Joseph Bideri And Why He ‘Lived To Die Another Day’

By Eleneus Akanga

Joseph Bideri (bless him) was able to manage a grin last night as he headed home after a long bad day at the office but the former RPF chief propagandist knows things could have been a lot worse – but for some brilliant CYA moment.

Yes and before you begin scratching your head, CYA or (Cover Your Ass), is a common term used in overly litigious societies like the US to refer to the idea that whatever the situation, one MUST always remember not to leave themselves too exposed – refer to the law of torts.

The news yesterday morning that The New Times Editor-in-Chief had been detained following hours of interrogation at the hands of CID officers shocked even the finest of the TNT faithful but to many this was not surprising news. In a country where intolerance to corruption (again depending on how you define intolerance to graft) is somewhat an assumed mantra, reports of even the mightiest of all going behind bars are not that uncommon. So when it dawned on all that Bideri had been taken in, there was a sense of well, “not surprising”.

And like I wrote a few months ago, Mr. Bideri in yesteryear Rwanda was the cowboy with powers to succeed the laws of the land. While he will have been shocked by his questioning and subsequent detention at Kicukiro Police Station, he will have not been surprised. As someone who has been in the system for a while, he knows the terms of reference. Work for us and we will support you, challenge us or fall out with one of those who matter and you will be lynched.

There are a host of reasons as to why Mr. Bideri could have been summoned. Despite his unswerving service to the regime in Kigali, the man has had his own mishaps. Some versions (not official) claim he stole so much from the public coffers when he was the Managing Director at Rwanda Office of Information (ORINFOR). Late last year, there were reports that the reason he had fled to Canada was partly to do with allegations he had presided over a spell of tax evasion at The New Times. Again, I must emphasise that these were allegations and in most cases rumours which never got followed up by the relevant government agencies.

Part of this is the reason many will have been surprised to hear that Mr. Bideri was behind bars potentially staring at a possible fast route to the infamous Kigali 1930 prison.

So What Happened?

It is difficult to tell exactly what happened at Kicukiro Police Station. I tried contacting a few folks back in Rwanda and not even the insiders know what exactly happened. It seems Mr. Bideri’s arrest was never on the cards (as in imminent) until it happened so even insiders were surprised. What we do know though is that his interrogation began at the CID offices in Kacyiru before ending up in an arrest and detention at Kicukiro. From this we can deduce that whatever the case, Bideri’s arrest was engineered or conducted with the knowledge of someone within the National Security Service (NSS) who as we also now know, was working in cahoots with the Rwanda Police Inspector General Emmanuel Gasana.

After hours of waiting, a disheartened Bideri began to demand answers from his interlocutors. His demands fell to deaf ears probably because there was never a proper charge sheet and the powers that be for all that time were trying to find something to associate with the TNT boss. Given his experience working with the system in Kigali, he became aware of what was likely to happen and realised tha the only way out was jail.

It was then that Bideri being the smart boy he is, decided to text a reporter at the AfroAmerica publication to report he was being put under arrest. The former propagandist also realising that his tormentors had been so delusional to leave him with his phone contacted his work place to let them know what was goin on.

According to The New Times, “Bideri telephoned the Ag. Managing Editor, James Munyaneza, at around 7p.m, and told him he had been arrested over stories The New Times published recently about the ongoing controversy revolving around Rukarara hydro power project in Nyamagabe District, Southern Province.” The news of course came as shock to the young folks at the newspaper and while they normally would have let it go, the journalist in James Munyaneza (one of the few remaining real journalists in the country) saw an opening and wanted the matter reported. The other version has it that Bideri personally asked for the story to be published. And whatever happens now, when all this is done with, Bideri might look back and thank his stars that the story of his arrest and detention came out in the pro-government newspaper.

Story Pulled Down

Those holding Bideri were still smarting from the fact that they had scored one past their nemesis only to be overwhelmed by the amount of interest his arrest was generating on the web around the world. Rwanda remains a very tricky nation and one which given what happened in 1994, continues to attract attention, not least too because of the regime’s crackdown on free speech and freedom of expression. Thus any story about freedom of expression in Rwanda usually generates so much traffic and interest. As people took to on-line forums to debate and make sense of what they were reading and hearing, the police and NSS realised the story had moved faster than they thought. Bideri was already 3-0 up and the reaction was well in his favour.

