[AfricaRealities] Belgium cuts 40 million Euro in aid to Rwanda

 

http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/2014/12/21/545/belgium-cuts-40-million-euro-in-aid-to-rwanda

KPFA Weekend News, 12.21.2014

International argument over "Rwanda's Untold Story," the BBC documentary that upends widely held belief about the Rwandan massacres of the 1990s, and discredits the authoritarian regime of President Paul Kagame, continues in the European, African, and U.S. press. Earlier this week, Belgium canceled 40 million Euro in development aid to Rwanda.
 

British officials were right at the front, with President Kagame, in this footage of the walk to the April 7 genocide memorial in Kigali, which was included in the BBC documentary 'Rwanda's Untold Story'.' The UK continues to be the biggest foreign donor to Rwanda. 

 

Transcript: 

KPFA Evening News Anchor David Landau: In news from Africa, earlier this week, Belgium canceled 40 million Euro in development aid because "Rwanda continues to fail to make any progress in the areas of press President Kagame is not known to have cancelled any foreign aid checks yet.freedom and good governance." KPFA's Ann Garrison has more. 

 

KPFA/Ann Garrison: MoveOn.org, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, is hosting a petition titled "BBC Trust should apologize to the Rwandan people" despite the fact that very few Rwandans in Rwanda have been allowed to see the BBC documentary titled "Rwanda's Untold Story." The documentary upends widely held belief about the Rwandan massacres of the 1990s, and discredits the brutally repressive, authoritarian regime of President Paul Kagame.

The Rwandan government has even banned the BBC radio broadcast in Rwanda's native language and created a commission of inquiry to investigate and possibly indict the BBC for, quote unquote, "genocide denial" in Rwanda. In a recent speech. Kagame curiously described what the BBC does as "politics." 

 

Kagame: Well, BBC is supposed to be the standard of freedom of speech, but all they do is politics. They belittle people. They are no better than anybody. For these other gods who want us to bow to them, in Rwanda, they are in the wrong place. (Applause.)

 

KPFA: In the same speech, Kagame warned that anyone who tries to overthrow his regime, which he referred to as "our right," will pay a very high price. 

 

Kagame: No one has the right to take away our right. For those who will attempt, it will be very expensive for them. Very expensive.  

 

KPFA: The Kinyarwanda phrase at the end added that this warning applies to anyone who tries to overthrow his regime from either inside or outside Rwanda.

 

Belgian scholar Filip Reyntjens, however, told KPFA that the loss of foreign aid, not military overthrow, is the greatest danger that Kagame faces from criticism in the West. Rwanda and its so-called "development miracle," he said, are heavily dependent on foreign aid. In the BBC documentary, Reyntjens called Kagame "the greatest war criminal in office today," and earlier this week, the Belgian government canceled 40 million Euro in foreign development aid because, it said, of the country's poor human rights record. In the aforementioned speech, Kagame said that he will refuse foreign aid before letting foreigners tell him what to do, but he has not refused to sign any foreign aid checks yet. 

 

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison. 

 

Note: MoveOn.org, in response to complaint, posted a disclaimer on the petition "BBC Trust Should Apologize to the Rwandan People." The disclaimer says that the petition "may not reflect the values of MoveOn.org members."

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