DIFFERENT, NOT SO DIFFERENT?

Popular literature has tended to mark a clear difference between pre- and post-genocide Rwanda. Where pre-genocide Rwanda is seen as a prelude to the 1994 massacres, a time of discrimination and ethnocentrism, post-genocide Rwanda is hailed as a miracle, a time of ‘rebirth’ and reconciliation (see e.g. Kinzer Reference Kinzer2008). For many, this radical break is a reflection of dramatically different leaderships, where Habyarimana is presented as an unscrupulous, corrupt ethno-political entrepreneur, while Kagame is the ascetic, principled and selfless leader (Gourevitch Reference Gourevitch2009: 37).Footnote ⁸ Such trenchant renderings provide us with a culprit and hero when trying to make sense of recent Rwandan history. But they do not necessarily help us understand these leaderships in greater depth. Important differences do exist between the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes and deserve to be studied in greater detail; but so does what lies behind the differences.

Glaring differences exist between pre- and post-genocide regimes. After all, the Habyarimana regime mostly comprised francophone Hutu born in Rwanda. It attained power following a coup meant to replace First Republic incumbents. The Kagame regime, for its part, is composed mostly of Tutsi anglophones, former refugees or born abroad. It took power by militarily means to regain control of the country amidst the genocide. These may be the most obvious differences between these two regimes, especially their ethnic composition, but key differences also include their stance on identity, and their relationship with Rwandan peasants.

The Habyarimana and Kagame regimes are often associated with very different treatments of identity. Ethnic identity mattered according to Second Republic rhetoric. Far from a divisive force, though, the existence of ethnic groups in Rwanda was presented as a wealth. These were different, yet complementary, identities that culturally enriched the country.Footnote ⁹ That Rwandans of all backgrounds were to live in harmony was an idea at the forefront of regime rhetoric. In practice, ethnic identities were the source of quotas. A practice of the First Republic but institutionalised under the Second, Tutsi were given access to secondary school, scholarships, certain jobs, commissions in the military and political positions based on the proportion they represented in the general Rwandan population. The regime explained the institution of these quotas as a means to redress or ‘balance’ past injustices committed prior to independence when Tutsi had been favoured by Belgian authorities. Regional identities were, however, of much greater importance for the Habyarimana regime.Footnote ¹⁰ The 1973 coup d'état was largely led by northern military officers, who intended to overthrow a regime which had narrowed its power base to central Rwanda. The Habyarimana regime instead built on support from northern lineages and even, according to some, courted the Tutsi as a counter-weight to central and southern interests (see Gasana Reference Gasana2002: 26). Regionalism also translated into differentiated access to education, employment and political positions.Footnote ¹¹ Quotas, whether ethnic or regional, could be circumvented with forged identity cards or by securing the support of local administrators. Both required money, however, and illustrate that economic class also played an important role under the Second Republic.

For the Kagame regime, ethnic categories have been eliminated. Ethnicity has been erased from official documents, including identity cards, and references to ethnic identity, particularly in the political realm, are condemned. In 2001, the regime passed new laws making public references to one's ethnicity criminal, paving the way for it to institute laws on practicing ethnic divisionism and promoting genocide ideology in 2008.Footnote ¹² Rwandan authorities' stated purpose for controlling how individuals talk about ethnicity is to make way for a more inclusive Rwandan identity based on ‘Rwandan-ness’, rather than on being Tutsi, Hutu or Twa. In reality, however, ethnicity continues to matter. The government is regularly accused of favouring Tutsi in terms of education, employment in the military and access to political positions.Footnote ¹³ The Kagame regime limits the number of Hutu in public life. This stance also affects the non-elite. The current regime proves highly suspicious of Hutu, pursuing a policy of maximal persecution of ordinary Hutu. There has been a tendency on the part of the Kagame regime to presume that elite and ordinary Hutu alike are guilty of taking part in the genocide or capable of carrying out equivalent violence. But other identities prove just as important for the Kagame regime, including ‘regional’ identity or provenance and linguistic identity. Indeed, the current regime favours anglophone Tutsi who returned to Rwanda after July 1994, most of whom have settled in eastern and southern Rwanda. The regime is in significant part built on former Rwandan refugees from neighbouring countries who fought together for their right of return. Among this group, those from Uganda tend to predominate at the head of the country.Footnote ¹⁴ This has marked a divide between this ‘new’ Tutsi elite and the former Tutsi elite, francophones born and raised in Rwanda. Beyond its relations with elites, the regime maintains an ambivalent relationship with ordinary Tutsi survivors whom it suspects of having colluded with Hutu in order to survive (de Lame Reference de Lame2005: 135).