Already, both CID and the police had struggled to find answers to the question :why is he being held. Their answer: “You will get to know all the details tomorrow” was not cutting it. The tomorrow they were talking about had arrived and they still didn’t have answers. The New Times, the newspaper which the regime has consistently used to push stories against those it wants to destroy and bring charges on had also been compromised by its boss. It was already leading with the story that Bideri had been detained.

This would have been fine but there was another problem. While the NSS and Rwanda police would have preferred a stronger and more compelling charge against the big man, The New Times and all the other publications which picked up the story had already projected the charge as being something to do “Rukarara stories.”

Rukarara Stories?

Probably until (yesterday) not so many people outside Rwanda had paid that much interest to the Rukarara project. Not any more. Rukarara Hydro Power Plant which was meant to help solve Rwanda’s power shortage problems has turned out to be a money spinner for spineless politicians and businessmen who are only intent on fleecing the country out of even the little we borrow. While the government has sunk over 23 million dollars into the project (originally projected to produce 9.5 MW) Rukarara is struggling to even produce a meagre 5 MW. Incredible given the amount which has been spent on the project.

And according to the powers that be, The New Times’ mistake it turns out, was commissioning reporters to tell stories in a way “which portrays the project as a total failure and the government as having not delivered.” So Bideri, was indeed being done for allowing stories about the project to be published in a way that made it look like the country whose regime prizes itself on efficiency and good service delivery was failing or had failed to deliver on a power plant – despite spending millions of dollars on the project.

What Next?

Bideri may have woken up from his dream but he just like those of us who are familiar with the dealings in Kigali, will be well aware that this is not the end of his nightmare. There are powerful dark horses towering over bodies of weak pawns on what many see as the unpredictable Rwandan game of chase. Along the way some will be crushed, others will survive. While I cannot wish jail for a man who for the sake of his daily bread has had to do all sorts of things including engaging in smear campaigns against perceived and real enemies to the Rwandan regime, I owe it to him to remind him (and those like him) that in Paul Kagame’s Rwanda, no one is indispensable. Bideri should count himself lucky that he was able to Cover His Ass in time. This time he was lucky, the next he may not be as much. From experience (JB Sanyu, Eddie Rwema, David Kabuye and Ignatius Kabagambe) the top job at Rwanda’s mouthpiece is not the easiest of them all. The good news for Monsieur Bideri is that he was always part of the people who sacked all his predecessors. Perhaps he is “unsacakble” but I am not sure he is “unjailable”. Now that he has survived, he should get to the very bottom of the Rukarara Project to unearth the real problem or the same Rukarara Project will be the last government project for which report he ever presides over as TNT boss. At least he has some sympathisers. Canada anyone?

Over to you my little monsters…

Of Joseph Bideri and the game with few winners

He had his moments. This we have to agree. A one time government spokesman, Monsieur Joseph Bideri, became famous as the erstwhile chief propagandist capable of bringing down anyone inside or outside the country as long as his bosses demanded as such. A high flying bureaucrat, Mr. Bideri in yesteryear Rwanda was the cowboy with powers to succeed the laws of the land. In two words: Very Powerful.

Those who worked with him during his days as the government’s chief propagandist, remember him ever so well. Their memories fresh with the aura of authority that seemed to go with the incredible Joseph, some are surprised he has ended up fleeing the country back to where he —well—came from.

At the pinnacle of his limelight, Mr. Bideri is famously remembered for telling the world that “Rwanda was not an obstacle to peace”. He was of course referring to Rwanda’s decision not to withdraw troops from Congo following the Lusaka Peace Accord. How ironical that when his country is back in the news, perhaps not over the same issue but something related to the Congo, the man who nine years ago said his paymasters were not obstacles to peace, is running for dear life.

When news broke that Bideri had fled the country to Canada, I was among those who received it with scepticism. Surely? Bideri running for dear life? How?

If there is anyone who has so passionately defended the establishment in Kigali, it is Joseph Bideri. His defence of the ideals of the regime was so entrenched in his psyche that at one point, as head of Orinfor, he still felt he was so powerful to determine and decide what went on in all publications related to the government. I remember him mingling so easily and effortlessly in the affairs of The New Times, even when the latter had a functional and able bodied Editor in Chief at the time.

Dedication, some will say. It seemed to me that behind the hard working persona of the man or stooge that was Bideri, there was always a pushing desire to please. A desire which to some appeared pushed by the need to please and perhaps hide something or make up for something sinister. Otherwise, how would you explain Bideri’s insistence to poke his nose in whichever public institution with connection to the government, his continued desire to dislodge Editor in Chiefs at the pro-government daily, or his untiring efforts to speak ill of anyone falling out with the regime in Kigali?

Bideri will have now realised that serving the regime in Kigali with whatever amount of zeal does not make one indispensable. Question now is, has he learned any lessons? The notion that all men are born equal is one that Bideri to me never understood or if he did, always chose to ignore. I am yet to know why he was sent on leave just days before he fled. But if the story that he engineered the sacking of the whole New Times marketing team on grounds that they were Ugandans is true, then it makes me wonder what it is that he has against Ugandans.

In 2006, the same man, while at Orinfor and board member of The New Times, ordered the immediate sacking of all foreigners at The New Times. The paper as a result lost a host of talented editors, reporters, marketers and designers as Kenyans and Ugandans packed up. He replaced them with locals and due to the imbalance in expertise and quality what had started becoming a better newspaper went back to a hopeless tabloid, specialising in dog eat man stories.

And because he (Bideri) was indispensable, no one even queried his decision. Not even the Board chairman. The move besides being xenophobic, proved completely counter productive. If you want to develop and promote home grown talent, you do so from within, recruit locals, give them time to learn on the job from their superiors and then phase out, if you want, the old stock.

But the man sailed on. In 2008 Joseph Bideri was again in the news, this time accused of messing up the finances of Orinfor, involvement in an infighting battle for power and influence with one Kije Mugisha and failing to process the acquisition of a new and modern printing press. Given the dealings in present day Rwanda, any other person would have been sent to prison for this mess. Bideri survived and was instead shipped to Kacyiru to take over from another sad comrade Ignatius Kabagambe, as the Editor in Chief of the government mouthpiece.

At New Times, Bideri has overseen the transformation of an English daily that his predecessors created from a slightly readable tabloid to some sort of gutter thing where officials and men of little conscience trade accusations and settle scores with those they hate. The handling of the election period, the Kayumba saga, and lately the UN Mapping Report has not helped matters. TNT is still the same old boring TNT if not worse.

It is worthy to note that this is the same man who as boss engineered the sacking of the most successful Editor in Chief of the New Times in its 13 year history. It was Bideri who sacked Sanyu John Bosco, the Editor under whose tenure TNT saw a surge in both sales and readership. With Sanyu gone, the same Bideri orchestrated the installation of Eddie Rwema, the flamboyant young journalist whose days were cut shot by yet another of Bideri and State House import, Ignatius Kabagambe. The latter though keen on becoming the top dog at TNT had his tenure cut short when he was replaced by Bideri after working so hard to frustrate another arguably competent Editor in Chief, David Kabuye.

Inside sources at the New Times have said that Bideri would still be in charge had he not messed up the marketing system through his ill-advised interference and decision to tax evade. With staff going unpaid for three months and the company going as far as near bankruptcy, this was bound to backfire. And backfire it did.

With Rwanda Revenue Moving in to demand the payment of tax arrears and staff beginning to worry about their wages and reporters choosing instead to stay in the newsroom or at home due to the lack of vehicles to take them to the field, “the possibility of TNT falling flat on its belly” was imminent. And because TNT is ruled by someone even more powerful, he demanded answers and Bideri had none. His forced leave was a stern reminder that his time had come, being someone who has previously sent predecessors in forced leaves before moving up on them, he quit the country.

But as he tries to settle in Canada, I wonder if Joseph Bideri has any idea what being a puppet or being used to such extents that you lose your common sense means. What we can deduce is that no one is indispensable in Rwanda or anywhere in this world, if there is, then it is because their time has not come yet. So my friend, Prof Nshuti, when you let yourself be used to write stuff that would make Lucifer cringe, remember that there is going to be time, when you might want to use the same words to defend yourself. Do not say there were never any precedents!

Over you my little monsters…