Yale University is coming under siege from survivors of the Rwandan genocide for inviting Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, to deliver the prestigious Coca Cola Fund Lecture on its campus.
On Monday, the Yale Daily News published an anonymous opinion piece by a Congolese student (anonymous because, according to the News’ editors, the writer’s life could be in danger should he or she be identified) asserting that Yale is giving a warm welcome to a man who “consistently kills, jails, disappears or exiles those who simply disagree with him — even threatening the lives of journalists and scholars overseas”.
The opinion piece quotes the Belgian scholar Filip Reyntjens describing Kagame as the “most important war criminal in office today”, adding that “The international community has accused Kagame of a litany of atrocities ranging from mass rapes, war crimes and genocide both in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His invitation to Yale is akin to offering a high-level platform to Bashar al-Assad, Omar al-Bashir or Joseph Kony … It is repugnant and an insult both to the victims and survivors of Mr. Kagame’s reign of terror.”
Yale, however, takes a more sanguine view of Kagame, saying in its announcement of his lecture that Kagame lead the struggle “to liberate the country from the autocratic and divisive order established since independence” and that he has “ has received recognition for his leadership in numerous areas, including peace building and reconciliation, development, good governance, promotion of human rights and women’s empowerment, and the advancement of education and information and communications technology.”
Kagame is at the very best controversial. His Wikipedia entry notes that “Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Freedom House claim that Kagame hamstrings his opposition by restricting candidacies in elections to government-friendly parties, suppressing demonstrations, and arresting opposition leaders and journalists.[303][304] Human Rights Watch and Freedom House have accused Kagame of using strict laws criminalising “divisionism” (ethnic hatred) and genocide ideology to silence his critics, to the point that Rwanda is a de facto one-party state.”
Kagame, who has ruled Rwanda since 1994, will deliver his lecture on Yale’s New Haven campus Sept. 20. It is free to the public.