Lees dit artikel in het Nederlands (origineel)
To comprehend this article fully, basic knowledge about the conflicts in Rwanda and the DRC is required. LtM took the liberty to link some of the most important people and happenings to the relevant Wikipedia articles. We also added some information in the text: [LtM:]
This coming Saturday is the day. Place of action: palace of the Rwandese President Paul Kagame. Role-players: President Kagame and our own (Dutch) Minister of Development Bert Koenders. The reason: Koenders’ desire to save our ‘development relationship’ with Rwanda and Kagame’s desire to cut all ties with our country. This will be a hilarious encounter.
By A.J. Boekestijn, member of the Dutch Parliament
Koenders has seen better times. Saddled with Jan Pronk‘s guilt as to why we did not stop the genocide, Koenders now struggles with a development aid-relationship with the victims of that same horrific genocide. Unfortunately, the victims have turned out to be no angels themselves. Kagame and his good pal Yoweri Museveni [LtM: President of Uganda] effortlessly exchanged their roles as victims for those of perpetrators – with their interventions in eastern Congo. During the war in eastern Congo, five times as many people lost their lives than during the genocide in Rwanda and the misery of Darfur combined. No wonder then that tax payers and politicians in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden are now wondering why we still subsidize Kagame.
Did the PVDA or CDA [LtM: Dutch political parties] not see these problems all along? That would be too easy, unfortunately, politicians are not clairvoyant. Could Pronk just ostensibly just ignore all the victims of the genocide?
More interesting are the lessons we can learn from these failures. Why has our country (the same applies to the United Kingdom and the United States) thought for so long that it could control Kagame? The answer is stunningly simple. All these governments have been guilty of an unhistorical approach to the Rwandan problem.
To understand this, we must consider a new approach to development problems as formulated in 2007 by Nobel Prize winner and economic historian Douglass C. North in collaboration with his colleagues J.J. Wallis, S.B. Webb and B.R. Weingast in a World Bank Working Paper (4359) with the wonderful title “Limited Access Orders in the Developing World: a new approach to the problems of development. Development workers in all countries beware: you are about to receive a change of perspective!
North et al., posit that different societies develop different strategies to reduce violence which provide a high degree of potential for growth and development. In a so-called primitive society of hunters and gatherers, there is little specialization and a whole lot of violence. That violence will ultimately start to bore its members. A human being should rest periodically. For this reason, primitive societies can develop to limited access societies where the violence problem is governed by the common understanding that the others are not going to attack.
How do they do that? Very simple: the distribution of the proceeds of the state is an outcome of the existing power relations in their society. As long as the elite claim the proceeds of the state, there is no reason to display aggression. An elitist war has such an adverse economic impact that anyone can suffer welfare losses. So, is it stable? Yes, as long as the distribution of the proceeds mirrors the existing power-proportions and the elite can indulge the followers with bribes. This happened in Tudor England and Carolingian France, and this is happening in Rwanda. Kagame is the leader of the Tutsi elite who not only systematically exclude all the Hutus (except some obligatory Hutus in the government) as well as the rural Tutsis.
Rwanda is a special form of a closed society with half of Kigali’s [LtM:capital of Rwanda] budget consisting of foreign aid. This is of course pleasant for the elite. In addition, they earn some ‘pocket money’ with the illegal theft of minerals from the mines of eastern Congo, since the war there is being facilitated by other friendly Tutsis. Not bad at all.
 Rwanda |
In this constellation, repre-sentatives of open societies, including the Netherlands, come to Rwanda and try to buy off their guilt with development aid. Open societies are obviously much more pleasant than those based on restricted access. In our open society, the rule of law ensures fair competition for economic and political power; in short it ensures prosperity. And what do representatives of open societies say to those in closed, authoritarian societies? Very simple: be like us; work on good governance and democracy, and everything will be alright. |
This shocks representatives of closed societies. Democracy? That is dangerous, it may endanger the position of the elite and that cannot be the intention. It is no wonder then that Kagame spies on everyone and manipulates elections. Rwanda is growing, it has good schools, roads, hospitals and the corruption – at least at the national level – is not that bad.
The price paid for this ´prosperity´ is freedom. Freedom simply does not exist. It is a dictatorship led by a Tutsi elite which is indeterminately ensured with our money. And all this because of a lack of historical thought. Rudimentary knowledge of our own feudal history should have been enough to make well-thought decisions in this case.
It seems that this ill-fated balance of African autocrats, donor money and Congolese inability is about to collapse. The Dutch, Swedish and British parliaments are becoming impatient, and the Rwandan elite are well aware that the critical UN report on Kagame´s involvement in the atrocities in eastern Congo can endanger the abundant donor money.
