Leadership, power and the politics of personalities in Eastern Africa

Ben Shepherd

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today’s membership event on Leadership, Power and the Politics of Personality in East Africa. My name’s Ben Shepherd, I’m a Consulting Fellow with the Africa Programme and Chatham House and I’ll be chairing today’s event. Many thanks, indeed, to everyone for joining us.

The title is on Eastern Africa, and we’re going to look more specifically at four states in East Africa, broadly defined as Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea, all states that were led by what was termed the new generation of Africa’s leaders in the late 1990s and the 2000s. All have been in the spotlight in recent year – months, for different reason. President Museveni was sworn in for his sixth term in office in Uganda yesterday. Rwanda is looking forward to hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2021, although I understand that’s been postponed.

We will have all seen reporting of the violence in Tigray in Ethiopia, and reports that Eritrea perhaps has been drawn into that process. In addition, there’s volatility across the region, broadly defined, in – from Tanzania to Sudan, and from Eastern DRC to Burundi. It’s a complex and very fastmoving region that asks some very big questions around models of governance and development, around narratives of leadership, and what that all means for international engagement.

What I think today can do is help to set some of that complexity in its historical and its regional context, and hopefully avoid us all getting swept away in events, as we have a tendency to do. And we have three absolutely top-class panellists to help us make sense of it all, and I’m very grateful indeed for their participation.

To give you a very brief introduction to them, we have Dr Tefera Negash, who’s come to us from Amsterdam. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Institute for Security Studies in The Hague and a former member of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Many thanks for being here, Tefera. We have Dr Rebecca Tapscott joining us from Edinburgh, who is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and a Visiting Fellow at the LSE and University of Edinburgh, whose work has a focus on political violence and authoritarianism and has a forthcoming book on Uganda. And Michela Wong, who’s joining us from Primrose Hill in London, who is a Journalist and Author who’s written books on Mobutu’s Zaire, on Eritrea, on Kenya, and published this year a book on Rwanda, which I’m sure you will all – have all seen. Sadly, our fourth panellist, Rose [inaudible – 04:11], has been unable to join us, which is a shame, but we have an enormous amount of expertise, what I’m sure will be a fascinating conversation.

Couple of bits of housekeeping. We are on the record today. We will start with some introductory remarks from our panellists. Michela will speak largely on contemporary Rwanda and Eritrea, Tefera on leadership in the political system under the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, and Rebecca on politics and leadership in Uganda. We’ll move into a short period of ten minutes or so of a discussion amongst the panellists, before we move into a Q&A with our participants. The way we’re running the Q&A today is we won’t have a raised hand function, instead we would encourage you to place comments, questions, queries into the chat function. They’ll then be passed onto me, and I can pass them onto the panel, and we’re doing it that way to group the questions, I’m sure there will be a lot of them.

So, without further ado, many thanks again for joining us, and I will move first to Michela Wong to give us her introductory remarks. Michela. I think you’re muted.

Michela Wong

I am, sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Ben, thank you for inviting me to Chatham House. I’m delighted to see there’s already a comment from a Congolese refugee in Nakivale refugee camp joining us, and I’ve been there quite a few times and it’s a very windswept and bleak valley, so I’m amazed and impressed that you can join us. So, all the leaderships we’re discussing today emerged from tightknit left wing guerrilla movements, Bands of Brothers, if we’re to use the phrase that Spielberg coined, and their members fought alongside each other at various junctures. In the process, they formed incredibly close, almost familial bonds, so the personal is the political in this region, I would argue. These movements paired up at various points and each – in each pairing there was one that was senior, older, and one that was more junior, so we had the EPLF as the senior, versus the TPLF in the Horn, the NRM versus the RPF in the Great Lakes, and these relationships, these close relationships, began as a source of strength, but became laden with resentment.

In retrospect, it’s clear that the high point came when they were all part of this Pan-African attempt – successful attempt to get rid of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, but since then these movements have themselves fractured internally and they’ve also fallen out spectacularly with one another. So we had the Kisangani clashes between Uganda and Rwanda in 2000, tensions between those two countries remain incredibly high, Eritrea and Ethiopia fought in 1998 over the border, and effectively you could argue that the EPLF and TPLF are back at war again in Tigray now. And I would say these divisions certainly do have ideological content, and I think the other speakers will probably address those, but I think they’re also rooted in testosterone and pecking order.

I wanted to talk about the big brother, little brother dynamic very briefly on one hand, and then look at Rwanda, where I think there’s a dynamic going on that I would define as you know too many of my secrets. So, between the EPLF and TPLF, there was always a big brother, little brother tension. “We had to teach these guys how to fight” was the refrain you heard quite a bit on the Eritrean side of the border during the build-up to the war in Eritre – in Badme. And it was backed up by this incredibly condescending attitude towards Tigrayans by Eritreans, who were used to seeing them as Servants, Cleaners, Street Sweepers, Prostitutes, in their own country.

