{"id":142928,"date":"2019-09-16T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=142928"},"modified":"2025-10-06T14:26:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T13:26:45","slug":"foreign-aid-for-rwanda-suffering-for-rwandans-and-congolese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/09\/foreign-aid-for-rwanda-suffering-for-rwandans-and-congolese\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign Aid for Rwanda, Suffering for Rwandans and Congolese"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Internally displaced Congolese wait in the rain for distribution of World Food Program \u201cenergy biscuits\u201d in Kibati, north of Goma, in resource-rich eastern DRC.<\/p><\/div>\n

3 Sep 2019 – <\/em>Rwanda received roughly \u201c$1.22 billion\u201d in development aid in 2016-2017<\/a>, the most recent year for which Official Development Aid (ODA) numbers are available on the website of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The US was Rwanda\u2019s top bilateral donor that year, giving $177.6 million, but Trump drastically reduced aid to the tiny East African nation. In December 2017, Rwandan-Canadian economist David Himbara, a former member of Rwandan President Kagame\u2019s cabinet, wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cKagame-Trump relationship does not look good. When the American head of state invited African leaders at the United Nations in September 2017, Kagame was not among the invitees. The Rwandan dictator was deliberately left out in the cold. The issue seems to revolve around the fact that Kagame is the Clintons\u2019 darling \u2013 which is a no-no with Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Himbara added that Rwanda would not be the only African nation facing reduced US aid because Trump had slashed the State Department\u2019s overall budget.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

An internally displaced child, one of the 8,000 displaced daily in 2017 in Congo\u2019s formerly stable Kasai region, holds an empty cup. Photo: Ivo Brandau, OCHA<\/p><\/div>\n

Rwanda\u2019s growth and poverty stats are Kagame\u2019s own<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before Trump took office, the US, and most particularly its freelance envoy Bill Clinton, often boasted of US aid\u2019s good effects in Rwanda by pointing to President Paul Kagame\u2019s statistical fabrications about economic growth and decreasing poverty. On Aug. 12, however, the Financial Times (FT) published a report titled \u201cRwanda: where even poverty data must toe Kagame\u2019s lin<\/a>e<\/a>.\u201d (The article is paywalled, but Global Post<\/a> has reposted it.)<\/p>\n

FT researchers analyzed data and concluded that poverty in Rwanda had actually increased by at least 6 percent during a period when the government said it had decreased. Last week BBC Radio\u2019s Business Daily followed up with a report titled \u201cCan we trust Rwanda\u2019s data?<\/a>\u201d which affirmed the FT\u2019s conclusions and also reported that aid given to help Rwandans switch from local food production to market production had actually impoverished farming communities and enriched middlemen.<\/p>\n

In July 2016, a headline in The East African read, \u201cFamine hits over 100,000 Rwandan families in Eastern province<\/a>.\u201d The report said that rural Rwandans were fleeing famine across the Rwandan border into Uganda.<\/p>\n

The BBC spoke to Rwandan-Canadian economist David Himbara, who said that when he was a minister in the Rwandan government, President Paul Kagame would give his cabinet officials orders as to the statistics he wanted them to report:<\/p>\n

David Himbara: Basically, there are no credible statistics in Rwanda because the president decides what he wants and then the rest of government gives him what he wants to see. [Kagame says,] \u201cI want to have grown by 11 percent last year.\u201d [His ministers say,] \u201cYes, sir, that\u2019s how much you grew.\u201d<\/p>\n

BBC: The president would simply say this is the number that will describe, let\u2019s say, economic growth, and then an official would say, \u201cIt will be so.\u201d<\/p>\n

DH: Yeah. Let me give you an example. In 2009 I was in this meeting where you had economic ministers, like ministers of finance, agriculture, trade and industry. In this meeting, the president said he wanted to have grown by 11 percent. The minister of finance at the time, he said, \u201cSir, in fact, you grew by 11.5 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then when it came to my turn, I said, \u201cIt\u2019s not possible. It\u2019s not credible because in 2008 the whole world was upside down. There was a financial meltdown.\u201d And he said, \u201cWho are you [to deny me]? Just shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n

BBC: So your objections were overruled.<\/p>\n

DH: Oh, absolutely.<\/p>\n

Himbara is the author of \u201cKagame\u2019s Economic Mirage<\/a>\u201d and the upcoming book \u201cKagame, Clinton, Blair, Jim Yong Kim, World Bank and Foreign Aid Fraud in Rwanda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Financial Times chart<\/p><\/div>\n

Donors are complicit in Rwanda\u2019s occupation of DRC<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether donors contribute to general budget support or earmark funds for poverty relief and other alleged good works, they inevitably fund Rwanda\u2019s ongoing, catastrophic occupation of DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), where more than four and a half million of 81 million Congolese are among the country\u2019s ever-growing population of \u201cinternally displaced persons,\u201d aka internal refugees. Four and a half million was the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)\u2019s best estimate at the conclusion of 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2016-17, Rwanda received less than 2 percent of foreign aid as direct budget support, although 8.41 percent were vaguely earmarked as \u201cmulti-sector.\u201d Direct budget support and conceivably multi-sector support were funds that Kagame was able to use as he saw fit, including Rwanda\u2019s ongoing occupation and plunder of DRC.<\/p>\n

Other funds were earmarked for education, health, agriculture and other domestic sectors. However, even if earmarked funds are indeed spent as earmarked, they indirectly fund the occupation and plunder by taking care of domestic goals and projects, however Kagame defines and implements them. Funds Kagame does not have to spend in Rwanda are free for aggression in Congo. This is the same obvious, ipso facto, sky blue, grass green conclusion that has appeared in annual reports<\/a> by the UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo.<\/p>\n

In addition to aid donated for allegedly good works in Rwanda, which are not represented in OECD statistics, the US is a longtime contributor to Rwanda\u2019s military budget, and has long described Rwanda as a \u201cmilitary partner\u201d in the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). Trump, in keeping with his determination to turn the US military into a global protection racket, said that he would turn military grants into loans so that they would cost US taxpayers less.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Financial Times reports that aid given to help Rwandans switch from local food production to market production has actually impoverished farming communities and enriched middlemen. Some farm families have fled to Uganda to escape famine.<\/p><\/div>\n

Beni Massacres: Fake Islamists and Rwandan unending occupation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anyone who doubts that Rwanda continues to occupy and plunder DRC should read Congolese author Boniface Musavuli\u2019s latest book, \u201cBeni Massacres: Fake <\/a>Islamists and Rwandan Unending Occupation<\/a>,\u201d which has been published in an excellent French-to-English translation.<\/p>\n

In the book\u2019s foreword, Congolese Professor of African Studies Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja<\/a>, University of North Carolina, writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the context in which we must place the Beni massacres. They are a logical sequel to all other crimes committed by the RPA\/RDF [Rwandan Patriotic Army\/Rwandan Defense Force] since 1990 in the pursuit of Tutsi hegemony and the two Kivu Provinces in the DRC.<\/p>\n

\u201cA major affirmation of Musavuli\u2019s book is that the DRC is a country under occupation and tutelage by Rwanda. When the AFDL [Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo] entered the country from Rwanda and Uganda in October 1996, it was led by James Kabarebe, a Rwandan military of\ufb01cer close to Kagame. Laurent-D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Kabila (LDK), the AFDL leader, had no control over military operations, as they were supervised by Kabarebe. When LDK broke with his mentors in July 1998, he made the mistake of retaining Joseph Kabila, who is apparently related to Kabarebe and once served as a Rwandan intelligence of\ufb01cer. The creation of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la D\u00e9mocratie [Rally for Congolese Democracy] in August 1998 allowed Kigali to send back most of the soldiers who had come to the Congo with the AFDL, many of whom are still officers of the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) today.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The \u201cAlliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo\u201d and the \u201cRally for Congolese Democracy\u201d were Rwandan and Ugandan forces which disguised Rwanda and Uganda\u2019s invasion and occupation of Congo by assuming Congolese names. Later fraudulent names for Rwandan and Ugandan forces included the \u201cNational Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP)\u201d and the infamous March 23rd Movement (M23).)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Life is hard in the Rwandan countryside.<\/p><\/div>\n

2012-2013: DRC won the war, M23 the rewards<\/strong><\/p>\n

The atrocities that M23 committed in DRC caused such international outrage that it finally spurred the US and the UN Security Council to action, but their solution was ultimately as fraudulent as the Congolese names of Rwandan and Ugandan forces in DRC. The UNSC deployed a UN combat brigade to chase M23 back into Rwanda and Uganda, where they \u201csurrendered\u201d to the Rwandan and Ugandan governments. This was like saying that during the US Civil War, the Union Army chased Confederate troops back into the Deep South to surrender to Robert E. Lee.<\/p>\n

Then US billionaire investor Howard Buffett (son of Warren), who has resource interests in the region, paid for a \u201cpeace conference\u201d in Uganda, which concluded with DRC and M23 signing a contractual \u201cDeclaration<\/a>\u201d including this Article 10:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government [meaning the DRC] reaffirms its determination to finalize the implementation of the commitments that have been made under the agreement of March 23, 2009, signed with the CNDP.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, Congo won the war, but Rwanda and Uganda \u2013 via their M23 militia \u2013 were rewarded with everything they\u2019d demanded when they started it. The March 23, 2009, agreement had been a de facto surrender of territory to Rwanda and Uganda\u2019s CNDP militia, but Rwanda and Uganda created M23 four years later because they weren\u2019t satisfied with what they were getting out of that deal.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 2, 2014, less than a month after DRC signed away the store to Rwanda and Uganda, the country\u2019s beloved Colonel Mamadou N\u2019Dala Moustafa, who had led the military defeat of M23, was assassinated in Congo\u2019s Beni Territory, in a fiery attack on a vehicle he was traveling in.<\/p>\n

I asked David Himbara how Kagame fits all the money gained by plundering Congo\u2019s immense resources into his budget. He replied, \u201cDR Congo money does not go into the Rwandan economy. The loot goes into offshore accounts of Crystal Ventures Ltd and its owner Kagame.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She <\/em>attended Stanford University and is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. In 2014 she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize<\/em> for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at <\/em>@AnnGarrison<\/em> or <\/em>ann@kpfa.org<\/em> <\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 sfbayview.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 Sep 2019 – Whether donors contribute to the general budget or earmark funds for poverty relief, they inevitably fund Rwanda\u2019s ongoing, catastrophic occupation of the Democratic Republic of Congo where more than four and a half million of 81 million Congolese are among the country\u2019s ever-growing population of \u201cinternally displaced persons,\u201d aka internal refugees. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":142929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[237,120,1991,267,487,866,504,651,86,109,287,103,1412,126,118,172,75],"class_list":["post-142928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-africa","tag-conflict","tag-d-r-congo","tag-geopolitics","tag-human-rights","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-international-relations","tag-justice","tag-occupation","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-racism","tag-rwanda","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-west","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304472,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142928\/revisions\/304472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}