How Paul Kagame's Government Starves Rwandans While the World Applauds

Rwanda is often presented to the world as a shining example of progress, prosperity, and good governance and Its president Paul Kagame to have successfully curated a global image of Rwanda as a beacon of economic development. But behind the polished statistics and well-crafted media narratives lies a stark and horrifying reality: the very people Kagame claims to uplift are being systematically starved into silence.

For years, Rwandans have been subjected to a dictatorship that controls every aspect of life—from political expression to the distribution of food. Kagame’s regime has mastered the art of oppression by manipulating hunger to suppress dissent and keep the population in line. The hunger crisis in Rwanda is not an accident of economic hardship or bad weather—it is an intentional tool of control. As Rwandans grow more desperate for food and basic necessities, their voices are stifled by a regime that knows full well that a starving population is a submissive one.

The RPF’s iron grip on power has come at a heavy price for ordinary Rwandans. Under the guise of "development," Kagame’s government has prioritized elite-driven projects that cater to foreign investors and the urban rich while neglecting the agricultural backbone of the country. The very farmers who feed the nation are left in a perpetual state of poverty, their produce sold off to international markets, leaving them with little to eat and even less to sell locally

Hunger is a potent weapon. In Rwanda, food scarcity is used strategically to prevent uprisings. Those who speak out against Kagame's autocratic rule are marginalized, their livelihoods destroyed, and their access to food cut off. Families are left to fend for themselves in a country where basic rights, including the right to food, are denied by a regime obsessed with maintaining its global image. The government has mastered the ability to manipulate food distribution as a way to weaken any opposition—physical hunger leads to political submission.

And yet, the world seems blind to this brutal reality. Western governments and international organizations ignore the evidence of widespread hunger, growing poverty, and government-enforced food shortages. Why? Because Kagame has become a darling of the West, a dictator who knows how to speak the language of neoliberal progress and global cooperation.

Kagame’s success in maintaining a positive image internationally is nothing short of a propaganda coup—a carefully orchestrated lie designed to keep foreign aid and investments flowing while the people of Rwanda starve.

Controlled Abundance: The Illusion of Prosperity

The tragedy is not just the Western praise for Rwanda but the deliberate deceit within the country. Kagame’s government manipulates data and controls media narratives to present a false picture of abundance. Reports of food surpluses are trumpeted across international platforms, yet in rural areas, communities are crippled by hunger. The contradiction is glaring—Rwanda, a country with reported "abundant" food resources, still cannot feed its own people. How is it possible that a nation supposedly brimming with food still witnesses children going to bed hungry?

The answer lies in the government’s cynical strategy: prioritize exports and luxury development projects at the expense of local food production. The government’s economic policies have left small-scale farmers unable to sustain their families, and local markets struggle with inflated prices for staple foods. In Kagame's Rwanda, the shelves of upscale supermarkets in Kigali may be full, but rural homes are empty, their kitchens silent and their children malnourished.

Paul Kagame and the RPF have starved the Rwandan people into submission, and the world has watched, complicit in its silence. The hunger of the people is not just a symptom of mismanagement—it is a deliberate act of oppression, designed to keep the population in line, to crush dissent, and to ensure that no one dares question the dictatorship.