Though these regimes appear very different, especially when conceived of as Hutu favouring Hutu and Tutsi favouring Tutsi, we can question whether these differences do not also mask important similarities, especially in terms of how the regimes operate. Both regimes chose, in rhetoric, to promote unity, though one did so by promoting a vision of accommodating complementary ethnic identities, while the other proposes to replace ethnic identity by a larger, all-encompassing Rwandan identity. In both cases, however, this rhetoric masked what is in essence clear favouritism and related discrimination along ethnic and regional lines. But, more importantly, both regimes opted to fall back on a narrow, identity-centred base of support. They sought to consolidate their power around a specific group, feeding allegiance through identity-based clientelist practices. Thus, despite representing and privileging different identities, they used identity and identity markers in a similar fashion: to consolidate support for the regime and shore up political power.

Another key issue is the very different relationship each regime maintained with the peasantry, the overwhelming majority of Rwandans.Footnote ¹⁵ Habyarimana's peasants, with their machetes and small-scale farms, were the declared heroes of the ruling elite in Kigali, the capital. The regime professed a great admiration for the masses populaires and rural life. Peasants – though they needed to be ‘energised’ and ‘guided’Footnote ¹⁶ – were depicted as the regime's inspiration. Rural life and hard work were upheld as the Rwandan way, to be embraced and towards which institutions and practices were geared. A series of initiatives, including a reform in rural education and access to agricultural technocrats, were developed by the regime to support the modernisation of agriculture. The Habyarimana regime, through its relations with the international community – in significant part a reflection of Cold War politics – also succeeded in dramatically increasing foreign aid to Rwanda and the number of projects implanted in the country. Though few statistics exist on the impact of aid projects on the welfare of Rwandan peasants in the 1970s, by the early to mid 1980s their conditions had begun to deteriorate. Many of the regime's programmes and policies had held in reality little enduring benefit for rural populations.Footnote ¹⁷ More importantly, the regime helped to concentrate land in the hands of a small number of administrative cadres, reducing peasants' already limited access to land (see Reyntjens Reference Reyntjens1994: 32–3; Uvin Reference Uvin1998: 112–15). According to Bézy (Reference Bézy1990: 27), by 1984 half of the existing agricultural land had to be rented by peasants for subsistence. Within years it became clear that urban elites had benefitted above all others under the Second Republic. Though the same elites often acted as the regime's link to rural areas by staying in touch with their community of origin, the benefits they reaped intensified a growing rural–urban divide (Jefremovas Reference Jefremovas2002; Newbury Reference Newbury, Hyden and Bratton1992).

Far from rousing admiration as under the Second Republic, peasants' machetes and small farms are associated under the current regime with genocide and underdevelopment. Hutu peasants' purported backwardness and isolation are seen as key determinants of their extensive participation in the massacres. Peasant Rwandans themselves know this is not the case and recognise in private what they cannot say in public – that different types of killings, beyond the neighbour against neighbour image often conveyed, took place in Rwanda before, during and after the 1994 genocide. Peasants are also associated with underdevelopment. Their poverty is seen as a direct result of their lack of economic acumen and their laziness, both viewed as barriers to development and modernity (Ansoms Reference Ansoms2009). In the last decade, the country has known significant growth, helped by a massive influx of foreign aid. In spite of the impressive physical and institutional reconstruction in Kigali and other major cities since 2000, the Rwandan peasantry has become poorer in a number of provinces and inequalities more pronounced at the national level (see UNDP Rwanda 2007). Peasants' conditions have been affected by policies aimed at modernising the countryside. Political elites in urban Kigali, showing disdain for the expertise and knowledge of Rwanda's very poor small-scale subsistence farmers, have opted instead for land concentration and mono-cropping strategies as the way to durable and profitable agriculture. Land conflicts have become more common because of elite land-grabbing in the drive to reform the agricultural sector, and the rural poor increasingly need food aid in order to survive. Indeed, the social distance between urban elites and ordinary peasant Rwandans is greater now than it was before the genocide (see Ansoms Reference Ansoms2008, Reference Ansoms2009; Pottier Reference Pottier1989).

Seen as either pro-peasants or disdainful towards peasants, the two regimes seem polar opposites. Despite these obvious differences, they have had similar dramatic impacts on peasant welfare. In the name of progress, both have set forth policies that eventually worsened rural living conditions and exacerbated the rural–urban divide. Beyond similar impacts, similarities are also to be found in the treatment of peasants itself. Both the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes demonstrated paternalism, even condescension, in their relationship with peasants, though admittedly of a different nature. In both periods, there is a sense that peasants need guidance, to be modernised, to be helped out of a state which they alone cannot escape. In a sense, while the Habyarimana regime treated Rwandan peasants as its children (to be educated), the Kagame government treats them as children (to be disciplined). Where the Habyarimana regime played the public role of a doting parent, the Kagame regime plays the role of the reprimanding parent.Footnote ¹⁸ Both, however, marked a paternalistic distance between authorities and peasants.