There are some similar tensions between the NRM and the RPF, and I was really interested, because in the wake of my book’s publication, there was a furious exchange between the New – Journalists working for the New Vision, the government newspaper in Uganda, and the New Times in Rwanda, with a Ugandan Journalist taking issue with the fact that I had presented what I’d been told by my sources, that many of the fiercest, the most relentless, toughest fighters in the NRM, came from the Banyarwanda community and they were known for that. And he was saying, “Oh, this is nonsense,” and that immediately triggered a response from an RPF loyalist in Kigali, who published a long article listing all the Banyarwanda commanders who held key positions in the NRM and comparing the battles they fought and won, to humiliating moments of cowardice and desertion by non-Banyarwanda fighters in the NRM.

And I think what this exchange really highlighted was that these two movements are still stuck in the Luwero Triangle in the 1980s, psychologically, and still, sort of, smarting at insults and grievances that date back 40 years. So, with the RPF, there’s always been this feeling that – this resentment at Museveni’s patronising habit of referring to the Banyarwanda as “my boys,” and there’s a sort of, craving for proper recognition, while the NRM carders, who tend to be ten to 15 years older, still can’t grasp why these young whippersnappers aren’t grati – grateful for everything they were given. You know, they were welcomed into the movement, what more do they expect? So, I think the exchange really underlined how out of sync and out of touch both leaderships in Rwanda and Uganda are with a younger generation that was – you know, half of the populations in Uganda and Rwanda weren’t even alive when these events in the early 90s were – 80s were taking place.

So, there’s a Shakespearean element to this big brother, little brother tension, and over it hovers the ghost of Fred Rwigyema, the charismatic NRM – young NRM Commander, the Founder of the RPF, of course, who was virtually Museveni’s adopted son and very, very close to Salim Saleh, Museveni’s brother. He was an instinctive reconciler, I would say, perhaps the only man who could’ve prevented the sibling rivalry from building up. He mysteriously was killed on the second day of the invasion of 19 – in 1990 of the – of Rwanda by the RPF, and with his death, that relationship changed forever. And I mention in my book a, sort of, telling quote that Kaga – from Kagame, where he apparently once told his former colleagues in Kampala, “The trouble with you guys is you can’t accept that the President you wanted for Rwanda is dead.”

Fred’s ghost also hovers over another key relationship in the region and this one is between Kagame and his former Banyarwanda comrades-in-arms. He’s haunted by the awareness that he remains an accidental President, feared but not loved, systemat – constantly compared unfavourably to the adored Fred, and my book tracks the process by which power has been ever more centralised in Kagame’s hands since 1998. And in the process, the Banyarwanda Commanders, on whom he relied for advice and military prowess, have been alienated, pushed to one side, and eventually have fled into exile and set up opposition parties and militia groups.

And I think the key dynamic here is the chasm between Kagame’s character-moulding early years as a bitter refugee, one of that huge population of refugees who were pushed by their Habyarimana government into Southwest Uganda, living a life they never had expected to live. They were cattle owners – cattle keepers, suddenly they were having to dig the soil, his father refused, became an alcoholic, he dropped out of school, had all sorts of issues, and was bitterly aware of being an outsider in Uganda. And those – that mentality is so different from the experience of people like Patrick Karegeya, the Former Head of Intelligence, whom – who is a protagonist of my book, and General Kayumba Nyamwasa, the Former Head of the Armed Forces, who – again, another man who’s gone into exile, who were indigenous Banyarwanda and grew up at ease in Ugandan society, did extremely well at school, excelled at university, always were very popular with their men, so I think that that’s the other relationship to look at.

Publicly, Kagame has always presented his government, his regime, as being, sort of, an embattled, beleaguer – beleaguered administration surrounded by Hutu extremists who want to finish the genocidal work that was left undone. In reality, the people – the men he really fears are people like the late Patrick Karegeya and Kayumba Nyamwasa, but they have known him since he was a young hustler selling fake dollars on the streets of Kampala. They know all his – all of his weaknesses, all of his strengths, and in a way, that’s something he finds impossible to live with.

I think it’s impossible to overstate the intimacy of that relationship. Kayumba saved Kagame’s life several times during the years in the Bush. He’s godfather to one of Kagame’s sons. He’s said to be the only Military Commander that Kagame has never slapped in public in front of the – his troops, Kagame does do that. Patrick Karegeya was at the same school as Kagame, he was the trusted conciliary. People used to say of him that he was the man who would brief Kagame in the bedroom, and they [audio cuts out – 14:31] homosexual liaison going on, and what they meant was that they had such intimate things to discuss, they would only do it in the bedroom. These guys gave speeches at each other’s weddings, their children stayed [audio cuts out – 14:46], they were incredibly close, but at the same, there was always this suspicion on Kagame’s side.

The men who eventually went off to set up the opposition, Rwanda National Congress, not only know where all the bodies are buried [audio cuts out – 15:05].

Ben Shepherd

It appears that we’ve lost Michela’s signal there. I don’t know if that’s happening for other viewers. Perhaps I can get colleagues from Chatham House to reach out and see if we can check her feed and perhaps reset that. In the meantime, we will allow Michela space to finish her remarks, but moving on, I think, probably is the best idea at this point and on the assumption that we can bring Michela back in, I’ll now turn to Tefera. You know, Michela was – started her remarks about some of the historical antecedences, the relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea and between the political actors there. Fascinated to hear your views. Ah, Michela is back, apologies. Michela, can we invite you just to…

Michela Wong

Yes.

