Paul Kagame is no saint

A point picked up from one of my previous posts (Hotel Rwanda) by someone from the Congo commenting is about President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

Paul Kagame is probably the single most important person in bringing the genocide in Rwanda to a stop in the face of overwhelming odds, and basically no help from the outside world. Phillip Gourevitch's book on the subject paints a glowing picture of him. Bill Clinton has also described him as being one of the most important world figures in promoting reconcilliation.

However, as I said earlier he is no saint. I remember returning to Britain from Rwanda, and reading about the Rwandan army's human rights abuses in the neighboring DRC. Amnesty International has written extensively on the subject, and Kagame was subject to a grilling in this BBC interview.

This is summed up best in this article by Georgew Monbiot, who argues that we have a fairly tale view of Rwanda's Genocide. I have to say, although I agree with some of his points, I do not agree with all of them. Indeed, Fergal Keane, one of the best authors on Rwandan politics has described Kagame as a Lenninist of the worst kind, in The Economist.

However, despite the title of this post, I think the most important moral point is that we should condemn all human rights abuses, and work to try to prevent them occurring.