Kagame quickly signed a deal with the DRC in which Kagame promised it would arrest Laurent Nkunda [LtM: the Tutsi rebel leader] if Joseph Kabila [LtM: President of the DRC] would take care of the Hutu genocidaires.
What a master plan! Kagame would never extradite Nkunda to the DRC and surely not to the ICC, because it would bring Rwandan power play in eastern Congo to light. And the deal gave Nkunda´s successors the possibility to continue the profitable theft of minerals by the Tutsi elite. The Rwandan customs statistics show that the country exports tons of minerals which are not domestically available. Good work.
And yet, this is a fragile balance. The well-oiled system seems to break down as the metaphorical oil becomes more scarce. The prices of minerals plunged in recent months and there is a chance that foreign aid will be drastically reduced. Even Kagame’s most loyal allies became nervous after the outcome of the French and Spanish legal charges which said that Kagame himself was responsible for the Presidential aircraft crash that induced the genocide. The privileged elite thus no longer automatically reflects the power relationships.
Kagame´s recent statement in which he said that he does not need Dutch financial aid and that aid given in the past has not achieved anything was bluff. In fact, Kagame needs Koenders as desperately as he needs Louis Michel, Lord Malloch-Brown and Obama. But the real question at this moment is: What is the message sent to the Dutch taxpayers? They are keeping an African dictator in power! What morality is served here? Let us hope that Koenders thinks about this when he has some snacks in Kagame´s palace – the one filled with spying devices.
And when the whole balance of power disintegrates and a new round of violence comes, will there be anyone who is willing to recognize that the a-historic Western manipulating donor money illusions were not blessed? And do we, as we did in 1994, look the other way?
This post is tagged Congo, corruption, development aid, Politics
Wow, tough article. The aid-conscience-development-stability theme is interesting, considering it’s also a debate applicable to Middle East issues (including Iraq in the future, perhaps?).
I must admit I have not been up to date with Kagame and Rwanda. For the sake of balance, could someone please recommend me related sources, links to other editorials or to a point/counterpoint on the same subject? I’d like to learn more about it from additional points of view. Of course, I’ll do some reading myself and if I find something useful I’ll post it here.
Thanks for the article!
[...] should not get financial aid I read this article and I thought it was really interesting Arend Jan Boekestijn – The price of a bad conscience – Liberate the Mind It is quite controversial so I thought it
The article is very informative indeed and provides a legitimate version of the happenings in Rwanda. However, it is the basic assumptions Mr Jan Boekestijn makes that made this article extremely difficult to digest for me. Whereas I cannot neither deny nor ignore Mr Kagame’s involvement in the DRC conflict and his descend into the shoes of a dictator, I would like to be provided theoretical information on this categories of open v. close societies which so much resembles a contemporary discourse of the ‘otherness’ which fed the mission civilatrice of Europe in the backward Africa during the 19th and 20th Century. Furthermore, his argument is backed by a complete ahistorical comparison of feudal europe to contemporary africa? Does this comparison assume that Africa is on the feudal phase of a historical continuum of European progress towards modernity? Additionally, isn’t the existence of gatherers and hunters in a so-called primitive society an over specialization rather than a non specialization at all? Sadly, this article is full of primordialism and European hubris regarding the making of the African ‘other’. Although I usually dislike the tones of Postcolonialism, I must admit it is useful in assessing the neocolonial overtones of the article. Perhaps, apart from denying money to Kagame’s regime, the Dutch parlamentarians should also reflect on the way they look at and approach Africa in general, and Rwanda in particular. And despite all these reasonable doubts on the article’s assumption, I do agree to the legitimate concern of how the Dutch taxpayers’ money is being spent abroad
European concerns in African events are legitimate since this neighbor resources-abundant region represents both a cheap source of energy and ill-payed labor quarry. The article accurately mentions guilt as the motor behind European actions in Africa. On the one hand, Europeans and Americans both claim to support the development of African nations and give large donations to their governments whilst they keep a an evolved form of economic and cultural colonialism in the region.
The US goverment has being contemporarily associated with the concept of an interventionist State whose primary goal is to preserve its international hegemony. Nonetheless, Americans took this path after their European predecessors, whose large intervention in the Americas, Asia and the Middle East supported authoritarian regimes contrary to the principles proclaimed by Europe.
Nowadays, the Europeans appear to feel guilty, so they can preach again their values on Human Rights and their commitment to economic and social development. However, they only pretend, as they only keep on supporting governments favorable to their economic interest and cultural hegemony. If they intend to revert their previous ill-driven actions towards Africa, they should let the African peoples rule themselves and decide on their resources.