Ben Shepherd

…finish your remarks?

Michela Wong

I was on my last paragraph when the…

Ben Shepherd

Great.

Michela Wong

…connection seemed to go. Yeah, I was just saying that while the Kagame government will rendition and extradite people like the Hutu genocidaire Félicien Kabuga, or people like Paul Rusesabagina, the Hotel Rwanda Manager, it really is – it’s these men, these former Tutsi insiders, that Kagame wants not tried, but killed. And we know from all these transcripts of conversations between Rwandan intelligence and would-be killers, and from the tapes that have been released by the RNC onto the internet, that that’s the plan. It’s not to get them arrested and brought back for trial, it is to eliminate them completely. So, I’ll wrap it up there.

Ben Shepherd

Thank you very much indeed, and sorry we had a brief interruption. It’s fascinating, it’s so deep, but it’s so – as you say, it’s Shakespearean, and understanding the mechanics of the way that power operates, it – you know, it’s vital to understand the rest of the region.

We’ll move onto Tefera, to give us the view from Ethiopia. Tefera, to you. I think you’re also muted.

Dr Tefera Negash Gebregziabher

Sorry.

Ben Shepherd

There we are, perfect.

Dr Tefera Negash Gebregziabher

Okay. Thank you very much, Ben, for the introduction, and also fascinating to hear from Michela the detailed stories of intimate ties between Heads of States across East Africa. I will not go in detail into those stories, but in – with questions and answers, we – I can – could come up, I will – I could return back to it. But yeah, my short remark really focuses on the leadership of Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, and questions the notion of new generation of African leaders. Meles Zenawi’s era was known for authoritarian governments in relative success. I think the theory and practice of Meles’ governance revolve around four major issues, the first is the use and abuse of ideologies, second is ethnic victimhood, the third is dominance party and the fourth is states economy. I would leave any other positive contribution to its chronicles.

So, let me go to the first theory and practice, that is the use and abuse of ideologies. The late Prime Minister, who was a Chief Ideolog of the Tigray People Liberation Front, who used ideological claims to purge his opponents to consolidate power. In 1984 he proclaimed dangers of empiricism or the lack of scientific theories, and in 2001 he accused his party of the danger of Bonapartism to purge many. And they fought, for example, and denied that Meles and Meles alone devised and relentlessly imposed what became the country’s intellectual orthodox. He was a complex, contradictory person, with a world view of inherently leftist and thoroughly authoritarian. So, I – we could return back to this idea how ideologies have metamorphosed in TPLF’s theory.

The second one is ethnic victim. This is his flagship political teaching. Ethnic victimhood was used to mobilise ethnic Tigrayans during the armed conflicts, like in the military regime, after assuming state power by forming ethnic federals. As such, Meles was – has established a form of ethnic nationalism that will have implications for his country for years to come. Some scholars argue that the national question raised by the leftist intelligentsia of Ethiopia was a huge mistake, pointing out that even if there was an ethnic discrimination by one against the other, it was not inflicted on the Tigran ethnic group.

The third theory and practice is of Meles Zenawi’s dominant party. Meles advocated consensus as vital for development for the foreign audience and preached party control for the – for development to fellow citizens. Meles argued that a vanguard party should mobilise, organise and co-ordinate social forces, starting from the peasantry. So, in instance, the idea of the dominant party displaced multiparty democracy. The relatively fair election of – for example, of 2005, was followed by a series of repressive measures, including arrest, passing draconian laws that curtailed press freedom in the participation of civil society. The other elections, like of 2010 and 2015, were basically a mockery of formal democracy.

The fourth theory and practice, I would say, of the late Prime Minister is state-led economy. In a chapter he published just a year before his death, Meles presented a lengthy discussion of market failure as the limitation of the new liberal theory and advocated for development and states. So, for Meles, a strong state was not solely a state with extensive powers in wider scope of action, but also a state whose actions are dictated by the dominant party. So, the call – in any case, the call for a strong state intervention in the economy has not been welcomed by many token observers. It has been intimidating and suffocating for the private sector and for those not related to the party state.

So, to sum it up, on the theory and practice of Meles, as history would have us suggest, Meles was never able to emerge as a national leader with a broad-based constituency and legitimacy in Ethiopia. He assumed power as a narrow Tigrayan dissident nationalist and died in office with the same persona. The list of failures of Meles Zenawi’s governance include the weakening of state institutions, including courts, the media and dissenting voice in the private sector. Yet, the full impact of his era is still unravelling with the country’s political space. So, what did this new generation of African leaders branding serve? The political and security personalities who led armed resistance in their respective territories contributed their share in the instability of their countries. When they assumed power, they were branded as a new generation of African leaders by the West, especially, I think, starting from the Clinton’s administration in – one can look into the Senate debate during Clinton’s administration.