Differences between these two regimes, though significant, do not necessarily amount to the Manichean portrayals often found in analyses. Cutting across differences are also important similarities, including a tendency to build the regime around a narrow base of supporters and clientelist relations, and a concern with guidance or management of the peasant masses. We could add to these de jure (under Habyarimana) and de facto (under Kagame) one-party rule,Footnote ¹⁹ and an increasing tendency towards the centralisation of political power, despite decentralisation policies. What emerges from these similarities is a concern with power and control. The two regimes show authoritarian concerns over state power, who holds it or has access to it, and relations with society, or how groups in society are managed. They also respond to these concerns in similar ways, deploying similar strategies – though arguably to different degrees, the Kagame regime being much more coercive in its approach – to manage their hold on the country and control dissent. Though diametrically different on a number of issues, these are authoritarian regimes which fundamentally share authoritarian concerns and strategies.

RHETORICAL DEVICES AND BENEVOLENT LEADERSHIP

To these strategies of state power and control, we can add the use of similar rhetorical devices. In pre- and post-genocide Rwanda, rhetoric has had a role to play in terms of power and control. It has been deployed, including in the shape of projections of benevolent leadership, to try to manage relations with both the international community and domestic publics.

Public speeches, manifestoes and ‘vision’ documents are more than mere words (Verwimp Reference Verwimp2000). They reflect choices made by political leaders as to how to present and position themselves in relation to the international community, especially neighbours, donors and allies, and to Rwandans. As rhetorical artifices, these images or projections rarely accurately mirror reality, but instead embellish or disguise it.Footnote ²⁰ Such rhetoric represents a strategic effort on the part of leaders to manage what they want people to see of authorities. Projections of leadership therefore have a purpose: to impact on publics' perceptions and, hence, behaviour. The images that regimes construct of themselves tell us, as a result, not only how regimes want to be perceived, but also how they want to be related to.

In pre- and post-genocide Rwanda, the two regimes opted for similar projections of ‘benevolent leadership’. ‘Benevolent leadership’ plays on two themes. It speaks of benevolence, good will, good intentions, and actions taken for the greater good. It also speaks of leadership, the ability to lead, the capacity and know-how to take control and guide others. Projections of benevolent leadership should be understood as creating the sense that a regime is not only willing but also able to lead the country and its population on the path towards the greater good. In both cases, these projections of ‘benevolent leadership’ were meant for international and domestic consumption.

We can see these projections mattering with regards to relations with the outside given the importance of renewing relations with the international community under both governments. The Habyarimana regime took power in a country which had increasingly isolated itself on the international scene as a result of the policies and actions of the First Republic. First Republic leaders had proved so mistrustful of interference from within and outside the country that they had strained all relations, including those with the international community. The Habyarimana regime thus had a golden opportunity to turn the page on its predecessor's record and begin to change the country's image drastically. The genocide itself also promised to be a watershed moment in terms of Rwanda's relations with the outside. From a little known nation to one associated with one of the worst human tragedies of the twentieth century, post-genocide Rwanda had an opportunity to forge significant relations with the international community. International attention, driven by shock and guilt, was an opportunity for the Kagame regime to favourably shape its foreign relations – though strains with international partners have also occasionally occurred.Footnote ²¹ A more fundamental reason for the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes' concern with the international community has been Rwanda's on-going dependence on foreign aid. In both periods, aid ratios to national income and government expenditures were very high and consistently far above sub-Saharan African average.Footnote ²² This dependence on aid made good relations with the outside almost a necessity.

But the shape of state-society relations also mattered. The Habyarimana regime had a number of reasons to be concerned about its popular groundings. Though the 1973 coup was well received by rural populations and urban elites, popular disengagement and dissent existed throughout the Second Republic. A degree of popular disengagement in the early years of the Second Republic should come as no surprise, considering the absence of roads and communication infrastructure. By the 1980s, the regime had perfected its reach and control, through collaboration with local authorities. But droughts, famines and dire economic conditions in the mid to late 1980s strained relations with the Rwandan population. The regime also had complicated relations with urban bureaucratic and political elites, exemplified by regular bureaucratic disobedience, and more importantly by region-based divisions among political elites.Footnote ²³

The Kagame regime's state-society relations are also problematic. To say that its relations with both rural populations and elites are strained is an understatement. Ordinary Rwandans know that post-genocide Rwanda is run by an authoritarian dictatorship with little regard for human rights, little respect for the welfare of its predominantly peasant population, and no concern for the structural violence that continues to widen the socio-economic chasm between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. The population has developed as a result oblique means of resistance or disengagement from the state (Thomson Reference Thomson2010, Reference Thomson2011). Regime relations with elites are no simpler. The regime is allergic to domestic dissent, having systemically eliminated critical or opposing voices since 1995. By the end of 2000, the RPF had made it clear that its sole constituency were those who did not challenge or threaten its vision for the country. Though it may be difficult to criticise from the inside under the circumstances, a growing group of recently exiled Rwandan elites have chosen to express themselves from the safety of their host country. Dissent within Rwanda has not disappeared, however. Another key issue in recent years has been the emergence of a power struggle within the ruling RPF. Key figures from the early days of the RPF, such as General Sam Kaka, General Kayumba Nyamwasa and Colonel Patrick Karegeya, have had fall-outs with the regime. In addition, two other generals (Karake and Muhire) were arrested, accused of masterminding the grenade attacks that took place in Kigali in the spring of 2010. Key senior RPF military brass from 1994 have fled into exile or have been arrested (a few have retired and have been relieved of their duties), signalling important divisions in the inner circles of power (see Nyamwasa et al. Reference Nyamwasa, Karegeya, Rudasingwa and Gahima.2010).

