each community to improve surroundings. Purchases also include livestock, agriculture, activities, clean water, classrooms, terraces, health centres and silos used for store and harvest. This also increased skills within the local community. Ibudeha was so successful that in 2008, the programme won the United Nations Public Service Award for Excellence in Service Delivery. It's amazing just how community centric, I think it's just a theme throughout, you know, when we're looking at Gekaka and now Ibudeha, and it really helped with the reconciliation process, you know, it's not just the top-down approach from the government being like, right? This needs to be done here that everywhere, but actually really allowing people to define what they need and really build something that is suitable for their community rather than being like, we're going to do what the guys next door are doing. And we did that actually having the freedom to decide how your community or, you know, local area is going to spend the money. All right, that is amazing. Yeah, the fact that they were able to adapt, you know, suited to their specific needs is something that, again, I've not particularly seen before. And, you know, as we, it's kind of the importance of a collective society versus an individualistic society. So, for example, here in the UK, you can still be on the breadline and still have a full-time job essentially here. But with this whole poverty reduction drive, it means that not just you, but your whole community will actually benefit from something and it's specific to your needs. No, definitely. And you can really have like a same terms of where your community is going and really building that. I think it's, yeah, it's really, it's a really nice way. Yeah, I've built in that kind of community spirit and things. I feel like I'm using a lot of words I would not use in my normal day-to-day life community spirit. But it feels right. I love it. I love it. Have you not felt the community spirit whenever one's clapping? You know, I didn't feel the community spirit when that happened. Yeah, yeah. I don't have a balcony, but I'm clapping anyway. I'm clapping anyway. So, I was still clapping and contributing. So, yeah, definitely. And, doesn't this remind you of like quite a couple of strong comebacks? This has made me think of like Craig David come back. Do you know what I mean? Like, he disappeared and then boom, 20, was it a lot? 2019, you know, had his comeback and now I don't want to think he's big, but he's everywhere, isn't he? Well, I guess, you know, if you think that going to your love island is a comeback, then yes, I would say. I think it did have expectations for a comeback. What would be your comeback? Who's your like comeback person musician? Actually, I kind of think Kylie, Kylie Minogue, that is not the gender person. Well, really nice. She's a really good comeback queen because I feel like yeah, she just disappeared. She comes back. And she fits right back in. I like that. That's right. Yes, like, like she never left. So, the third policy that we'll look at that the Rwandan government introduced was Gorinka. And this translates to, may you have a cow. This initiative delivered one cow per poor family. A cow is seen as a sign of respect and gratitude and is often used to peer diary in Rwandan culture. The aim of this programme was to tackle the high rate of childhood malnutrition by reducing poverty. A cow improved the livelihoods of Rwandans through commercialising diary products, increasing agricultural outputs, it gave you milk to consume and also helped better soil fertility. Gorinka was introduced in 2006 and Rwandans soil milk production increased by sevenfold. The government also introduced an initiative where a child received one cup of milk whilst in school every day. Sorry. No, I'm thinking that child just receives one cup and never again. No, sorry. No. To be honest, some idiot is a bit of a re-reversal about how Margaret Thatcher took away all the cups of milk apparently. And here's Rwanda bringing that back. Given all the milks, yeah guys. You get a milk. During Rwandans colonial period, owning a cow divided Rwandans along ethnic lines and cows were seen as an elitist symbol, following the civil war 90% of cattle were killed. However, Gorinka successfully reunited citizens to the point where first born cows were often given to a neighbour and this just goes to show the extent to which social relationships were rebuilt. So, really just like bringing everybody together and to really like this. Yeah, I really like this. I really, it's so good. Do you know what this makes me think of? Like, with, I'm going to use the B word, Brexit and how people you were either like remainder or a lever. And people actually being quite like, it was very polarising, obviously not to this level. These guys had like a long genocide going on. But rebuilding that and that aspect of thing was never really tackled. I'm not saying like the government needs to give everybody a cow, but I just think in terms of like musing as kind of one community was never really tackled. So it's interesting how they dealt with it to make people very much equal again. And yeah, it was really good. What would be your cow alternative to help level the socio-economic playing field? Maybe everyone in their 20s gets money for a house deposit? How about that? Tell me about it, honestly. The struggle is real. Following the genocide, improving the lives of children was also a priority. The government made sure that 97% of children were in primary school, which at the time was the highest rate in Africa. The UN named Rwanda as one of the top three countries for improvement education access. Children educated in schools were struggling to encourage to stop using potentially divisive labels such as Hutu and Tutsi. The education system in Rwanda focused on building the future