Is Rwanda a promising partner for Britain or a geopolitical liability?
The hallmark bill of Sunak’s premiership has finally come into law. The “Safety of Rwanda Law” is upon us, and in just 10 weeks’ time the first chartered flight of migrants could be en route to Kigali. From there, their numerous asylum claims to the UK will be processed, and in exchange, hundreds of millions of pounds in funding will be granted to Rwanda over the next decade.
Two years of debate over Rwanda’s internal safety for asylum-seekers has culminated with the Parliament declaration that the small African nation is, despite Court contradictions, a “safe country”. Rwanda’s capital Kigali has even been declared by the Deputy Foreign Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, as “arguably safer than London”.
This rather dubious claim aside, Rwanda has received a ringing endorsement of its domestic conditions, with lawmakers cementing the nation’s credibility into UK Law.
The exhaustive safety discussion has, however, overshadowed and distracted from the important conversation of what broader geopolitical implications may arise from a burgeoning alliance between the UK and Rwanda. Does their foreign policy align with ours?
Rwanda’s Rise
President Paul Kagame, who visited Downing Street earlier this month, has been integral in crafting Rwanda’s identity over the last thirty years. Once a rebel commander fighting from the bush, the charismatic young Tutsi seized control of the nation following the 94’ Hutu-led Genocide. His promise: to restore peace and order.
Kagame’s thirty-year rule has largely achieved his ambitious goal. Under his leadership, the land-locked, war-ridden nation has been transformed into a secure and economically prosperous country.
Kagame has made Rwanda an attractive destination for development funding, as the nation’s stability, legal frameworks, and low corruption levels have facilitated successful long-term programs in education, women’s rights and healthcare.
The small country has thus emerged as a beacon of developmental hope in a region otherwise marred by conflict and mismanagement.
Yet, not so long ago, the small country’s foreign entanglements landed it in hot water with Britain.
Rwanda’s Congo Crisis
In 2012, the UK government under Lord Cameron halted tens of millions of pounds in budget support to Rwanda based on “credible and compelling” reports of the nation stoking violence in its neighbouring country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The allegations detailed direct Rwandan military support for the Tutsi M-23 rebel group, a separatist militia responsible for numerous atrocities, mass-killings and systematic sexual violence. The suspension of UK funds came about as M-23 seized the major Congolese city of Goma.
Pressure from the UK, the US, and others appears to have made a direct impact. Within weeks, M-23 retreated, its leader turned himself in at a US Embassy in Kigali, and Rwanda itself signed onto a peace agreement aiming to resolve the matter. International funds were subsequently restored.
The issue is far from concluded, however, as M-23 is once again on the march. Mirroring 2012, Goma is currently under siege as the city struggles to survive through several months of encirclement. In a bid to escape M-23, hundreds of thousands of refugees have crowded into the city, causing hospitals to overfill and food to run scarce.
In this recent M-23 offensive, Rwanda has ramped up their clandestine support and even sent its own forces to fight alongside the notorious militia, reneging on past agreements.
The militia’s bold new offensive has led Congo’s President to announce his intentions for total war with Rwanda and a “march on Kigali” if peace talks do not pan-out. So far, these diplomatic efforts have made little progress as the situation on the ground worsens with each passing day.
To complicate matters, a potential war could involve the entire region, as Rwanda’s southern and northern neighbours share similar grievances.
Burundi, Rwanda’s historical sister nation, has recently shuttered its shared border with Rwanda over a row in which Kigali stands accused of financing a Burundian rebel group known as RED-Tabara. Kagame has consistently denied involvement with the brutal group despite UN reports to the contrary.
Similar tense relations exist between Rwanda and Uganda, as the rival states only restored relations in 2019. Despite recent easing, experts allege that the two nations are currently engaged in a proxy-war in the nearby Congo, and predict a Uganda-DRC-Burundi alliance against Rwanda if the adjacent conflict escalates.
The regional escalations have also led to wider international condemnation, with French President Emmanuel Macron and America’s top diplomat, Anthony Blinken, both floating the option of sanctioning Rwanda if it doesn’t cease its support for M-23. The African nation also risks facing a Belgium-backed challenge in the ICJ (International Court of Justice) on the grounds that it has violated the DRC’s sovereignty.
The Motive
Why would Rwanda choose to support rebel groups when doing so antagonises and unites their African adversaries and turns much of the wider international community against them? One major motivator is the estimated £20 Trillion in resource wealth which lies under the soil of the DRC.
Rwanda has made a fortune channelling plundered resources from M-23 and other smugglers, gaining an alleged $1 Billion each year from the illicitly sourced Congolese minerals.
Despite lacking any proven reserves of its own, Rwanda currently ranks as one of the world’s top exporters of Coltan, an essential mineral used in various electronics such as phones and laptops. These minerals ultimately end up in global supply chains and in the products purchased by UK consumers.
While generating billions for state coffers, Kagame’s foreign incursions also have an ethnocentric and regime-preserving element to them. Although Kagame enforces strict anti-discrimination measures between Tutsis and Hutus on the home front,his foreign policy approach seeks to exploit these ethnic divisions.
By funding Tutsi warlords in the DRC and Rwanda-sympathizing groups in Burundi, Kagame can unofficially spread his borders, creating a buffer zone of influence. At the same time, he can pursue DRC-based Hutu groups linked to Rwanda’s 1994 Genocide and wage covert war against them.
A Surprisingly Long Reach
Rwanda’s illicit reach spans far past Central Africa. Its intelligence agents stand accused of even meddling in the United States, the UK, and South Africa.
A leaked FBI report details how among other illicit spying activities, Rwandan intelligence services deliberately misled US officials regarding a supposed assassination plot on Kagame in order to blame and extradite Rwandan dissidents living in America.
Rwanda has pursued similarly repressive tactics against UK citizens and activists. In one instance, a naturalised UK citizen originally from Rwanda was detained during a homecoming trip and was held on dubious charges due to the political activities of a relative. This individual was spared further detention following negotiations with UK authorities.
In other instances, the Rwandan government was found to be threatening UK-based political detractors and refugees who criticised the Kagame regime from afar. Without forewarning from Met Police, these dissidents may have faced a similar fate to former Rwandan Spy Chief and Kagame detractor, Patrick Karegeya, who was assassinated while hiding in South Africa. Later investigations have indicated Rwandan intelligence services were likely behind this Khashoggi-style attack.
A Putinesque Approach
Kagame’s approach sometimes resembles Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy. Rwanda has borrowed from the Russian playbook by deliberately fostering separatism and conflict in its neighbours, leveraging ethnic grievances, and threatening and assassinating political dissidents abroad.
By forging ahead with the Rwanda migration pact, the Conservative government places itself in an increasingly uncomfortable position alongside a provocative and destabilising state. However, the new agreement could be used as leverage to moderate and curtail Kagame’s more aggressive actions, just as Cameron succeeded in doing – albeit temporarily – in 2012. Kagame, after all, has shown himself capable of being a pragmatic realist and a cunning geopolitical actor who responds to incentives.
Whether the new bill fulfils its deterrence potential to stops the boats or not, the UK must understand the implications of strengthening its partnership with this small but influential East African nation. That includes taking Rwanda’s contentious foreign policy into account.
Josh Schlicht is a writer and graduate student of International Political Economy at King’s College London. On his substack, The Lookout Report, he covers geopolitics, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.
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