There is an edge to Kagame’s independence. He is dismissive of international advice, pointing out that Western experts told him his reconciliation plans were flawed and that his country was “unviable” economically. He has fueled the conflict in neighboring Congo by supporting local warlords and militias, and he accuses United Nations peacekeepers of exacerbating the problems there. He is not a supporter of the International Criminal Court, even though it indicted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for actions that resemble, in smaller degree, the genocide in Rwanda. “International justice is a fraud,” Kagame said to me, arguing that French officials, for instance, should be tried for helping to train and arm the Hutu–dominated military that carried out the Rwandan genocide. “Why does it appear strange that justice would apply to somebody in Europe who has a responsibility? They can never do wrong, therefore justice does not apply.”
Source: Newsweek
By Fareed Zakaria
President Obama was right to give his recent address in Ghana, highlighting an African success story rather than casting his speech against the backdrop of poverty and pity. One of the great underreported stories of the last decade has been the rise of this new Africa. In 2007, before the economic crisis hit, 37 countries on the continent were growing at 4 percent a year or more, and 34 countries there are classified by Freedom House as “free” or “partly free.” The OECD reports that, in a first, Africa gets more money from investors than from foreign aid. The continent remains poor, disease-stricken, and often poorly governed. But for the first time in a long time, there is forward momentum.
Nowhere is this more true than in Rwanda. If ever a nation seemed destined to fail, it was Rwanda. A little more than 15 years ago, the country suffered the most brutal genocide since the Holocaust. In 100 days, Hutu mobs slaughtered more than 800,000 Tutsis, one tenth of the population, a literal decimation. Many thought Rwanda would plunge into a death spiral like other “postconflict” countries, such as Somalia.
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