Under both regimes, popular groundings and relations with key elites were problematic enough for their management to matter for regime resilience. These ambiguous state–society relations made strategies for control, including rhetorical devices, appealing. Both Habyarimana and Kagame chose very similar projections of ‘benevolent leadership’, to help them not only win international support, but also try to discipline the Rwandan population.

HABYARIMANA'S IMPROVED RWANDA AND ITS ‘RENOVATED RWANDANS’

Born of a coup d'état ousting the previous regime, ‘change’ was from early on a pillar of the Habyarimana regime's public image. In early years, government rhetoric focused on the redress that the 1973 coup had constituted. The coup removed from power a regime that had, it was contended, reneged on the ideals of the 1959 Social Revolution, a revolution which overthrew the Tutsi monarchy, instituted the Republic of Rwanda, and gave greater access to political, social and economic benefits to Hutu. According to official rhetoric, First Republic leaders had increasingly strayed from revolutionary ideals of social inclusion, ethnic cooperation and good governance, and turned to nepotism and corruption, while dramatically dividing the country both regionally and ethnically. Having ousted a degenerate regime, the Habyarimana regime was to be held as a ‘moral’ saviour, its coup considered a ‘moral coup’, even a ‘moral revolution’. In time, though, the regime moved beyond this contrast with the First Republic, and began to present itself as the apex of Rwandan historical evolution. The Second Republic had ushered in the true end to tyranny, and was sold as the culmination of a long revolutionary struggle against oppression in all guises, from the Tutsi monarchy and colonisation, to the excesses of the First Republic. In other words, the Second Republic was to be seen as the harbinger of a new era free of oppression.

To drive home this radical break with the past, the Habyarimana regime also focused on its vision for the future, for an ‘improved Rwanda’. This vision was built on three pillars, ‘peace’, ‘unity’ and ‘development’.Footnote ²⁴ These were, according to the regime, fundamentally intertwined. There could be no development in the absence of peace and regional and ethnic unity. As a result, the regime prioritised security matters in its first year in power. Following troublesFootnote ²⁵ in the country that preceded the 1973 coup and the coup itself, the country needed to be stabilised. Individual acts undermining security were strongly condemned. While the regime soon claimed to have restored peace to Rwanda, security-focused rhetoric periodically found its way back into public speeches in times of trouble, reminding Rwandans of the importance of peace and stability. National security was presented as everyone's concern – each and every one needed to contribute to the country's greater security.

Stability also referred to national concord, regional and ethnic harmony among Rwandans. Peace required tranquillity between the different components of society, including Rwandan regions and ethnic groups. This focus on unity, the second pillar in the government's vision, initially led numerous commentators to see Habyarimana as an advocate of ethnic cohesion in the country. Second Republic incumbents quickly claimed to have eliminated regional and ethnic divisions in Rwanda. Within a year of his coup, Habyarimana stated that ‘we have succeeded in bringing about an era of peace, unity and national concord’.Footnote ²⁶ Ethnic and regional differences were now to be understood as ‘a source of exchange of ideas, customs and strength rather than the way towards division and feelings of superiority over others’.Footnote ²⁷

The third pillar of the Habyarimana regime's vision was development. From early on, the regime set itself to stimulate greater economic development in Rwanda. For the Habyarimana regime, development in Rwanda needed to be realistic. The country's development programme was to be adapted to the country's realities: being landlocked, possessing very little in terms of natural resources, but an abundance of human resources in rural areas. This meant a programme largely focused on rural development, agriculture and artisanal production, aiming to attain national food sufficiency and produce manufactured goods adapted to Rwandan needs. Considering the importance of development for Rwanda, the regime's programme was to be implemented en masse. Public speeches at the time drove home a vision of a country, all its forces and sectors, mobilised for development, or what Habyarimana once described as ‘building all together a boat to cross the river of poverty’.Footnote ²⁸ The regime insisted that Rwandans themselves were to be the main drivers of development, as captured by its concept of endogenous, auto-centred development (développement endogène auto-centré).Footnote ²⁹ The country would be developed by its own forces (endogenous). And these forces would be dedicated to the country's progress (auto-centred). The regime adopted a similar perspective towards democratic development. Though it rarely raised the idea of democratising the system prior to 1978, it nonetheless regularly called on Rwandans to be ‘responsible democrats’, understood to mean individuals aware of their responsibilities to the state and enjoying their rights and privileges responsibly, in a constructive manner. Answering the vision of their leaders, citizen-developers, responsible democrats, would put Rwanda on the road to improvement.

