Lewis Hamilton indicated he has mixed feelings over Formula 1’s choice of Rwanda as the venue for its first grand prix in Africa since 1993.
The seven-times world champion has repeatedly called for the series to return to the continent and lobbied F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali on the matter. However he acknowledged the criticism F1 has faced for choosing to race in Rwanda.“I’ve been advocating for a race in Africa for many, many, many years,” he said, describing his “countless meetings with the stakeholders, so many meetings with Stefano at his office in London, but also race weekends.”
“Countless calls. ‘What’s happening?’, ‘where are we going?’, ‘who are you meeting with?’. Many meetings with different presidents from different countries, lots of phone calls with different presidents in different countries within Africa.
“The culture is so rich and I think it’s important that we get to show that to the world and we get to do that with our sport. We get to go to all these different countries and people see some of these countries they didn’t really know too much about and all of a sudden it’s on the screen and kids are talking about it. They go to school talking about. So I’m really, really hopeful for that grand prix.”
However the Rwandan government has been accused of backing a rebel militia in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. Amnesty International claims the M23 group has committed human rights abuses which “may amount to war crimes”.
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Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, the DR Congo’s minister of foreign affairs, said she told Domenicali last year it would be “morally indefensible” for F1 to hold a race in Rwanda. She called for F1 to guarantee its race will not be paid for using wealth Rwanda has taken from DR Congo.
Hamilton, who has previously spoken out against human rights abuses in and by other countries F1 visits, indicated he is aware of the concerns over visiting Rwanda and said the series should not overlook them.
“Of course I don’t get to choose where we go and naturally there’s problems all over the world today,” he said. “I’ve seen many of the stories, but I think we really have to approach it with humility.
“There’s a lot that we don’t know. Growing up in England, they never ever taught us anything about Africa. It needs to be on the curriculum: a lot of the problems they have there are still results of colonialism and the west intervening.
“But if you see the people, you see so many designs that are out there today, top brands come from Africa and it’s got all the richest resources.
“I really hope, and I still have hopes, that Africa unites. I know there’s many people that don’t want that to happen because they would be so powerful if they did, but I’m still hopeful that at some stage they will.
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“Of course, going doesn’t mean that you neglect the things that are happening there. So hopefully many people start to educate themselves a little bit more about what is happening there, what has happened there for hundreds of years and I hope that does spark the conversation.
“I guess I’ll finish it off with: I think we need to make sure we’re pushing to free Congo, free Sudan, free Syria, free Palestine. I think there’s a lot of peace that I’m hoping that at some stage we get to.”
This article will be updated