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| Rwandan President paul Kagame with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron |
Thanks to France’s role in the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has turned towards the Anglophone world. But not entirely.
For more than a year now Rwanda has been campaigning enthusiastically to
be the next leader of the Organisation Internationale de la
Francophonie, an organisation of French-speaking states that have
political, social and economic connections with France. The new
secretary-general will be chosen at the Francophonie’s upcoming summit
in Armenia in October. Rwanda’s president,
Paul Kagame, is already chair of the African Union, so if his country
nets the Francophonie seat, it will lead two of the world’s largest
regional and global organisations.
Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs and co-operation, Louise
Mushikiwabo, is campaigning to become the Francophonie’s
secretary-general. She’s focusing on four main issues: increasing the
influence of the French language
around the world, elevating Francophone countries within political and
economic international debates, tackling youth unemployment, and
exchanging governance practices (encompassing everything from national
reconciliation practices to better tax collection systems).
These goals are admirable, and they address some pressing issues
facing many Francophone nations. But what makes Rwanda’s Francophonie
campaign particularly interesting is the country’s complicated
relationship with France. To this day, the two countries’ relations are
strained – and many attribute the tension to France’s failure to accept
its historical role in the 1994 genocide.
Dark times
Before the genocide began, the French and Rwandan governments had
worked together closely for years. Then-president Juvénal Habyarimana
shared close relations with his French counterpart, François Mitterand.
Scholar Gerard Prunier has described how at the time, French officials
distrusted the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), then a Uganda-based rebel
group of Rwandan exiles, which it considered part of an Anglo-American
attempt to undercut France’s influence in central Africa.
This concern led France to boost its support of Habyarimana despite
his government’s ethnic-based public policies, which hindered and
victimised Rwanda’s domestic Tutsi population – and which ultimately set
the stage for the genocide.
Habyarimana was killed when his Falcon 50 plane was shot down by
unknown assailants on April 6 1994, triggering the mass murder of
hundreds of thousands of Tutsi Rwandans. The plane itself was a French
gift, and was piloted by a French crew.
What’s particularly troubling for the current Rwandan government and
genocide survivors is the history of French assistance in the formation
and training of the Interahamwe, the killing squads that spearheaded the
genocide.
After the Rwandan Civil War began in 1990, France provided arms and
sent military personal to Rwanda in order to train Interhamwe forces.
Journalist Linda Melvern has researched the close relationship between
French and Rwandan officials, and described how France sent military
teams of “advisers” and “technical assistants” to prepare not only the
Rwandan military but the Interhamwe to stop the RPF and their allies at
all costs. France has never fully accepted its responsibility for the
consequences.
Since taking power and leading the formation of a post-genocide
Rwandan state, the RPF government has consistently held sceptical views
of France and French identity. Post-genocide reconstruction has largely
tried to turn away from French influence in politics and society. The
most pressing example is the demotion of the French language.
Despite Mushikiwabo’s campaign to increase the language’s relevance
in the international community, domestically speaking, French has been
steadily demoted. It is no longer the country’s primary language
(alongside Kinyarwanda) as it was in the past. Since 2008, English has
overtaken French as the primary state-recognised foreign language, and
Swahili was recently added to the list.
But the demotion of French isn’t just about France’s troubling
history in Rwanda; it also reflects a generational shift. The
bureaucrats and officials who fought in the Rwandan Civil War
(1990-1994) and the genocide have slowly been replaced by a new
generation of English-speaking Rwandans. Additionally, many Rwandan
elites within the government and private sector consider adopting
English a matter of necessity, since it’s generally perceived as the
primary language of international trade.
Leading the way
Set against this background, Rwanda’s campaign to lead the
Francophonie looks odd indeed. After all, back in 2009 the country went
in the other direction by joining the British Commonwealth; among the
organisation’s 53 members, only Rwanda and Mozambique lack any
particular historical connection with the UK.
At the time, Mushikiwabo described Rwanda entering the Commonwealth
as an opportunity for the nation’s development: “Rwandans are ready to
seize economic, political, cultural and other opportunities offered by
the Commonwealth network.” But there’s more to this move than meets the
eye. In interviews since 2012, Rwandan informants within the government,
private sector and civil society have often described to me how joining
the Commonwealth was an “anti-French” decision.
So why is Rwanda campaigning to lead the Francophonie anyway? Just as
it currently holds the chair of the African Union, Mushikiwabo’s
campaign to lead the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie is
part of a larger project: to foster a new international identity and
promote state interests around the world. Rwandan elites want the
international community to perceive their country as a primary
gatekeeper as they try to engage with Africa.
These leadership positions not only boost national self-esteem, but
allow the Rwandan elite to strike international agreements that can
foster development. The resulting relationships can be used not only to
promote Rwandan interests, but to deflect international criticism for
questionable domestic and regional human rights abuses and interfering
with neighbouring states. If Rwanda wins the campaign for
secretary-general, it will have to somehow not let its past history with
France interfere with its grand plans for global influence.
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