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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/04
Rwanda at the End of the Transition: A Necessary Political Liberalisation
November 2002
Abstract
Nine years after the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has reached another crossroads. The transition period defined by the Arusha Accords will be concluded in less than a year by a constitutional referendum and by multi-party elections which should symbolize the successful democratisation of the country. Today, however, there are multiple restrictions on political and civil liberty and no sign of any guarantee, or even indication, in the outline of the constitutional plan that the political opposition will be able to participate in these elections on an equal footing with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), in power since 1994.
Control over the activities of political parties was until now partly justified by the fragile security situation that Rwanda has experienced since 1994, during which it has been in a state of almost permanent war with the Hutu heirs of the Habyarimana regime on the DRC territory. The constant political and military support provided to the Rwandan Hutu militia by the successive Kabila regimes since 1998, has maintained a continuing security threat to the country. The restrictions on political participation can also be explained by the RPF's distrust of multi-party politics and unrestricted electoral competition, inspired directly by the experience of the country's political disintegration in early 1990s leading into the genocide.
