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A power careless of its people
Poverty, misery, illness, worry, fear, the fear of
disappearing, general under development are not due to a defect nor a fatality
nor a curse of our people. The experience of the 70’s and 80’s, the glorious
years of our prosperity, prove adequately how ingenious and hard working the
Rwandan people are and how they could again stand up if peace and security could
be guaranteed. Of course our country does not have the same resources as our
neighbours, but its primary resource is the genius and hard work of its people.
Can we pacify this people, reconcile it forever and protect it against the
predators who fight for the “seats” and who always finish their combat in a
blood bath?
Yes I can see only one solution: give back justice and power
to its “owners”, that is the Rwandan people.
A false fight against poverty
The other solution rests also in the struggle which has to be
led against poverty. The statistics will always show, and often in an
exaggerated fashion, the progress achieved by the current regime. High rates of
growth, often above 8%! These fantasy statistics are one thing and reality quite
another. To combat poverty, we need to develop the rural environment. The
construction of beautiful villas is in no way the best measure of our
development. I would like to have in my country more stalls, small markets, more
shops and small craft production units than villas and beautiful cars.
How can we pretend that we have indigenous development if the
public debt, which was 0.8% of GDP in 1990, is today more than 1.6% (i.e. A
doubling of the public debt in 10 years). Whilst the misery of the Rwandan
population has got worse (see the world report of the UNDP on human development
2001), the vacuum caused by the war of 1990-94 and the dismantling of the state
by the two belligerents (the FPR and the FAR) is not enough to justify this
development. The waste of public funds for the war effort in the Congo and the
corruption are in part responsible for the excessive growth of our country’s
debt.
This evolution is even more worrying because no coherent
program of economic regrowth has ever been established. Fraud, which is
virtually recommended by the regime, economic crimes against the Congo, the
abandoning of farms and state enterprises into the hands of foreigners (often
without compensation unless for derisory prices), inflation, corruption, these
are all signs which cannot be misunderstood. More than ever in the civil service
the criteria of competence, efficiency and merit are replaced by a marked
preference for political cronyism, synonym for opportunism and mediocrity which
demotes, to the level of myth and pious hope, the cult of excellence so vaunted
by the current Rwandan authority.
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Politics