Samuel,
Keeping in mind your complaints on “otherness,” yet respecting your opinion, wouldn’t you agree the line “the Dutch parlamentarians [sic] should also reflect on the way they look at and approach Africa in general” is an overgeneralization based on inductive reasoning? Mind you, but how many contemporary Dutch parliamentarians are you familiar with? How many have you studied or interviewed regarding African policy? In fact, how familiar are you with Boekestijn’s thinking? Have you followed closely his track record on African issues?
I believe it’s unfair to target past and present Dutch parliamentarians without knowing where they stand first. There is only so much you can know about the author and fellow public officials from one single article.
I hope you take this into consideration to prevent yourself from committing logical fallacies in the future. If you wish to learn more, you can read the following short article from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalisation .
I’m sorry for making hasty generalisations. However, my point is not that I know the records of all parlamentarians, Dutch, American, you name it (this leads me to another topic… how de we construct knowledge and know the ‘real’ world but I’m not going into that). My point is to highlight an underlying issue in the discourse of the article. In 1978, Edward Said talked about Orientalism and how it affects the way we define our own identity based on how we perceive the ‘other’. Said argued the West define itself in terms of the exotic, backward, and weak Orient and so Orientalism became the dominant paradigm (check Kuhn for a definition of paradigm). What I meant to constructively criticise, indeed in a vicious way, was the associations Mr Boekestijn makes. If you happened to notice, primitive, feudal, closed society, dictator, authoritarian, … are just some of these tags attached to Rwanda and Africa in the article whereas the Dutch are an open society, preoccupied with development and aid, donors, helpers, and so on. These associations are similar to what Said described for the Orient but applied in this case to Rwanda and more in general to Africa. My hasty generalisation meant not to deterministically categorised the Dutch parlamentarians but to call on them to critically assessed the dominant paradigm when approaching Africa and Rwanda. Up to 2003, Kagame was a hero. The gacaca courts, estabilising Rwanda, economic boom in Kigali, and so on were some of his attributes. Now he is a dictator and warlord. How is this different to the approach undertaken to deal with Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe? How is this different to the approach for dealing with Muhammad Gaddaffi? In no way I pretend to condone the abusive behaviours of any of these leaders, but there is a need in general (and I’m making a hasty generalisation indeed) to reexamine the ‘unalienable truths’ which sustain our actions and thoughts. At the end, the intentions may be really good ones, but the externalities may be VERY counterproductive. Cheers!
Do you have any suggestions or brainstorming ideas about better approaches that could be adopted by policy makers? Or at least the desired principles that would lay a foundation to better approaches?
Which descriptions would better fit Rwanda or other African countries? It is kinda difficult to assign general descriptions to all of Africa, since different regions and states are advancing in different directions and different paces.
Direct monetary aid may even harm a country’s GDP growth, at best, the majority of the evidence loses its statistical significance if robustness checks are conducted. (Roodman, The anarchy of numbers: Aid, development, and cross-country empirics in The World Bank Economic Review).
Whether the Rwandese people are in the end better off with, or without the (Dutch) development aid remains a question.
Reading this article, I think that critically reviewing the ‘type and form’ of the development aid won’t hurt canyon.
The main problem is that finacial aid is fungible in the sense that even conditional aid can increase spending on weapons or end up in the pockets of the rich, because increased aid on e.g. eduction might well decrease domestic spending on education. In the end, buying development with large flows of money is an utopy.
[b]My solution:[/b]
Development should be initiated by people in the developing countries, and the best we (the developed world) can do is facilitiating development with microeconomic projects that facilitate borrowing, insurance, investment and learning. From an economic view, donating money often does not provide the proper incentives to secure long-term development. Whereas this might look harsh, I strongly belieft that the outcome is far more favorable than the direct financial aid outcome.
Originally I meant to reply to Carlos a simple… if I had the solution I’d probably be giving out a speech at Oslo. However, giving a second thought, and challenging myself here I am. I strongly agree with Mark… to use my own version of a good oldie from the Clinton era… it’s human dignity, stupid! Microeconomic projects serve precisely that end and impact the daily lives of people in a more direct way than dull macroeconomics of stable prices. That solves the issue of development but not the issue of approaching and looking at Africa. Perhaps, another old principle enshrined in the UN holds practical with a slight modification… regard other as you would have them regard you. Meaning to avoid the simplistic explanation of ‘it’s just ‘cuz they are primitive, close, …’ and to understand that governments/States are not the end but the means for any society to their common goals. A constructive engagement will do to address these needs, not a primordialist one.
Hi. I like the way you write. Will you post some more articles?