The overall sense conveyed by the regime's vision for the country was that selfless, benevolent leaders had arrived in Kigali to make Rwanda better for its people by its people. This constructive relationship between authorities and the population was a central component of regime rhetoric. The Habyarimana regime regularly professed that the masses' interests guided all decisions and actions made by government. It argued that the 1973 coup had taken place in response to popular wishes for change. The perpetrators of the coup had for all intents and purposes taken their cue to act from the popular mood of the time. Through its plans for a better Rwanda, the regime also claimed to show its continued dedication to the country: it worked not for itself and selfish interests, but for Rwandans and the greater good. To drive in this point, regime rhetoric and imagery often underlined how close it was to Rwandans. Habyarimana, for example, worked hard to promote himself as a man of the people, organising regular tours around the country to talk to Rwandans, or taking part in local activities such as umuganda, community work.Footnote ³⁰

Ironically, however, the Habyarimana government's ideological edifice reinforced a paternalistic distance between the authorities, bearers of the vision of an improved Rwanda, and the Rwandan population, recipients of that vision. The regime, portrayed as both mastermind and midwife to a better Rwanda, stood on the exclusive plane of visionaries and enlightened guides, which helped legitimise its primary position in the country's social hierarchy. The regime's vision for the country always had a somewhat mystical nature. The Second Republic seemed to be born with this vision, its leaders exposing it in great detail within weeks of the 1973 coup. This extensive description of the regime's vision so soon after the coup gave little sense of where it had originated from or who had devised it. But it helped convey the sense that the vision was something extraordinary, revealed to an inspired and select group. Further driving in this sense, the regime's vision remained relatively unchanged in following years, stressing that coup instigators and leaders of the Second Republic had always been ‘in the know’. They held this ‘transcendent truth’, knew what Rwanda and Rwandans wanted and needed. Though authorities stood with abaturage, the peuple, as visionaries, they also transcended them, benevolently enlightening the peuple with their vision. Regime rhetoric left no doubt as to who had put Rwanda back on track, and who could keep the country on the path towards an improved Rwanda.

The Habyarimana government created and managed – at least in its first decade in power – a palatable vision for Rwanda and the regime's place in it. It worked to project the image of a stable, peaceful and progressing country under the benevolent leadership of a discerning, able and engaged government. But this vision also projected a new sense of expectations and relations with publics, both internationally and domestically.

It became apparent from early on that the regime intended to mend Rwanda's relations with neighbouring countries and key donors. It adopted what it called a tous azimuts, or all directions, foreign policy with regard to its international relations. At a time of Cold War, this signalled that the regime was not looking to play into any ideological camp, a point further reinforced by pronouncements to the effect that Rwanda would follow its own ‘third way’ or ‘planned liberalism’.Footnote ³¹

Beyond this strategic positioning, the regime's vision for Rwanda also meant to win it points with the international community. Visits abroad, in which President Habyarimana engaged much more frequently than his predecessor, were an occasion to mark the break with the previous regime and rationalise the new regime's access to power. Speeches during foreign visits often served to inform hosts of how the 1973 coup had helped end tyranny in Rwanda. In a sense, this helped position the Habyarimana regime on the same plane as revolutionaries and freedom fighters, a resonant image at the time. But what the regime promoted above all else abroad was its accomplishments and plans for the country. The Habyarimana regime sold Rwanda as pacified and unified. With stability achieved, Rwanda could efficiently turn to its development. The Habyarimana regime regularly explained that though help from well-intentioned donors was always welcome, Rwanda would first and foremost be developed by the efforts of its people. It projected itself, as a result, as an active and dedicated development partner helped in its endeavour by a supportive and engaged population – an appealing image for donors and allies.

Domestically, projections of benevolent leadership also conveyed a set of expectations and norms in terms of Rwandans' behaviour towards the state. The image of benevolent leadership carried with it the sense that Rwandans were to be compliant, grateful followers. The regime's vision of the country conveyed the sense of a social order in which everyone, each segment of society, had a well-established place and role to fulfil. If enlightened guidance stemmed from above, the Rwandan population was to be the recipient of enlightenment, falling into place as supporters. Rwandans, no matter how much the regime claimed to admire them, were relegated to the submissive position of disciples. This particularly transpired in depictions of the Rwandan population as passive masses requiring awakening by state authorities to bring them out of their physical and mental torpor. To get them out of their passive state, Rwandans were in need of ‘animation’. This notion of ‘animation’ entailed working to bring vitality and dynamism to the Rwandan population. Animating Rwandans meant giving them life, enlightening them, making them rise.Footnote ³² Local authorities or figures of authority, such as teachers or agricultural leaders, for example, were to awaken Rwandans to the importance of their contribution to the country's development. ‘Animation’ was also a name given to weekly sessions devoted to speeches, slogans and chants to praise the country and regime.