This assertion of new generation of African leaders perpetuates the colonial othering that simplify the complex nature of societies in the structure of the international system. How much was the West ready to adjust international system and democracy beyond pursuing the national interest? Perhaps the branding of these leaders, as such, might have helped to build international stature of individuals that attracted Heads of States and corporations to their coffee table. I, personally, witnessed multiple visits when I was especially a Protocol Officer at the start of my diplomatic era at the Ministry. Personalities such as Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs and other leaders, from Europe to Ethiopia and the rendezvous Meles, and their naïve assumption of the possibility of honest democratic leadership.

So, in summary, the international approach to governance in development must be based on a deeper analysis of the political forces and their policies at play than personalities at the helm of power, and be cognisant of the complex regional conditions of the Horn of Africa, the role of major powers, local histories and politics seriously. I would end my remark at this. Thank you.

Ben Shepherd

Thank you very much indeed for a fascinating overview and introduction you did there. Again, extraordinarily complicated and incredibly important. Before we move it into discussion, I’ll move to our final panellist, to Rebecca, who will concentrate on Uganda. Rebecca, to you.

Dr Rebecca Tapscott

Thanks Ben, thank you so much. I’m really happy to be here with these fascinating panellists and to contribute to this conversation. I’ve been researching local politics and informal security in Uganda since 2014, and then my book will come out in the next few weeks with Oxford University Press and it studies the Ugandan regime from below, to understand how authoritarians extend social control even with limited state capacity. So, I’ll just set out what I see as some of the key points to understanding contemporary politics that hopefully are complementary to some of the regional and more elite level dynamics that have been described by my co-panellists.

So, from the beginning, Museveni’s regime has been concerned about threats from society, whether that might be insurgency or civic action, and I think what we’ve seen over the past 30 years is a governing approach that actually uses the state structure in its endeavour to extend control to the grassroots, and this means that today, much as the Ugandan State might be precarious, it’s not exactly weak. So, over the years, we’ve seen this consistent tension between democratic-looking reforms paired with the de facto centralisation of power. The regime is also well-known for leveraging the image of a fragile state to attract foreign aid and justify continued investment in military capacity, helping further consolidate its power.

A few aspects of the NRM approach stand out as really key to its success and I’ll just highlight three here. The first is the merging of the Ugandan State and its institutions with the NRM party. So, when Museveni took power in 1986, he implemented a no-party system, which meant that all Ugandans would be part of the movement, and he framed this as a meritocratic structure that would sidestep this issue of sectarianism. However, it also meant that being Ugandan became synonymous with being in the NRM and it allowed the regime to equate political opposition to opposition to the state, and the legacies of this endure today.

Second, the regime embraced an ambitious plan of decentralisation designed to fragment local political organisation while de facto centralising power. For instance, the local council structure implemented across the country in the regime’s early years also allowed it to reach to the grassroots to distribute commodities, but also to gather and collect intelligence. Dividing districts has limited the political and economic power of any district and diluted the power of Parliament compared to the Executive.

Third, the regime has maintained a tight link to the military and militarised the economy and society to extend social control. Resources in Uganda are often distributed through the security sector. For instance, the military delivered COVID aid this past year and responded to the recent locust invasion. The military also implements the country’s large agricultural extension services programme. The militarised patronage network draws citizens, and particularly these under and unemployed young people, into the informal security sector, further blurring this line between regime Karda, soldier and civilian.

The regime also frames itself as both sword and shield. On the one hand, the regime can use violence without accountability. At the same time, it emphasises its role preventing chaos and conflict in the country. For instance, the NRM’s political slogan this year was Securing Your Future, which has been interpreted as both a reminder of the patronage that the regime can and has offered, as well as a tacet warning of the chaos that could follow a change in power.

So, these three factors have really laid the groundwork for a state that looks stable, but is in fact characterised by ambiguity and uncertainty in everyday life for ordinary people. This uncertainty, in particular, manifests by making the state appear present and strong, even if in practice it may be absent and low capacity. For example, the link – oh, sorry, for example, the linking of state to regime, in the context of the no-party state and militarised political economy, means that any Ugandan can equally be framed as an agent of the state or an enemy of the regime, and this has an atomising effect, preventing collective action, while at the same time making people beholden to a potentially volatile and capricious state.

So, the result is that even while the regime may be precarious, it has maintained this impressive control over the country, fragmenting and undermining would-be political opposition. I’m sure we’ll get more into this, but clearly, at the moment, the regime is feeling the stress of this ageing President and the absence of a clear transition plan and ordinary citizens are bearing the brunt of this, we’re seeing significant state violence in broad daylight. And so, for contemporary politics, I think that sort of, these insights turn our attention to the role of the military and other violent actors, who holds violence and who can mobilise it, and it also turns our attention to latent modes of organisation. While the regime has worked really hard to fragment these, some do remain in place, which you know, have been, I think, highlighted by these descriptors in elite level politics, but also are, sort of, emerging from the political activity that we’ve seen recently. So, I’ll leave it there for now.

Ben Shepherd

Fabulous. Thank you so much, Rebecca. It’s a – you know, another equally complex and equally difficult angle into these broad questions of personality of politics, of generational renewal and of what – of how power operates across East Africa and what is done with it.

