Rwanda: Paul Kagame, the friendly dictator who freed millions of Rwandan from poverty

I am against all forms of dictatorship. Beyond political and moral reasons, because my father was a victim of the tyranny of Sekou Toure.

Myself, I almost ended up at Camp Boiro, for a simple identity check, the same day I arrived in Conakry to spend my vacation in 1964.

I escaped only because, when the military was in the process of taking our names, my father and the then Minister of Planning, Barry III, arrived to extricate me from the clutches of torturers.

Furthermore Touré’s dictatorship has ruined foundations of the socio economic development of Guinea and torn the society to the point that the country is still unable to recover, 31 years after the bloodthirsty dictator’s death. Because of it, I lived for decades in exile, sans-papiers.

But, if I were Rwandan, I would have signed, like the almost 4 million signatories of petitions out of an electorate of some six million of my compatriots did within weeks, asking Parliament to amend Article 101 of the Constitution limiting to two the number of consecutive presidential terms. I would have applauded when Parliament unanimously gave on Tuesday, August 11, the green light to a reform of the Constitution in this regard.

In 1994, I saw Kigali few weeks after the end of the nightmare that was the genocide. I felt the smell of bodies rotting in the streets, I saw dogs fattened for eating human flesh, the images of visible bloodstains everywhere are still present in my memory. No public service was operational. That means no bank or hotel, or restaurant or post office, no police, nothing !!!

I was part of the first wave of UN officials to go to Kigali to prepare for the arrival of others. Although, we were MINUAR2 officials, my colleagues and I had to sleep on the floor, 4 in the same office, that of the head of the ICT Section, for several days. We used mineral water for the toilet, supplied by the Canadian military contingent, eat military rations from the French contingent. Indian and Australian soldiers were handling medical services.

Because of my duties as head of the General Services Section and Chairman of an internal UNAMIR investigations board, I visited the country extensively, by car and by helicopter, I saw the magnitude of the damage a fratricidal war had caused even in the most remote places.

For two decades after I left Rwanda, I have been unable to do a conference or a participate in a debate on my experience in post genocide Rwanda without breaking down in tears even before primary school children or in front of University professors.

I returned in 2012 to Kigali to see if the sight of the changes in the country since my departure could help to alleviate my suffering when speaking of this country. I found that where there were only ruins, there were achievements and construction sites of roads and buildings, parks and hotels for every pocket. The city had changed so much that I had difficulty to find the road to go to the residence that I have occupied for two and a half years.

In modern times, Rwanda has never lived a period of peace and stability as long as since President Paul Kagame came to power. During this period, the development has been spectacular. If he had to leave power, which guarantee do we have to find another leader who does better than him to maintain national harmony? We may not like what President Kagame does in the field of human rights, but the regime has demonstrated its ability to keep the country united, despite the heavy past.

Therefore, I would have loved to hate him, but he remains my favorite dictator and I would like to see a great leader like him as the head of all African states.

In the following article, I wrote for the fr.globalvoicesonline.org network, translated into 6 languages, I give my feelings about what I have found and is documented about Rwanda. The original title was: Rwanda: Serious cracks on the roll of honor of Paul Kagame.

It was translated by  Catherine Randall, a New York-based freelance translator from French, Spanish, and Russian to English, with the title: