This report examines the Rwandan genocide in a geopolitical context including the roles of Western powers, multinational corporations, and International Financial Institutions.
Analysis
Setting Up a Base in Central Africa
Political History
Uganda was for decades a colony of the British Empire until it achieved independence in 1962. At this time, “Uganda’s was one of the most promising economies in sub-Saharan Africa, with a sound agricultural base, developing industries, and a significant mining sector. Agriculture was an important foreign exchange earner through the export of coffee, cotton and tea while at the same time providing basic self-sufficiency in food. The manufacturing sector produced inputs for the agricultural sector and consumer goods, and was becoming a significant source of foreign exchange through the export of textiles.”[1]
In 1971, Idi Amin came to power in Uganda. Amin, widely considered a brutal dictator, lasted until 1979, when the Tanzanian army and the United National Liberation Front ousted him. In December 1980 Milton Obote assumed power for the second time. The economy was in a deep crisis and infrastructure was severely damaged from the war.[2]
IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustments
Obote looked to the International Financial Institutions to help reconstruct the economy This “led to the introduction of an economic reform package in mid-1981, a typical IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Program with considerable donor support. The centrepiece of the Program was a massive devaluation of the Ugandan shilling, from 7.80 to US$1, to 78.00.”[3] By 1984, the shilling was devalued to be worth USh (Ugandan Shilling) 270 for every US dollar.
Following these actions, Uganda again plunged into financial crisis. “Eighteen months after the collapse of the IMF program and the subsequent military coup, the National Resistance Army (NRA), which had been involved in a civil war, took over control of the Ugandan capital. Its political wing, the National Resistance Movement(NRM), established a government with a platform of national unity and broad-based economic reform.”[4]
Debt and Military Spending
Yoweri Museveni, head of the National Resistance Council (NRC), was sworn in as president on January 29, 1986. Museveni’s government “agreed on a new policy package with the IMF and the World Bank in early 1987, formalized in an Economic Recovery Program introduced in May 1987.”[5] In October of 1987 Museveni met with US President Ronald Reagan and then Vice-President George HW Bush at the White House.[6]
Uganda’s economic ‘recovery’ program had the aim of giving the International Financial Institutions a strict hold on the country. The external debt spiraled overnight, increasing almost threefold to 3.7 billion by 1997.”[7] Uganda’s debt to the World Bank was 2 Billion dollars. The loans to the country “had been tagged to support the country’s economic and social reconstruction.”[8]