In line with this need for a change in mentalities and behaviour, the Habyarimana regime began calling for a ‘renovated Rwandan culture’ and ‘renovated Rwandans’.Footnote ³³ If the country was to be put on the right track, the population had to fit the mould. A renovated Rwandan culture meant expunging traits not conducive to a better Rwanda. This referred to traits associated with previous regimes, from the haughtiness and lust for power associated with the Tutsi monarchy prior to independence, to the corruption and self-aggrandisement of the First Republic. Rwandan culture was also to be cleansed of reprehensible behaviour, petty criminality, deviance and selfishness, as well as any behaviour not demonstrating a spirit of support for new plans for the country. Instead, the renovated Rwandan was to be selfless, hardworking and engaged, particularly with regard to the country's stability and development. The new Rwandan was a devoted citizen embracing the regime's vision for the country and striving to realise it. Under a renovated Rwandan culture, as claimed, Rwandans were to be moulded into a modern, disciplined and dedicated force working to bring about an envisioned better Rwanda.

KAGAME'S ‘NEW’ RWANDA OF NATIONAL UNITY AND RECONCILIATION

Much as was the case with the Habyarimana government, change is also key to the Kagame regime's image. The regime insists on the radical break that it represents from previous regimes. More than simply distancing itself from the country's colonial and post-independence history, the RPF government rejects the recent past's legacy, from institutionalised racism under colonisation to mass killings and continued division under post-independence regimes. Previous regimes rested on ‘bad politics, poor governance, disastrous social development philosophies and practices, and an economic system that entrenched a vicious cycle of poverty and dependency’.Footnote ³⁴ The Kagame regime claims to look instead to the future, and proposes a wide-spanning vision for a ‘new’ Rwanda, which is to usher in an era of harmony, progress and good governance.

In the ‘new’ Rwanda, ethnic unity and reconciliation dominate government policy. National unity and reconciliation are presented as necessary to move Rwanda from the scourge of genocide and ethnic politics to a peaceful and secure future built on ethnic solidarity and democratic development (NURC 2004; Office of the President 1999). But for the regime, ironically, the key to unity lies in the distant past. The RPF asserts that ethnic unity is ‘a traditional value which must be reasserted, reinforced and taught to all Rwandans’ (Office of the President 1999: 16). The official version of Rwandan history, and of how the genocide happened, is rooted in a particular narrative that emphasises the ethnic unity that Rwandans enjoyed before colonisation. Colonisation, the regime argues, factionalised Rwandans by turning the labels Hutu, Tutsi and Twa into racial or ethnic categories. This rhetoric also reformulates the violence against Tutsi during the 1959 Social Revolution and the 1994 genocide as strictly ethnic in origin, ignoring important class and regional dimensions of these events. Today, to recover this ancient unity, ethnic identities are to make way for an all-encompassing Rwandan identity.Footnote ³⁵ Reconciliation, for its part, is built on promoting this vision of unity, by educating and mobilising Rwandans to the ‘new’ Rwanda, and through the fight against division and genocide ideology. The ‘new’ Rwanda is thus built on a specific understanding of ethnic unity and reconciliation, an official ‘truth’ of what occurred and what Rwandans live. It is an understanding that all Rwandans are expected to know, and also contribute to.

Significant attention in the Kagame regime's rhetoric is also given to economic progress and development. Authorities claim to want to make Rwanda a middle-income country by 2020 by targeting poverty reduction and economic growth (MINECOFIN 2000: 3; 2007). The ‘new’ Rwanda is not a country of backward, simple peasants, but a service-based economy building on a vibrant private sector, luxury tourism, and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Rwanda's traditional sector, agriculture, is also to be modernised. It is to be geared towards high-value, market-oriented production. Democracy or democratic development is to be a driver of economic development. For the RPF, a democratic culture with good governance is a pillar of change, but so is the active mobilisation of all Rwandans. Democracy is synonymous for the RPF with the active involvement of citizens at all levels of governance and in government initiatives. This is why the regime sees popular involvement in economic development as essential. This overhaul of the Rwandan economy is to be carried by Rwandans themselves. Rwandans, peasants and elites alike, need to learn to think for themselves to develop the country. Peasant farmers must learn to work harder and prepare to join the modern economy, while elites need to train themselves better for the new Rwanda. All Rwandans are called on to ‘remain at the frontline to build and shape the future of [the] nation’.Footnote ³⁶