of a common Rwanda. Another significant development for Rwanda and children is seen in vaccines. So post-war, the coverage of most childhood vaccinations recommended by the WHO fell to below 25%. However, within 20 years the number of babies receiving these recommended vaccinations increased to around 95%. Also looking at women as well, after the killings stopped in 1994, women made 70% of the Rwanda population. Women were vital in leading Rwanda's recovery, swapping traditional roles for political opportunities. This political participation meant that Rwanda and women generally received better education and economic opportunities. In 2003, Rwanda law imposed a minimum of 30% of parliamentary seats to be held by women. The government also pledged that girls' education were being encouraged, whilst giving women leadership roles in key institutions and within the community. In a report by the Huffington Post, 64% of Rwanda's parliamentary seats are being held by women, leading the change in terms of female representation and having the highest number of women in parliament in the world. Women were now able to own land, which meant girls could inherit from their parents and women could inherit from their families. Equal inheritance was also paid out upon divorce, and there was easy access to contraception. Yeah, this is great. It's good to see that women are the rebuilders of the nations and, again, very much community-focused and, you know, seen as after the war, it would have just literally been 70% of the population of women, that's, you know, you can't ignore us by that point, you know? Yeah, no, definitely, and it's like, you rather than being like, okay, we'll just use the 30% of guys that we've got, you know what I mean? They were like, no, let's, you know what I mean, let's actually bring up women, they, and make it what it is equal and fair, and yeah, no, it is, yeah, I love it, you know, especially you, black women, and parent, like women like this, and it's very similar to episode two where we look at Thomas Sankara as well, and here's the reforms he made to help support women. And there's definitely a correlation between women getting opportunities and the country progressing. Oh yeah, definitely, someone's definitely done some research into that, we're basically saving governments. And companies, as they say, you know, women, plenty of women representation does well for company performance as well. You need us. Next episode, you'll find out the next CEO of a major company, wait and see. Facebook, we're here. Another key kind of policy comes in terms of health and HPV vaccination campaign that the Rwandan government ran. So, Rwanda is currently on track to eliminate cervical cancer by encouraging 11 to 12 year old girls to get the HPV vaccine. So, the goal of preventing cervical cancer is the health priority for the government, and they agreed a partnership with the pharmaceutical company Mark to offer Rwandan girls the opportunity to be vaccinated against HPV, which calls it cervical cancer. This was the first time an African country had embarked on a national prevention program for cervical cancer. Initially, the odds were stacked against Rwanda to achieve high HPV coverage, as after its war, the country was one of the poorest in the world. However, there are examples where the government offered a community-based approach in terms of spreading information about the HPV vaccine. So, the first one being local community health workers who spent weeks canvassing their village going to rural areas and informing parents about the upcoming vaccination. And this is really important as the village is not being kind of left behind, you know, in many countries, development and certainly public health initiatives may conveniently leave out those living in villages. So, it's not just kind of like big city, that's what that's what we'll focus on. Yeah, it's really good that they like reached out to those rural communities as well, because they're the ones that probably would be the most disconnected from these sort of opportunities, like those in the cities are probably being more educated and more likely to be able to access these medicines, but it's good that they decided to reach out to those guys as well. Yeah, no, definitely. And community health workers work closely with nurses to educate the population about the vaccine and being able to prevent cervical cancer. Rwanda has a strong community health worker population with 45,000 spread across every village. Primary school teachers also looked out for 12-year-old girls at the local school to educate them about the vaccine. And lastly, some church leaders preached about the importance of the vaccine weeks before it arrived in the local village. And the church continued to use kind of drama to depict scenes of cervical cancer's impact. Here again, education is key and also the random government had to counter obviously other rumors about the vaccine causing infertility, which weren't true. So they were really there like, I think the great thing is by making sure that everybody was moving at the same pace, they were able to kind of counteract anything that wasn't basically fake news. Yeah, they were, they were, you know, against those what's set for rumors from early. So that's people need to stop forwarding those WhatsApp messages honestly. Gosh, having to re-educate my mother on the internet. Too much, too much. In 2001, Rwanda unveiled a new flag and national anthem. The flag was changed because of its association to the brutality of the 1994 genocide and the old flash was a bit trash, just to wait until you hear what it was. Or you could Google it as well. Oh yeah, people should definitely Google because we shouldn't want people coming in here like, oh yeah, you said that's the, you said that's the old one. No, the flag, it was trash guys. Google Fash, and then, and