Huge number of things to address from all three sets of introductory remarks. Where I wanted to start was I – from Terefa’s remarks on Ethiopia, was that there was an articulation by Prime Minister Meles of an alternative vision of what the developmental state could look like, whether that ever took – you know, gained roots, whether it was popular, whether it was – many people agreed he articulated it.

My question to Michela, and to Rebecca to a certain extent, is one can dissect the way that power operates in Rwanda and Uganda, it’s less clear to me that there is a clear purpose of what to do with that power once you’ve got it. So, my question to you is do you think there is a clear vision for what development should look like in Uganda and in Rwanda, and has that changed in the years since the early glory days of the new generation, to the way that they think about the state and power now? Perhaps I can come back to Michela first on that. If you’re thinking about Rwanda, you know, one can look on the one hand about how power is held, I’m interested to know what you think of what is being done with it?

Michela Wong

Yeah, well, if I was working for DFID or USAID, I – or the IMF or the World Bank, I would – I’ll have a lot to say at this juncture in terms of impressive development statistics and poverty alleviation and maternal health and primary school attendance. And, you know, the donor community remains enamoured of Rwanda’s performance on this front, and, I mean, it’s cast a spell almost on them, where they simply don’t want to see the – sort of, the negative sides of the – of that situation. But I think that the key issue is surely sustainability, and, you know, what you see in Rwanda is these wonderful institutions being set up, one after another, the Rwandan Media Commission, the National Institute of Statistics, you know, there’s one, sort of, body after another. And I imagine that if you’re a donor, you sort of, think, oh, these are great, ‘cause this is all about checks and balances, independent bodies, in – you know, independent institutions, which of themselves end up, sort of, delivering and making concrete the development state.

If you look at all of those examples, though, you’ll see that they’ve all been totally undermined when the tyre hit the road. For example, the Rwanda Revenue Authority has been used to penalise presidential candidates, or people who were hoping to run the presidential elections, or people who are suspected of funding opposition movements abroad. Tribert Rujugiro is one of them, Diane Rwigara’s – all her family’s assets being seized by the tax authorities, so the tax regime is being used for political ends.

The Rwanda Media Commission was also used in that way and its Chairman, Fred Muvunyi, fled abroad. The Parliamentary Speaker, much earlier on in Rwanda’s history, in 2000, ended up wading across the river into Uganda because he had suddenly realised that this feisty parliament that he was setting up had – you know, was just being emasculated by Kagame and the presidency, ditto the judiciary. And, you know, it’s been very interesting watching the Rusesabagina trial, because on the one hand, Rwanda obviously thinks this is a great example of transparent legal process open to the world, you know, this stuff is being broadcast on social media and U – and it’s got simultaneous translations. I don’t think the Rwandan justice system comes across at all well, in fact, as a result of that trial.

So, I think every time you look at an institution that’s supposed to, sort of, guarantee development irrespective of who’s running the country, irrespective of who’s the President, and you can see the levers that work, you can see how it’s being manipulated and undermined, so I think there are very deep concerns for the future. I mean, I think that’s the question that donors really need to answer, which is what happens when these ageing leaders drop off the perch, which is, you know, more pertinent in Uganda because of the relative ages of Museveni and Kagame, but it’s going to also arise, you know, in Rwanda.

Ben Shepherd

Absolutely, and you know, seen it in Chad in recent weeks with the arrival of the…

Michela Wong

Yeah.

Ben Shepherd

…African Government. It’s not – you know, it’s not coming to East Africa. Thank you very, very much, Michela. Rebecca, turning a similar sort of question to you, you know, Museveni was heralded as a great developmental leader, Rwanda – Uganda was a great developmental success story. A lot of the gloss has worn off that halo over the last, you know, ten to 15 years. Do you see within the NRM, or within Uganda’s leadership, a sustained commitment to, kind of, probe for development or has the point changed?

Dr Rebecca Tapscott

Yeah, I mean, that’s a good question. I wonder if the framing is on – I wonder if we take the framing and, sort of, reorient it, which is that those – it’s similar, I guess, to what Michela was saying, but these development interventions and funding are very important to the way the regime works, just not necessarily to forward developmental goals for the constituencies that were envisioned by the donors. So, you know, again, if we look to the National Agricultural Advisory Services in Uganda, you know, this massive, massive agricultural extension programme that was taken – the implementation was taken over by the military in 2014 and renamed Operation Wealth Creation. And in the announcements about that, you know, Museveni says, “This is both because we want to root out corruption and the military is well-disciplined and it can implement this, you know, efficiently and without corruption,” despite the fact that none of them are trained in agricultural extension services, “and additionally, it will allow us to support our veterans.”

Right, and so this, you know, a very publicly oriented intervention that shows us how that dynamic works, but I would posit that actually, for many of the development programmes that Uganda has, there’s – we can see some more patterns, you know, down to, you know, much more localised aspects of, you know, who implements programmes at a village or a district level, even. And, you know, if we look at programmes like Crime Preventers or something, I think, you know, one thing that’s overlooked in these community policing initiatives, that essentially draw in tens and tens of thousands of young and under-employed young men, is that this creates a network that then the national level is aware of, and when there are, sort of, potential programmes for people to access, these are networks that can be drawn on. So, that’s, sort of, a different way of framing the question, I guess. I do – you know, if it were possible to do both and, you know, things might look different, but it’s, I think, sort of, a balancing act at this point in particular.