The general image of leadership projected by the Kagame government conveys the sense that Rwanda is under a thoughtful, enlightened leadership that cares deeply about its country and people. Its rhetoric centres on the idea that, more than the liberator of its people, the RPF also succeeded in envisioning for Rwandans a future built on peace, harmony, democratic values and development. The regime is adamant that it has always worked for the Rwandan people, and not for the RPF leadership's particular interests. Kagame often chooses, for example, to speak as ‘we’, putting the regime and population on the same plane. The regime also projects the sense that it has the ability to deliver on its vision, especially as it articulates policies capable of operationalising the different aspects of its agenda for a new Rwanda. And while the RPF has adopted some harsh policies limiting civil and political rights, these actions have been justified as necessary steps in the creation of a peaceful and modern Rwanda. Overall, the rhetoric promoted by the Kagame regime works to present it as the force behind Rwanda's recovery, and thus as the right leadership for the country. The regime develops a vision for the country that not only plays on the positive changes it seeks to bring to Rwanda, but also carves out for itself the role of enlightened, benevolent leader. This projection is also meant to impact Rwandan authorities' relations with the international community and at home.

Image management abroad is central to the Kagame regime.Footnote ³⁷ A key element of its foreign relations has been Rwandan authorities' ability to remind the international community of the RPF's role in stopping the genocide in the face of international inaction. Kagame strategically reminds international actors of their failures during the 1994 genocide, an efficient tool to garner sympathy, but also generous development and military aid from donors. If rhetoric often plays on how the international community let Rwanda down in 1994, the regime also plays on what it considers double standards on the part of the international community towards African nations, especially in terms of governance, environmental issues and international economic mismanagement. Striving to establish themselves as the voice of the ‘new Africa’, Rwandan authorities have played on international injustices towards the continent and called instead for equal partnerships and recognition of African ingenuity. The RPF, and Kagame especially, have worked to make themselves a major actor on the African continent and abroad.

The RPF's vision for a ‘new’ Rwanda has also served as a tool to develop benign bilateral relations with international actors. The regime claims to want to move Rwanda from a country of genocide to a country that ‘can hold its head high in the international arena’.Footnote ³⁸ Its rhetoric of unity and reconciliation, economic development and good governance, are themes that resonate with international partners. More than words, the regime's efforts to implement policies and programmes are meant to sway the international community. Rwandan authorities have excelled at convincing the international community of their ability to devise home-grown strategies to mobilise Rwandans to fight the challenges the country faces. Many of these innovations, according to the regime, have been borrowed and adapted from Rwanda's traditions, making them true Rwandan solutions to Rwandan problems.Footnote ³⁹ The image conveyed is one of a country that can truly take ownership of its development,Footnote ⁴⁰ with a leadership that wants to be the main actor, with the support of Rwandans, in bringing about changes in the country. In an era of concern for aid effectiveness and national ownership, the Kagame regime paints itself as a very attractive partner.

Benevolent leadership is not just meant for external consumption. The Kagame regime also promotes this image to domestic audiences. Through it, Rwandans are meant to understand the authorities' position and role, and also their expectations as to how citizens should behave. In the face of their country's ‘saviours’ and rebuilders, Rwandans are expected to fall in line, to accept the new Rwanda, and actively take part in the changes.

The regime conveys the sense that it alone sets the standard of political and moral correctness in the country, especially on the twin issues of unity and reconciliation. Only the RPF can police the meaning and boundaries of national unity and reconciliation. Straying from the official line constitutes an affront to the memory of the genocide and to morality, and is to be reprimanded. Government officials and other civil society leaders must promote national unity and reconciliation or risk sanctions. Local officials and other state agents often also force peasants to ‘perform’ reconciliation. Hutu who do not tell the official truth, and Tutsi who do not forgive in state-sanctioned settings like gacaca courts, are harassed, imprisoned, disappear, or are killed. Straying from the official line is punishable under the 2003 revised constitution, which introduced into the highest law in the land the crimes of ‘ethnic divisionism’ and ‘genocide ideology’. Of particular concern for the RPF is eliminating critics who compare the violence of the genocide with war crimes and killings of civilians that the RPF committed before, during and after 1994. Government rhetoric asserts that any comparison between the Tutsi genocide and atrocities committed against civilians before or after the genocide is offensive to the principles of unity and reconciliation.Footnote ⁴¹ Through its rhetoric, and also its oppressive practices, the government sends the message that it is in the know, that it is the keeper of the truth. The regime knows best what is right for the country, even if it requires harsh practices. It stands alone as the political and moral authority, which allows it to police the creation of the new Rwanda. This stance affirms a significant distance, a clear hierarchy, between these enlightened and determined leaders and the Rwandan masses in need of shepherding, sometimes even disciplining.

