APA-Kigali (Rwanda) Even with a clear landslide victory of incumbent President Paul Kagame in the Monday concluded presidential polls, the international human rights watchdog, the Human Rights Watch, is already warning the British government to desist from supporting Rwanda because of increasing repressive tendencies on critical views, APA learns here Tuesday.
In a statement availed to APA on the post elections in Rwanda, Tom Porteous, London director of Human Rights Watch, warned that everything that the UK has invested in Rwanda in 16 years could be put at risk if repression causes a build-up of resentment that could trigger another conflict.
According to reliable diplomatic sources in Kigali, Britain, US and Netherlands, the leading financial bankroller of Kagame’s government are under growing pressure to use their substantial aid budget in Rwanda as a lever to end the civil rights abuses that are tarnishing the reputation of a country seen until recently as one of Africa’s greatest success stories.
Recently Kagame’s government suspended two critical newspapers, sanctioned a stringent media law that has seen closure of more than 30 of other newspapers and fleeing of all top editors of critical tabloids with one murdered.
Human rights watch says that a series of incidents in which opponents of the government have been threatened or killed and free speech suppressed has raised embarrassing questions about the wisdom of the huge political and financial investment that the UK has made in Kagame’s regime.
Last year, the Labour government committed the UK to providing £46 million a year in aid to Rwanda, making Britain the biggest international donor to the Kagame government, almost half of whose budget comes from foreign aid.
But that aid came with conditions that committed Rwanda to "poverty reduction and sound financial management ; good governance and respect for human rights".
