Financial gain of genocide

Parallels between Rwanda and Gaza massacres

- IAN FANTOM

IS Rwanda a safe place to send 'illegal migrants' arriving in the UK? The Supreme Court says no, but the government says yes.

Yet one only has to look across the border into the Kivu province of Congo to see the dangers. The Tutsi-led M23 rebels have been terrorising the various Bantu populations for years, and the fighting flared up again at the end of 2021. Now M23 is advancing toward the town of Goma in Kivu province.

One concern about sending UK immigrants to Rwanda has been that it could destabilise an area which has suffered genocide in the recent past.

Various sources state that the M23 in Kivu is recruiting locals from 18 to 50 years on a voluntary basis in some places and forcibly in others.

People are fearful, and can spend a whole night in the forest to avoid the M23.

"We have become wild animals," said one of them. "Rwanda has been proclaimed as a peaceful country, but internally people are suffering greatly, because no-one is allowed to criticise the governing powers.

In Rwanda there is no freedom of speech." One local said that the contract between Britain and Rwanda would make their suffering worse, and even intensify the war, as Rwanda does not have enough space for refugees, and could lead to a fight for more land in Congo.

But why Rwanda? Does the UK have a special relationship with Rwanda?

Rwanda from 1897 had been colonised by Germany, which applied a policy of 'indirect rule'. The upper classes were identifiably Tutsi. However, there had been much intermarriage between Tutsis and Hutus, and they spoke the same language, so the distinction was not purely racial.