RWANDA’S SUCCESSFUL 2025 UCI, ANOTHER SLAP IN THE FACE OF KIGALI’S DETRACTORS

.Rwanda’s successful 2025 UCI, another slap in the face of kigali’s detractors. The way Rwanda hosted the 2025 UCI Road Championships peacefully despite crowds everywhere in the capital city for the spectacle, with no single incident of shooting or an attacked foreigner, I interpreted it as a slap in the face of Kigali’s detractors. Few Western countries can achieve the same. I have seen that Rwanda has undeniable socio-economic development. Even when you talk to foreign investors in Rwanda, they say that it is a rule-of-law country that treats all people equally and offers a wonderful business opportunity to citizens and foreigners. By Melisande Chauvet

On my way to the booked hotel room, I could feel fresh air with so many trees on clean boulevards and avenues, even better than in Paris. I saw cheery pedestrians heading to bars to enjoy their Friday till late. Security there is incomparable.

My drowsiness was interrupted by fear that I might be somewhere else, not in Rwanda, a country whose image in my mind was the poorest under an autocratic regime with brutal security personnel and miserable citizens living in fear. This is all Western media told us about Rwanda. Some Rwandans who want to live in Western countries as asylum seekers supported the narrative wholeheartedly.

I decided to travel to Rwanda, the country of a thousand hills, like my taxi driver told me when he was giving a warm welcome, simply because of my love for cycling. From September 21 to 28, 2025, the vibrant city of Kigali was in the global cycling spotlight, hosting the 2025 UCI Road World Championships for the first time on the African continent in the event’s 103-year history.

Scrolling in European media a few days before my flight, all reports about Rwanda shaped the country as a hell on earth. That Rwanda should not have been allowed to host the cycling race. It could not discourage me as long as I was not the only foreigner to be there. I believed it was my chance to witness such hell as we are often told about in the media.

But where is the hell? This question still lingers in my mind ever since I left Kigali and returned to Paris. Perhaps there is another Rwanda, different from where I spent 10 days roaming in urban areas and the countryside.

The people of Rwanda are very welcome. The country’s service sector and hospitality are tremendous. Police staff could be seen in many roads facilitating easier movements. Bars and clubs were operating till morning, with solo travelers moving 24/7 in Kigali freely.

For an African country that was rebuilt almost from scratch after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, when more than one million Tutsi were killed within 100 days, Rwanda has a miraculous success story very far from the dark image shaped by Western media.

But why do they tell lies about Rwanda, a country that is not even a superpower competing with top global economies?

“The RPF-led Rwandan government has refused to abide by the West’s model of democracy, where African countries have to open doors for external interference in their internal politics. It is actually a neo-colonization being framed as a new world order. And simply because Rwanda said no, it has to pay the price. It is a media political bullying sponsored by the West,” one Rwandan political commentator told me.

Whether they downplay or distort the country’s progress, I have seen that Rwanda has undeniable socio-economic development. Even when you talk to foreign investors in Rwanda, they say that it is a rule-of-law country that treats all people equally and offers a wonderful business opportunity to citizens and foreigners.

The way Rwanda hosted the 2025 UCI Road Championships peacefully despite crowds everywhere in the capital city for the spectacle, with no single incident of shooting or an attacked foreigner, I interpreted it as a slap in the face of Kigali’s detractors. Few Western countries can achieve the same.