then have a good debate about it. Someone in the DM's like, you said the flag was trash. It was. It was. It was. The previous flag was a red yellow green tricolor with a large black R. If not for the art, it was the same as Guinea. So the art was basically like, it was written in aerial or something. At least it wasn't times New Roman. So that is true, that is true. Oh, I don't know if it would have been worse if it was in Comic Sans though. I was definitely your Comic Sans girl. I thought like, yeah, I'm so creative. Got myself a Comic Sans out here. No, it was all about sentry gothic. I'll have you know. Oh really? Yeah, oh yeah, just made everything just look so emotional. I am constantly having an emotional tie. Yeah. Of course, I'm just a basic calibre girl now. The new flag represents national unity, respect for work, heroism and confidence in the future. Free from any associations, the 1994 killings. It has no red, which is seen as connotations of blood spilt or black, which is often seen as a symbolism of morning and gloom. Instead, there were four colours. Blue, green, yellow and gold. The blue represents happiness in peace. The yellow is for economic development. Green is for hope of prosperity and lush vegetation. And the gold sun in the top right corner is seen as enlightenment. A new national anthem was introduced as well as many believe the old anthem, which was adapted from the traditional folk tune, glorifies the Hutus as they fought to overthrow to its suit oppression. The new anthem refers to the Randans as one people rather than along the ethnic lines. So yeah, got a faint memory of learning this in school. So 2001, yeah, I must have been quite young. And yeah, I think that was when I realised that like countries could make up their own flags. It occurred to me that that was the thing. I was like, wow, that's so cool. Someone just made this up. And also, what school did you go to that you were learning about this kind of thing? Like, I was, wow, I was kind of massive disservice. Who knew that Essex was so progressive? Who knew? Who knew? To be fair, coming from Devin, there wasn't really, yeah. Yeah. Well, sorry, it must be nice to have a national anthem that talks about citizens rather than God-only, saving one person. So that's quite nice. There's a whole population out here, guys. There's a whole population. Yeah, just the queen there. Okay, cool. That's fine. Don't worry about me then. No, I'll just carry on. We've had a look at kind of like Rwanda coming out of genocide and coming back up and really helping the community, but it's also important to recognize that the country does have significant human rights issues. So here we're really looking at, you know, there are very much two sides to this story. And whilst on the exterior, Rwanda has succeeded in their rebirth, there have been some human rights issues which should be highlighted in order to have a balanced view of the story. So let's take a look at Paul Kagami, the man who is regarded as being responsible for the majority of these changes. So he was a former army commander. He was victorious in the Civil War and was the minister of defence and vice president until 2000 when he became Rwanda's president and has been president since 2000. 2000. Why 2k? Millennium bug. Wow. When Napster was a new piece of technology and iPods were invented. Imagine that. What was it then, like iPod Nano? There was no iPod. There was no iPod. Jesus. There was no iPod. I thought he said the iPods were there. There was no iPod. There was no iPod. Oh, this is definitely lime wire season. Wow. 2000. This is very much a long time. We are in 2020. As much as we wanted to go back to 2019. Please take me back to 2019. Kagami went on to change the constitution to enable him to run for a third election, winning 98.8% of the vote. Not despot like at all, is it? No. Oh, I told you. Yeah, 98.8%. Yeah. And you also get this one polls in 2003, 2010 and with 98% and 95% of the vote. And, you know, can we be sure these are accurate and reliable? I don't know. That's a little question mark. But I was thinking about this right. 98.8%. If I got any of these marks, it might agree. Even I would question them. I'm sorry. I've been like, I think someone's made a mistake. No, this is too much. Probably is. A quote from one of Miranda's citizens outlined the reason she voted for Kagami in a report from a guardian where she says he loves us. He gave us cows, brought schools for our children, a road and kept everything peaceful. I can never imagine having another president. May at this rate, she's not getting another president. I mean, well, she's happy. She's happy with that at the moment. She's happy. He's not your president. He's your autocrat essentially. Kagami's regime, whilst he has transformed Miranda, now has a limited political opposition, very few dissenting voices in the media and tight restrictions on freedom of speech in the political space. For example, prints and broadcast media only show pro-government views with intimidation threats and prosecution being at stake. Ketsito Michigo was a Rurandan gospel singer and genocide survivor. He released a critical song in 2014, challenging and genocide narrative and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released in 2018 by presidential grace but was re-arrested on the 13th of February 2020 and found dead on February the 17th on suspicious circumstances. There have been a significant number of opponents or critics of the Rurandan government who have ended up either dead or missing. In July 2017, the United Nations subcommittee of the Prevention of Torture, SPT cancelled their visit to Rurandor for due to lack of cooperation. This was the first time in 15 years a cancellation happened. In January, the following year, human rights watch researcher was denied access to Rurandor and Rurandan consultant working with the