Time July 8, 2019lators are women, higher than in any
other country. The World Economic
Forum says only five countries have
more significantly narrowed their gaps.
But in other ways, Kagame’s govern-
ment fulfills the cliché of governance in
Africa, where the watchdog organiza-
tion Freedom House says only 20% of
nations qualify as “free.” Rwanda is es-
sentially a single-party state, dominated
by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and
with Kagame in the role of indispensable
man. Under the constitution, revised
four years ago, he can serve until 2034.
The U.S. Department of State cites
reports of “arbitrary killings by state
security forces; forced disappearance
by state security forces; torture by state
security forces including asphyxiation,
electric shocks, mock executions;
arbitrary detention by state security
forces; political prisoners” and more.
Political opponents have turned up
dead in other countries.
The Associated Press summed things
up succinctly in April: “25 years after
genocide, Rwanda’s Kagame is praised,
feared.” Kagame studies the two de-
scriptions, then hands the headline
back. “There is a third one,” he an-
nounces. “The third one is that the peo-
ple of Rwanda know what they want.”Kagame, 61, grew up in a refugee
camp in neighboring Uganda, to which
his parents had fled from an earlier
assault on the Tutsi population. He is
known as remote, and his cool reserve
plays to both of his reputations:
technocrat and iceman. But at the
Hyatt, in a $700 room crowded not
with furniture but with photographers
and plainclothes security, the topics he
warms to are the most difficult.
One is foreign aid. Money poured
into Rwanda after the genocide, both
because the need was great and because
its government appeared to be more
competent than most at spending rather
than pocketing it. Kagame, however,
has had enough of what comes with
the money.
“There is a permanent role of
supervision,” he says. “The initial,
first resources given us should create
a foundation for us to build on. This is
how people realize their own dignity,
those who care about it.” Speaking ofPersonal business is whaT’s broughT The
President of Rwanda to Manhattan. Paul Kagame’s
daughter is graduating from Columbia Univer-
sity with a master’s degree in international affairs.
“I probably will have to come back in two weeks
again,” Kagame says of his U.S. visit, in a room in
the Park Hyatt, half a block south of Central Park.
“My son is graduating from Williams College.”
His country, meanwhile, is marking an anni-
versary. It was 25 years ago that some 1 million
Rwandans were murdered, a genocide that went
unchecked by Western governments. The slaugh-
ter lasted until guerrilla forces led by Kagame
drove the killers from the country that he has ruled
since—six years in the de facto capacity of Vice
President and since 2000 as President.
The trauma still defines Rwanda, not least in
the minds of foreigners. “We live kind of under
that shadow,” Kagame says, adding, in the abstract
terms he prefers, “It is just one set of narratives
built around a geographically small country in the
heart of the continent of Africa. They may not even
bother to know where it is or even what it is.”
What Rwanda is, even before the genocide, is
an unusual parcel of East Africa: made up entirely
of hills, with a population of 12 million extremely
organized from the center outward—prefecture,
commune, sector. The genocidaires used that orga-
nization to mobilize the slaughter by ethnic Hutu
extremists against the ethnic Tutsi minority. That
organization survived the genocide and in the
quarter- century since has reported to Kagame.
What has he done with it? It depends on whom
you ask.
“Twenty-five years on, we have built a stable
society, a stable economy,” Kagame says. “We are
developing. Everything is still a work in progress,
but you can measure and understand where we
have been and where we are now.”
The measures are impressive. Since 1990, life
expectancy has risen from 48 years to 66, and the
mortality rate for children under 5 dropped from
152 per 1,000 live births to 42. The country re-
mains poor, but Kagame’s government is trying to
position it as something exceptional in Africa—a
place to do business. It ranks 29th in a World Bank
survey assessing the business environments of 190
nations. And Rwanda has made striking progress
when it comes to gender parity: 61% of its legis-
KAGAME
QUICK FACTS
U.S. training
Kagame attended
the U.S. Army
Command
and General
Staff College in
Leavenworth,
Kans.Royal blood?
Both Kagame and
his wife Jeannette
are said to be
related to the
Tutsi royal court
that ruled pre-
colonial Rwanda.Invader in chief
In the late ’90s,
Kagame’s forces
twice swept over
the Democratic
Republic of
Congo, in
the name of
protecting ethnic
Rwandans in its
eastern section.TheBrief TIME with ...
Rwandan President
Paul Kagame is happy
to discuss what makes an
African strongman
By Karl Vick
Watch an interview with
President Kagame at
time.com/kagame-video12