STAND protests speech by Rwandan president
By: Catherine Zaw
April 29, 2014
Around a dozen members of Stanford STAND, a human rights group,
demonstrated outside a Graduate School of Business event featuring
Rwandan President Paul Kagame last Friday, in an effort to prompt
conversation of and raise awareness about allegedly repressive actions
by Kagame's administration.
Courtesy of Paul Kagame
According to Jared Naimark '14, the STAND students demonstrated at the
event because the Stanford chapter of the national STAND organization
focuses explicitly on human rights in Sudan, South Sudan, Burma, Syria
and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda has repeatedly intervened
in Congo in recent years.
The group also works with Friends of the Congo, an organization based
in Washington, D.C. that works to raise awareness about challenges
faced by people in the Congo and to support Congolese institutions.
Demonstrators emphasized, however, that their efforts were not
intended to interrupt the procession of the event.
"We [were] not planning to disrupt the event in any way," Naimark
said. "We're curious to hear what he had to say. The goal is to get
information in people's hands."
The demonstrators handed out informational factsheets and flyers that
detailed human rights violations allegedly perpetrated by the Kagame
administration, as well as printed copies of an editorial article that
they had published in The Daily that day, according to Melanie Langa
'16, a member of STAND and one of the demonstrators.
"STAND was interested in changing the dialogue around this event
because we felt it wasn't representative of the whole story," Langa
said. "There are whole stories and perspectives that you can take to
this event. Since he's been president, Rwanda has made many strides
and has improved and [Kagame's] done a good job in a lot of cases and
scenarios but it's also important to recognize that his government has
been destabilizing Eastern Congo and because of that we are interested
in making sure that side of the story people knew about."
Scott St. Marie MBA '15, one of the student coordinators of Kagame's
address, stated that he thought the STAND students' presence at the
event was beneficial.
"I'm glad that they were there to help broaden our dialogue about
Kagame and Rwanda," St. Marie said. "Rwanda has a tumultuous and
complex history, and I'm glad we were able to talk about multiple
perspectives."
In fact, St. Marie later approached the students and ensured that one
of the STAND representatives could engage in the audience
participation portion of the event. Audience questioning, according to
St. Marie, included queries about term limits and whether Kagame has
plans to run for a third term.
"We passed out all the flyers we brought and people were very
receptive," Langa said. "I think it was very successful. We got people
to think of other issues that we didn't think would be addressed
without some kind of push and we're contributing to what might be
missing from that conversation."
Nitish Kulkarni contributed to this report. Contact Catherine Zaw at
czaw13 'at' Stanford 'dot' edu.
About Catherine Zaw
Catherine Zaw is the Managing Editor of News at The Stanford Daily.
She is a junior from Miami, FL, double majoring in biology and
linguistics. To contact her, please email czaw@stanford.edu.
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2014/04/29/stand-protests-speech-by-rwandan-president/
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