Scepticism as Rwanda bid to join club

Rwanda is set to succeed in its bid to join the Commonwealth this week despite serious concerns over its human rights record, says a senior source close to the negotiations.

A summit of Commonwealth heads of government in Trinidad and Tobago will add the central African nation to its 53 current members, despite its failure to meet entry requirements.

The decision has been greeted with dismay by NGOs, while Professor Yash Pal Ghai, a Kenyan-born expert in constitutional law and author of an independent report for the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), said it was clear evidence that the Commonwealth "could not care less about human rights".

Supporters of the bid have argued that entry into the club would encourage Kigali to raise its standards, but critics counter that it will "lower the group's average" and make it harder to take actions against states - such as Fiji, suspended for refusing to call elections - that transgress in future.

"The Commonwealth stands for very little if it doesn't stand for human rights and democracy," said Tom Porteous, head of Human Rights Watch in London. "Admitting Rwanda will make it harder for the Commonwealth to project itself as a credible promoter of these values."

Rwanda, a former German colony, which later came under a Belgian mandate from the League of Nations, applied in 2007 to join the voluntary association of former British colonies.

In its bid, which has been backed by Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Uganda, Rwanda has argued that it should be judged on how far it has come since the 1994 genocide rather than against a global standard.

President Paul Kagame, whose Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front took power after routing the Hutu militias responsible for the massacres, has succeeded in modernising the country's image. The Administration has a reputation for efficiency and has attracted substantial foreign aid from the UK and US in particular.

Rwanda has trumpeted its Commonwealth credentials with a switch from French to English instruction in schools last year, and won acclaim for low levels of corruption and high health and education spending.

But the CHRI report details a country in which democracy, freedom of speech, the press and human rights are undermined or abused, in which courts fail to meet international standards, and a country which has invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo, four times since 1994.

- INDEPENDENT