Top diplomat shows the proud face of Rwanda

• As the Foreign Affairs minister, Mushikiwabo goes far beyond the normal call of duty

Foreign Affairs ministers are, by dint of their job requirements, top diplomats of their respective countries.

They are expected to articulate the interests of their countries at the regional and global level and, while at it, strive to project a positive image abroad.

However, Louise Mushikiwabo, the Rwandan Foreign Affairs minister, sees her role as going beyond the normal call of duty.

Serving her government and the people of Rwanda is a job to which she says she gives more than her best, alluding to her country’s recent painful past.

“I believe in my country. This is a job I took willingly, and I am only too aware that it requires much more than I thought,” she told the Sunday Nation in an interview.

She radiated dedication as she spoke on diverse issues: the people, democracy, media operations and life in Rwanda in general as she spoke on the sidelines of the just-concluded Pan Africa Media Conference, where both she and President Paul Kagame readily answered questions about their country.

“My duty is to speak about this. In Rwanda, we have nothing to hide,” she said in the interview during the two-day conference, the centrepiece of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Nation Media Group at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi.

Interestingly, Ms Mushikiwabo does not belong to President Kagame’s political party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front. She successfully ran for parliament as an independent candidate in the country’s last general election.

Upon her victory, she was first appointed Information minister. Later she moved to the more crucial position of Foreign Affairs minister, an influential position held by only a handful of women in the world, the best known being America’s Hillary Clinton.

Ms Mushikiwabo has lived and worked in the United States as a public relations consultant for 20 years, which may have influenced her appointment.

For someone who has been in her position for only two years, Ms Mushikiwabo has managed to convey to the world that Rwanda is a country in the fast lane on development matters.

She never hesitated to defend her government’s democratic record in the face of tough questions and accusations, including claims that President Kagame’s government was a “benevolent dictatorship’’.

“There is no political repression in Rwanda. Rwanda is led by men and women who have done so much for their country.

“This is a country that, for 16 years, has been faced with a very difficult situation, and the ruling party has shown it has a different way of doing things for the sake of its people,” she said.

Rwanda, she says, has learnt to focus on meeting the needs of its citizens and giving them a reason to be proud of their country.

To achieve this, the country has focused on economic growth, sustaining an upward trend for the last two years.

Compared to other East African countries like Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, Rwanda’s economy may be small and predominantly agricultural, but it has in recent years posted an impressive 9.9 per cent growth rate.

At the same time, it has reduced inflation to 3.2 per cent and currency depreciation to only 6.5 per cent per annum. Foreign exchange controls have been liberalised, and the banking system is sound and thriving.

Ms Mushikiwabo’s tenure at the Foreign ministry has been characterised by milestones like joining the Commonwealth, and to some extent, discarding the former Belgian trust territory’s Francophone image.

Bad blood

This shift was caused, in part, by the bad blood between Rwanda and France, a situation with roots in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in which French forces, which had been training the army of the government of President Juvenal Habyarimana, were accused of turning a blind eye to the violence in the small country in which at least half a million people, most of them minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus, were killed.

Ms Mushikiwabo, the author of Rwanda Means the Universe: A Native’s Memoir of Blood and Bloodlines, is now playing a central role in rebuilding relations with France.

Early this month, French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited Rwanda in what was viewed as a tentative step towards restoring relations.

“The visit came as part of the beginning of normalcy in relations between Rwanda and France after three years of no relations at all,” she said.

Ms Mushikiwabo’s effectiveness as the Foreign Affairs minister is a major boost to the country’s affirmative action policy that has seen Rwandan women share political appointments almost equally with their male colleagues.