Ben Shepherd

Thank you very much indeed. Coming back to Tefera, I mean, continuing these themes, you know, Tefera, you said in your remarks that Meles had articulated a developmental state, a state-led vision. In the years since his passing and under the current administration, has any of that vision survived, or has it been buried under a tide of rising ethnonationalisms, and we’ve seen that in the violence recently? And I want to, sort of, segue that into a wider question for all three of you, which is and what do the younger generations think about that? You know, to Michela’s point about sustainability, generation renewal is a huge part of that, young people are going to be the majority, so what role are there, Tefera, for young people in Ethiopia’s current and future vision of development?

Dr Tefera Negash Gebregziabher

I think, Ben, this is really a very interesting question, especially now, when I think of it, some of the divots, for example, when the new Prime Minister came to power, Abiy Ahmed, issues of, for example, this liberalisation of the economy. For example, there have been lots of discussion on the media and also from the reform group side, that some state institution, critical state corporations, like Ethiopian Airlines or the Ethiopian telecommunication corporations, where – you know, should be sold and given to the private sector, there were these kinds of discussion.

The resistance that came against this was – really shows that there was a deeper understanding, a deeper kick from the – from all corners of the country that really development was taken seriously, but most importantly, the state in institutions, you know, this reverence, you know, the state is – so, therefore, have to have control on these important assets. I think this has lingered from the ideas of developmental states that came from Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s spirit, but at the same time, of course, not everything is, you know – have passed on from Meles’ period. Some have been questioned. But still, for example, many state institutions – in a sense that state-owned corporations are still in the hands of the state, and I think one of the things that will continue to shift some of the developmental thoughts really comes from the developmental state ideas. But of course, in the huge scheme of things, why the idea of developmental state came into fore, at what period in time, I think it was around 2001. Why Prime Minister Meles Zenawi wanted to – it – that almost goes against the federal system, that he tries to institute in Ethiopia, that this declaration of the development of democratic developmental state in Ethiopia was almost used to really concentrate power in the hands of the Prime Minister and the state. So, of course, it is contextual, but some things have lingered, really, in the political space.

Ben Shepherd

Thank you very much. You know, looking specifically at the role of young people, I might come back to Rebecca here, very quickly, because of the prominence of Bobi Wine over the last year/six months, in the runup to the elections and subsequently. We’d be very interested to get your thoughts on, you know, the possibilities for a youth – for youth-led change. And it links into questions that we’ve had in from members of the audience, one from Ino Josef Mwsingwah, saying that many states, including the US and the EU, have cast out some of the legitimacy of the recent election in Uganda. What can international players do to strengthen the chances for change? So a joint question there about what can be done and what role for young people?

Dr Rebecca Tapscott

Again, I’d be interested, also, in my co-panellists’ opinions…

Ben Shepherd

That’s good.

Dr Rebecca Tapscott

…on that, as well. You know, I wonder, to some extent, with the – this idea of the youth vote and, sort of, this narrative of overwhelming support for Bobi Wine from the youth, if it makes them take a step back and ask is youth really a political constituency at the moment? You know, is that really what we’re seeing? And it – you know, obviously, there’s questions as to vote counts and things like that, but, you know, it looks like, actually, Bobi Wine got massive support from Buganda, which is his home region and not so much from the rest of the country. And this, I think, you know, raises the question whether, really, the constituency we’re looking at is youth or if it is actually regional dynamics that may be at play. And again, you know, I would go back to the question of, sort of, access and control of the military or other security services and raise that as a – kind of, a big question mark when it comes to the political opportunities for somebody like Bobi Wine, who, you know, does – is very much in the civilian space. And I think that that is something that we don’t talk about as much, but is actually very important to, sort of, his potential political future in a country like Uganda.

Ben Shepherd

Hmmm, and particularly interesting, you know, given the – his, kind of, symbolic adoption of the iconography of the military, wearing his beret. I’ve always thought that there’s a, sort of, clear tension going on there. Michela, I’d be fascinated to hear your views on…

Michela Wong

Yeah.

Ben Shepherd

…where young peoples…

Michela Wong

I…

Ben Shepherd

…fit in in Rwanda and where…

Michela Wong

It’s been interesting in Rwanda recently, because it’s always really – I mean, it’s basically impossible to tell what ordinary Rwandans think, given that I think that society has so carefully monitored that, you know, you – even – you know, any person who goes around with a clipboard is not going to be getting an honest answer from – if they were to be asked, “What do you really think of your government and your President?” And given that we have 98.8% results when Kagame stands in elections, which, sort of, in most people’s view, place those elections into the entirely non-credible category. So, who knows what young people in Rwanda really think? But I think the – you know, you see little bubblings up of dissent and, for example, the COVID regulations, which have been enforced with typical toughness and strictness in Rwanda, ha – did elicit protests, furious protests, and young people were using YouTube to express their frustration, and we saw Bella Ciao, which has become this song that represents dissent, revolutionary dissent, around the world, being sung by a young Poet on YouTube. He then disappeared and hasn’t been seen since.

