The Rwandan narrative
Sir: Michael Gove should be wary of accepting the standard Rwandan narrative, given his advocacy of democracy as a cure for Africa’s ills (‘An act of evil that recalled the atrocities of the SS’, website only, 5 January). The French, according to the narrative, are culprits because the Hutu perpetrators of the massacre of Rwandan Tutsis were allied to and had received military assistance from France. The shame is that French policy made ‘democratic’ sense and was, in effect, sabotaged by London and Washington.
As soon as the Ugandan-based Tutsi insurgents started making significant inroads into Rwanda, the nightmare prospect arose of the 15 per cent minority Tutsi ‘masters’ once again ruling over the 85 per cent Hutu ‘toilers of the soil’. This should have triggered London into backing the Hutu-based Rwandan government, possibly even providing covert military assistance. London and Paris could have then jointly approached Washington to pressure Uganda, then America’s ‘model’ African state, into withdrawing its support for the Tutsi insurgents.
By upholding the authority of the Hutubased Rwandan government, there would have been no genocide of the Tutsis, nor the subsequent ‘revenge’ genocide of fleeing Hutus in the Congo. Moreover, a Hutu-run Rwanda would not have conspired to take over neighbouring parts of the Congo, unlike the military of Uganda and Tutsi-run Rwanda who, along with their client Congolese rebel factions, have wreaked much havoc. The West, furthermore, would have been well placed to persuade a Hutu-run Rwanda to respect its Tutsi minority, and to urge the Tutsi-dominated military of neighbouring Burundi to end their rule over the Hutu majority. Alas, it was not to be, and today we find Gove supporting minority rule in Rwanda, the antithesis of democracy. Yugo Kovach
Twickenham, Middlesex
Michael Gove’s piece can be read at www. spectator.co.uk
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