But regime expectations also transpire in some of its more moderate rhetoric, particularly on the need to change the mindset of Rwandans. The regime claims to want to target the ‘follower’ culture that it believes caused the 1994 genocide (see Thomson Reference Thomson2010). Neglected by previous regimes, discouraged from taking initiatives, Rwandans remained ignorant, passive and at the mercy of ill-intentioned politicians. The ‘new’ Rwanda calls instead for change. It calls for Rwandans to be shaken from their passivity and made to realise their role in constructing their future. Building on notions of mobilisation and democratic culture, the RPF stresses that a Rwandan breaking with the past shows initiative, entrepreneurship. A ‘new Rwandan’ gets involved. Regime expectations are also communicated in the way the Kagame government portrays Rwandans: it takes the stance that Rwandans, as a corporate group, are already models of duty and patriotism. In public rhetoric, the regime often describes Rwandans as courageous, having accepted sacrifices for the good of the country and put the country's interest before their own. They are dedicated. This rhetoric sets standards of behaviour, those it claims already exist or have already been attained, making deviance from this behaviour problematic. More than a question of not attaining model behaviour, straying entails choosing to ‘fall from grace’, to betray the new Rwandan nature. This rhetoric therefore puts the onus on the necessity to ‘embrace’ Rwandan nature as described by the regime, to be an exemplar of initiative, courage and patriotism.

Political leaders and elites have long recognised that leadership rests, to a significant degree, on perception. Propaganda, charm campaigns and image management all refer to the use of words and images to appeal to publics. In order to appeal to publics, each new Rwandan leadership has tried to distinguish itself from its predecessor. Successive authorities have striven to sell themselves as bearers of change. Though changes have been apparent on some levels, they have also been accompanied by significant continuities.

Fundamental differences exist between the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes. In their composition and, hence, relation to Rwandan society, they are undeniably very different. Often depicted as Hutu for Hutu, Tutsi for Tutsi, or pro-peasants, anti-peasants, the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes may even seem polar opposites. This is compounded by the fact that the tone the two leaderships adopt is very different. The Kagame regime tends to speak and play harsher than its predecessor, which was often seen – at least in its first years – as the epitome of moderation and diplomacy.

Despite what many have considered to be their defining differences, however, the two regimes have fundamentally shared the same authoritarian concern with power and control. This sheds light on their recourse to similar power and control management strategies, including rhetorical devices. Through projections of benevolent leadership the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes have worked to justify their hold on power, and also promote a normative edifice meant to help shape international and domestic relations. Projections of benevolent leadership have stressed the radical break that each regime constituted for the country, and the new leaders' vision for an ‘improved’ or ‘new’ Rwanda. In pre- and post-genocide Rwanda, visions centred on similar themes, including security, ethnic harmony or unity, development and democratic values, and were meant to illustrate the good that the authorities intended to do for the country. This pitched the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes as the architects and operators of proposed changes. They were undeniably the leadership required for an ‘improved’ or ‘new’ Rwanda.

Through their vision and leaders' place in it, the two regimes have also tried to shape relations with the state. With regards to the international community, they have positioned themselves as models of leadership: as caring, credible authorities invested in change in Rwanda. In each case, Rwandan regimes have striven to show themselves as engaged actors, at the forefront of their own development. Whether sold as endogenous, auto-centred development or asserting ownership of the development process, each has claimed to be spearheading development efforts in the country. Overall, projections of leadership have aimed to sell the Habyarimana and Kagame regimes to an international community looking for engaged partners.

Just as importantly, projections of leadership have also been aimed at shaping relations with domestic publics. Both visions for Rwanda promoted an understanding of state-society relations that stressed respect for authorities, hierarchy, and Rwandans' place as followers of their ‘benevolent’ leaders. Both regimes have, as a result, insisted on the importance of changing Rwandan culture, attitudes or the ‘Rwandan’ mindset. Aimed at breaking with the problematic legacy of the past, especially traits associated with previous regimes, this reformed culture has been meant to rediscover the true nature of Rwandans. Whether the ‘renovated’ culture of the Habyarimana regime or the rediscovery of ancient Rwandan ways and practices under Kagame, both have been intent on reinterpreting Rwandan culture to serve their aims, especially to promote active engagement on the part of Rwandans. Under both regimes, model Rwandans are therefore dedicated to their country, and hence to their leadership as guides towards a better future. These norms and expectations have embodied a form of alternative control, intended to help keep populations supportive, whether actively – when buying into the projection – or passively – when abiding by the norms.

Ordinary Rwandans have found ways to evade these ‘projections of leadership’ and norms through oblique forms of disengagement from the state, or by ‘enacting’ expected roles imposed by the improved and new Rwanda. Under both regimes, leaders have nonetheless continued to apply these expectations, and at times clear oppressive practices, with little international scrutiny. After all, the two regimes have been relatively successful in selling themselves as good partners to the international community. As a result, few among Rwanda's allies have taken a closer look at what else lies behind ‘benevolent leadership’; or if they did, addressed what they saw. In other words, few have pointed to the untold story behind the rhetoric of ‘benevolent leadership’. In conclusion, we therefore join Johan Pottier (Reference Pottier2002: 5) in urging the international community to ‘take responsibility for the representations they accept, bring into the world or help sustain’.