Another young woman called Yvonne, who was criticising the government in really surprisingly forthright terms, was taken in for questioning repeatedly. So, there aren’t many avenues in which people can really express what they think and if you read the press, you know, all – any media that expresses criticisms of the regime is based abroad. I mean, all the independent Journalists have gone abroad, and so you just get the sycophantic chorus from all the local newspapers. But I think, you know, the danger of the system is Rwanda is it’s so brittle. I mean, it doesn’t allow for any flexibility, whereas in Uganda, you know, there’s an awful lot of flexibility and a lot of avenues for dissent to be at least expressed, and, you know, people can let rip. You – there’s nowhere to do that in Rwanda and I think that is risky and that – when you have a really brittle system, when it does change, it breaks, it doesn’t bend.

Ben Shepherd

And just continuing from that, a question that we’ve had in from one of the attendees today to you, Michela. It – getting to the point that – I mean, you don’t need to be told, obviously, that the debate on Rwanda is incredibly polarised and it’s very difficult to have a balanced conversation. It – you know, it tends to pull into one direction or the other. The question to you is do you see any scope for generating a balanced conversation on Rwanda or for changing minds across that divide of, you know, seeing it either as heaven or hell?

Michela Wong

I don’t think so. I think that’s going to continue to be the case and it’s going to be the case both in the country itself, in the region and also abroad. ‘Cause what’s so interesting is that the most fur – some of the most furious discussions about Rwanda take place in West – you know, between Westerners, who feel incredibly passionately about the issue, and, you know, if you say things that they aren’t ready to listen to or don’t agree with, get extremely angry.

I think that is an echo, a consequence, of the genocide, you know, that such grotesque acts of violence were committed and so many people lost their lives, that to support the RPF at a certain stage of their history really just seemed like the obvious thing. You were on the good – you know, you were supporting the good guys, why would you not? And a lot of people, sort of, took that stance and really don’t want to, sort of, question it or nuance it in any way, and I’ve seen that in media, I think I’ve seen it in diplomatic circles, and I’ve seen it in aid circles, as well, and I think that will continue to be the case. It’s the legacy of the genocide.

Ben Shepherd

Sure, sure, thank you. I mean, another question from a member of the audience, which continues from that theme very much, which is to Tefera, and indeed to the others, too. The question gets to the idea that a generation of young people who have been created who can’t see past their ethnicity because of the concentration on ethnic identity. The question to you and to the panel is how can those narratives of ethnic identity be turned round? And I was struck, Rebecca, by what you said about Bobi Wine not being a youth leader but being a Buganda leader. It speaks to an underlying ethnonationalism that is, perhaps, a challenge across the region. So, Tefera, you know, for young people in Ethiopia today, are their identities dominated by their ethnicity, and if they are, can anything be done about that?

Dr Tefera Negash Gebregziabher

I think this is probably, for some it might not be a problem, but for me, personally, I think – and also as a Political Scientist, I think this is one of the saddest thing to see in the Ethiopian political space. It is only ethnicity, and this, in my opinion, in my understanding and in my study, I see that that has been ethnicisation of politics, you know, has been sponsored by the TPLF, EPRDF, period. Why is the youth playing one ethnic group against the other? And this idea growing up, for example, it’s only later on that – it’s after I joined universities, that people start to, you know, going radical, and so on and so forth.

Of course, there are cultural differences and this has been even respected, even, under the brutal military regime and so on, so I think this dissident nationalism, you know, that – has to be – in some sense, has to be given its right space in the social cultural surrounding, but its political edge should reduce a little bit. And I think this, probably, if there – if it is not state-sponsored for purposes of divide and rule, it might at least decline across time through generation, while other identities could be – I mean, could gen – regenerate in the political space. This is what I could say, but in general, it is the TPLF era that have enabled such sharp increase in this regard.

Ben Shepherd

Thank you very much indeed. We’re moving into the last, kind of, few minutes of our time. We’ve had a series of questions and I’m going to, kind of, synthesise them, if I may. I won’t list the people who’ve asked. Asking about succession, and it’s something that Michela, you know, you touched on, of what happens to the day a – what happens the day after, if this generation of readers goes? We’ve perhaps seen it in Ethiopia and maybe there are some lessons that can be learned from across the region about how Ethiopia, how the EPRDF, managed the post-Meles moment.

But the question is, you know, what prognosis would you give for Rwanda, for Uganda, for the day after, the week after, the year after, the departure of Museveni or Kagame? Do you see any active succession planning going on? Do you see any evident successors? And a final part of that, and it’s to all three of you, is what could the international community writ large be doing about this? Are there things that you think – mistakes being made? Are there changes that could be put in place by international institutions or by donors? I don’t know who wants to jump in there first on that. You know, limited selection of questions. Michela.