human rights watch was detained and held for six days. Kind of got us thinking, is there a way of restarting the country in a way that doesn't compromise human rights? I mean, if we look at Thomas Sankaran and Paul Kagami both have introduced radical changes to their country, but at the cost of banning opposition, freedom of speech, or we saw how Sankara stopped teachers from striking, they still need to be held accountable. If people aren't happy with the way the government is running things, they should be allowed to be able to express that. Yeah, no, I really agree with you. I think these guys just won't power mad. They were like, I did this for you guys, this for you guys, this, that and the other, and I should be allowed to now, you guys don't need to make any decisions. It's really frustrating because if they had just stuck to all the good they were doing, things could potentially be so different today, but oh no, you've got to go out there and win elections left, right and center with a question mark. Like, what even? It's like just that despot life, it's just so attractive, you know? And often, you know, that's why we say in the UK that we urge journalists to always challenge the government, which they need to do right now. More, as they have the ability to be able to challenge the government without ending up in a cell the next morning. I think we're kind of able to have that freedom. We take that for granted as you forget that we can just sit here and say that we don't like, you know, people in parliament and we know that we're not going to get arrested the next day, you know? Yeah. And also that musician as well. Man, broke was just challenging something and all of a sudden you're in prison for 10 years. Yes. And that is mysterious circumstances. And there is actually a list where we'll post it in the episode notes of all the people that have been recorded because who knows? There might be people who haven't been recorded who have either gone missing or have died because they spoke up against the Rwandan government. And it was going so well, but yeah, here we are. As we've seen, obviously, Rwanda has a very, you know, again, that kind of jekyll and hide. It has this massive kind of genocidal history and then also these human rights issues. It's tried to come back, but at the same time, these issues very much still remain within the country. But did it have to take a brutal genocidal war for these types of reforms to have taken place? You know, just going back to where we're looking at Gukkaka and Ubedehay and kind of HPV vaccination and all of that. Does it really need to take a genocidal war for those things to happen? Because that's something we also saw, you know, with the UK and the introduction of the National Health Service and, you know, Council housing only after a war. Like, can we not just learn lessons in terms of being fair to people regardless of they're not being a war? Come on. Yeah, and I know that I think a lot of people are hoping that after these current events, a similar thing would happen that there'd be some kind of sweeping reforms that would potentially help to put people, you know, help people that are perhaps disadvantaged or slighted. But yeah, it's a shame that quite often it takes for, you know, a terrible event to have occurred before the government helps people. No, I'm pretty agree. In this case, it's like Rando is going back to their heritage and their traditional practices. And is it because things are, you know, other African countries within the continent, you know, had too much time elapsed for them to go back to that point, for them to remember their pre-colonial practices, because many of them had been indrupcionated for quite a long time. So, the idea of being able to go back and review the way their former systems were, that might have, it might have passed, you know, you kind of passed that point of return. Yeah, I really agree, yeah, some of them kind of when you're looking at the DRC, for example, was it just too big and so many things have happened that actually it made it difficult. But the great thing about Rwanda is that it had such a strong kind of postcolonialist culture and it felt like obviously, let's bring that back to really help us to move forward and come back from this. And it really, to me, brought back this idea of, you know, using having African solutions to self-African problems. And I'm not saying this always works, like obviously huge human rights issues out here. That is there, let's not forget that. Let's not shy away from that. No, definitely not, but I do think when we're talking about some of the reforms that they did bring into place, those were rooted in that culture and it worked because it was rooted in the culture and people's heritage. So yeah, an interesting topic with Rwanda. Yeah, it's one of those ones where, like, well, I first came across this topic, we were like, oh, this is amazing, look at this country, it's just, it's just done the most, they've increased their life, you know, expectancy, and then you're like, ah, they human rights issues. Okay, you can't ignore that. Thank you for listening, guys, we're now mid season. Yes, we'll be back with formal episodes to wrap up season one from the fifth of May. We are off to get some towns from our respective London windows, so yeah, and don't forget to subscribe so you can get the latest episodes straight to your device. Also, don't forget to drop us a rating on your podcast platform and don't forget to leave us a review as well. Five stars would be amazing. We're also on Instagram as @itsacontinentpod, so feel free to send us your suggestions for future topics. We've already had a few suggestions, so keep them coming and keep a watch out, definitely, keep a watch out for the next four episodes. So yeah, we'll see you and yeah, take care of yourselves, guys. Take care of yourselves. Bye!