Paul Kagame Quotes - Page 2

I grew up in a refugee camp in Uganda, and I lived there for 30 years. That shapes one's character.

Israel and Rwanda both play an active part in international organizations, including the U.N., but I think it's true that our unique experiences as nations have shaped a fierce independence that we will not relinquish.

We've used aid to build capacities so we won't need aid in future.

The West is anything but altruistic.

Rwanda has its own problems and never sought to blame others or cause others trouble. I advise Burundi to do the same.

Politics is not only about personal choice. That one also needs to take into consideration what the people want because in the end, they are the ones who decide.

Reconciliation has taken place here in Rwanda and was successful because Rwandans reconciled themselves internally. If the tribunal had taken place in Rwanda, it might have helped. People could have watched justice being done.

Human rights groups are locked in a fierce competition for big checks from wealthy donors and they need to generate big headlines.

Technology has brought many possibilities in education and health that are key to women.

It is the first time in the history of Rwanda that political change in the highest leadership of the country has taken place in peace and security.

Rwanda is a democracy not a monarchy.

I am not responsible for creating an opposition, neither am I responsible for appointing my own successor. My job is to allow for the opposition to exist within what the realms of the law. There is space in Rwanda for political parties - if fact we have about a dozen of them - as long as their objective is not to take us back twenty two years. On that point, we are and will always be very vigilant.

Reconciliation takes time. Sometimes many decades, as the example of Europe shows. It is hard work.

Aid makes itself superfluous if it is working well. Good aid takes care to provide functioning structures and good training that enables the recipient country to later get by without foreign aid. Otherwise, it is bad aid.

Infrastructure is key, but also how it's used, and that's political.

I do not want to be cynical, but if developing nations are kept backward by being told, again and again, you belong to the poor and you are there, where you actually belong, then nothing will change.

Such problems are not solved in one day but there is a great step toward peace and security in the region.

Rwanda is not over needing aid, but we can survive with less aid than before.

There are some who are scared by unity and by building a country on the basis of ideas.

Moving container from Kigali to Mombasa used to take 22 days, now it takes 6 days.

It is better for a country to have a strong leader, this applies to the United States as well as to Rwanda.

When people accuse us of taking coltan from Congo, I don't understand what they mean. The quality of our own coltan here from Rwanda is much better. But still people from the UN come here, we show them our coltan mines, we show them the documents, then they go and say: Rwanda smuggles coltan.

There are African leaders who have the dangerous habit of leading their people into an abyss. In Rwanda we've had presidents who killed. The one million people who died here were, to a certain extent, victims of their leader, President Juvénal Habyarimana, who died in a plane crash before the genocide began. He contributed to all that. The man who took over from him was running around ordering people to kill. If this president came back and landed in my hands, I would have him arrested and tried. Unfortunately, he died a natural death.

Up to a certain extent the UN soldiers are useful. But they are consuming a lot of resources in relation to the little work they are doing.

The situation in Congo shows nothing for which you could hold Rwanda responsible.