Rwanda's experience: Lessons for Zimbabwe

Rwanda's experience: Lessons for Zimbabwe

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By Grace Kwinjeh

TWO events of political importance on Monday: Rwanda’s second national parliamentary elections and the historic signing of Zimbabwe’s power sharing deal. I am somehow involved in both.

The first connection is as an exiled Zimbabwean now working in Kigali, and more importantly as a fighter in the long and tortuous road to Zimbabwe’s freedom.

The world witnessed the power sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party; Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and another MDC faction led by Professor Arthur Mutambara.

Many of us are awestruck, we are not sure if this is IT. Is the deal that will make me greet Tsvangirai, Mr Prime-Minister, when I next meet him – for real? Too good to be true! When all hope was gone! For exiles, we watch with caution.

Freedom seemed so far away. Home for the more than three million of us exiles had found a new definition. We are home as I write. In eight years, millions fled the country, many have since married (other nationalities even), found stable jobs, professional Zimbabweans are doing wonders in all fields world-wide and children are in school.

Interacting with fellow exiles, our immediate concern is what the next step is. My moment of tears was when Prime Minister Tsvangirai spoke of the painful compromise: “The agreement we signed today is the product of painful compromise. It does not provide an instant cure. The road ahead will be long. Patience is a virture.”

And yes again many of us in exile and at home have been victims of the Mugabe regime's tyranny, many are victims recorded from the early days of the MDC formation in 2000, to victims of the recent wave of political violence. Remember our cadres who after the March elections braved the crocodiles in the Limpopo in search of safety.

Do we not know the story of the Kauzani brothers? Many to whom a deal means nothing if it rewards the perpetrators of the violence visited upon them and their families over the years.

Today the surviving brother Ishmael, sits with others, widow Mrs Tandare (Gift Tandare assassinated March 11, 2007), Susan Matsunga, Remember Moyo, Sox Chikohwero, need I mention more? We are many.

The silence with which our scars, our trauma have been treated in these talks worries us. There is a bigger burden on the MDC leadership under Tsvangirai, to deliver justice to us. Mugabe’s speech makes me even more skeptical that he is ready to reform at all.

In fact the moment of joy almost turned sad, bursting that momentary bubble just by his failure to call Tsvangirai Prime Minister. That is why I said the two events, Rwanda’s elections and the recent events in Zimbabwe, for me carry an importance.

Rwanda’s story of patience and steely leadership resonates quite well with what we are about to go through. The framework for Rwanda differed though because it was not based on impunity for perpetrators of justice; rather it was based on healing and juctice; thus the establishment of the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the local traditional Gacaca courts.

Issues absent in the Zimbabwe transitional discourse are to do with national integration and reconciliation, internal displacement and justice. While the speeches by the three men often struck a raw nerve, I could not avoid a hollow feeling that the road ahead is not going to be an easy one, for Zimbabwe’s democrats.

Rwanda holds her second national parliamentary elections after the 1994 genocide. The political consensus and the peace and transparency under which these elections have been held is indicative of a stable political environment. Coming out of what they went through, Rwandans have refused the path of mediocrity and failure.

Just witnessing the record high numbers of international observers from all major institutions; COMESA, E.U, Commonwealth and thousands of local ones, tells you the country has come of age.

A challenge for Zimbabwe’s leadership as to the conduct of elections remains controversial. Tsvangirai addressed these fears when he said: “Safety must be restored to our community, our state institutions must serve the people. Our lives begin now. Let us not be divided by our past, but be united by hope for the future.”

To achieve this, it will take a leadership that says no to cronyism, patronage, and the rot that has bedevilled economic and political governance.

I spoke to Zimbabwean human rights activist, Brian kagoro, last night. I said to him my Rwandan inspiration is in a leadership that puts a past behind and decides to craft a new future and they do it.

It takes that leadership tenacity, to overcome the trappings of power, the temptations of a good life at the expense of a suffering citizenry. It takes more than just words on paper.

Mugabe showed us he is does not belong to this generation's leadership, his memories of Nyerere, Khama (snr), and the liberation struggle only make me say to him; Sir, work on a smooth exist. The ball is now in the MDC Tsvangirai court to deliver for Zimbabweans. Our scars were not in vain.

Grace Kwinjeh is a senior editor with the pro-government New Times newspaper in Rwanda. Contact her: gkwinjeh@gmail.com

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