Michela Wong

Well, shall I – I mean, the whole point is if you’re a leader who rules by divide and rule, amongst your closest comrades, which I believe is the case in Rwanda, you make sure there are no successors. That is the entire strategy of your administration, and what you see in Rwanda is you see – firstly, you see some of the key possible successors, were Kagame to suddenly die of a heart attack, they’re now in exile. You know, attempts have been made to kill them. Very overt, obvious attempts have been made by Rwandan intelligence to kill them, and then you get this churning effect and Isaias in Eritrea goes in for this, Isaias Afwerki, where you churn the Key Generals round and round and round, so you prevent them – you keep moving them from one job to another, you often detain them, you disgrace them, you accuse them of corruption. That way, they never build up a following, they never build up a power base.

So, this is part of the strategy, and of course it makes it very, very difficult then, when your powers are failing because you’re ageing, to actually identify a possible successor, apart from this very obvious thing, which we’ve just seen in Chad and we all, of course, saw in DRC, where it’s your son, and I wouldn’t rule that out in either Rwanda or Uganda. I mean, I know in Uganda there was discussion at one stage whether Muhoozi would be the successor, then that seems to have faded away, Rebecca will know more about that than I do. But Ange Kagame seems to be quite an impressive young lady, and she has spent time doing internships in the World Bank and she seems to be playing, you know, a role in terms of the presidential office, she, sort of, helps out there. So, I wouldn’t rule out a familial, monarchical kind of succession in either of the countries, I mean, it seems farfetched at the moment, but it seemed farfetched in DRC, as well.

Ben Shepherd

It did, and indeed in Chad. And to the second, very quickly, ‘cause we are running out of time, in terms of the role, the attitudes of the international community and donors, is there anything that can be done differently?

Dr Tefera Negash Gebregziabher

Yeah, shall I…?

Michela Wong

Well, I can – sorry, sorry, I…

Ben Shepherd

Sorry, let’s let…

Michela Wong

Shall I…?

Ben Shepherd

…Michela just finish very quickly and then we’ll come back around to Tere…

Michela Wong

Okay, I just would like to see a more feisty relationship, I keep saying this. I mean, stop praising people like Kagame to the skies. I – you know, I welcome the fact that CHOGM has been postponed again. To constantly reward a government that has got a really dodgy record on human rights, freedom of expression, democratic accountability with things like the Commonwealth – the staging of the Commonwealth meeting, just have a more feisty relationship, call these leaders out. After all, they’re getting a lot of foreign aid from governments in the West and that gives leverage, and that leverage should be used.

Ben Shepherd

Understood, thank you. Tefera, you wanted to jump in.

Dr Tefera Negash Gebregziabher

I just wanted to say a few words as far as, you know, the role of international community is concerned. I mean, it is important to listen to both sides, you know, as far as Ethiopia is concerned, especially this administrations, the reformist group of Abiy Ahmed, that it shouldn’t always go, okay, to the underdog, and now it is that TPLF has become the underdog, and therefore many things have been biased towards that, you know. Of course, no one benefits and there is no benefit from war and atrocities, but at the same time, it is important to listen to the people, you know, to listen both to the administration and just in opposition. So, therefore, what I’m expecting or asking the international community is really that a balanced understanding and, you know, further deeper engagement is very important.

Ben Shepherd

Thank you very much, and Rebecca, to come to you on this issue of succession and question seven.

Dr Rebecca Tapscott

Yeah, I mean, I hesitate to comment, because I think that these were, sort of, nice ways to round out, sort of, our conversation. I mean, the one thing that strikes me is along the lines of what Michela was saying, just how, you know, it’s massively politically sensitive to even talk about who a successor might be. And that is, in itself, you know, interesting, that there’s, sort of, no ability to even have that conversation, even for, you know, people who are outside of the country context, and so, I guess that just gives a sense, perhaps, of how successful these approaches have been.

I’m more sceptical than Michela about the ability of international donors to actually influence these broader-based questions, because at the end of the day, regime survival is exactly that, and, you know, even the threat of losing aid, I suppose, I think will just induce more creative strategies to still get aid from different sources, but that’s my pessimistic attitude, I guess.

Ben Shepherd

Thank you very much indeed. We are coming right to the end of our time here. We’ve been through, I think, most of the questions that have come in from our audience, so I hope we’ve – I’ve been able to synthesise them and do them justice, and thank you so, so much to the panel for their incredibly insightful views. It’s an enormously complex set of issues and an enormously complex region that covers, you know, half the continent really, so, much more to be said.

But I think as we are now, you know, at 1:59, I will – unless the panellists want to say one final word, I’m happy to give a last thought to any of you. If not, it just comes to me to say, again, a massive thank you to our three panellists, we’re incredibly grateful for their time and for their insight, to thank all of the participants for all of their input. I haven’t been able to follow the huge number of Q&As and chats in detail, I hope we’ll be able to go back through that, and thanks to Chatham House and the Membership Team for putting this all together. So, with that, I bid you all a very good afternoon and hope to see you all again at another event. Many thanks, indeed.

Michela Wong

Thank you very much.

Dr Tefera Negash Gebregziabher

Thank you. Bye, bye.

Dr Rebecca Tapscott

Thank you.

Ben Shepherd

Thank you.