Fascinated by Kagame; A Review of “A Thousand Hills,” by Stephen Kinzer
Read “A Thousand Hills” if you are intrigued by Kagame and wish to learn a few more facets of him. As a book about Rwanda however, I was not that impressed. The book repeats much of the contents of “Shake Hands With the Devil”, by Romeo Dallaire, and also presents a disjointed summary of some notable acheivements by well known Rwandans and Westerners during the recovery period.
But if you are trying to understand this Enigmatic leader of Rwanda then do dive in. The author interviewed Kagame extensively and provides Kagame’s commentaries on several issues and points of Rwanda’s history. I find Kagame’s perspectives riveting!
This books also presents a few aspects of Rwanda’s story that I had not fully appreciated before.
For the first time I felt the pain and isolation of the Rwandan refugees who grew up in neighboring countries and struggled to live without an honorable identity or home. The decision by the Habiyarimana regime not to allow them to return was a fatal political position that caused pressure to build up within the refugees and incensed them to a level of war. Kagame ingeniously raised up a rebel army inside the Ugandan army, using Uganda’s resources and military context to train his own army. That aspect of Kagame’s story and Rwanda’s history is beyond remarkable. I had also never read about the story of the extreme suffering of the RPF army in the mountains while training, and outpouring of help from Rwandans around the world to bolster the RPF army to takeover Rwanda.
I also was unaware of the long tail of the genocide. I think many westerners believe that Kagame came in and “stopped” the genocide and began recovery. The real story acording to Kinzer, is that the Hutu extremists fled to Congo where they continued killing and invading Rwanda. For several years Kagame continued to fight them and these extremist continued to try and finish the genocide. Kagame battled to the point of overthrowing the President of Congo in order to get enough control of Congo to defeat his enemies. The hutu extremists used refugee camps and innocent populations as human shields, and the RPF armies took the innocent people down as casulties of war. The realities of these post genocide battles are harsh and messy, and give rise to huge controversies today over war crimes and human rights. I had no idea that Rwanda was violent for so long after the genocide, and had barely settled down by the time I started visiting in 2002. Rwanda’s current stability is much younger than I realized.
Getting back to Kagame’s quotes, in sum, I would say from reading this book, that Kagame values posession of Rwanda and security of his country, above all else. All else.
Anything that threatens those values, cannot stand before him. I have to stop and deeply ponder that kind of man. For one, I have never been in a place in my life where I needed to value security above all else. I mean, everything else…before God, before my family, before my personal values. I am not sure if I believe it’s right or wrong, because I’ve never been forced to push my morality to that kind of essential choice. I confess that it doesn’t sit well with my faith and Christian values. But my Christian faith has bloomed in the highly secure and free United States. And I also know that Kagame has suffered, endured and achieved what few humans would ever experience. He undoubtedly has a perspective that few humans in history have ever had.
Here is one Kagame quote from the book that sheds light on this burden of security that he carries. This quote was given in response to his decision to put an alleged genocide criminal in a position of power in his new government:
“The moral aspect of the thing comes later. People first must be safe. The moral dilemma is always part of the equation, but you don’t just look at that. If that’s your only factor in decision making, you don’t move fowarward with what you might otherwise achieve…”
More thoughts about this book in the days to come…
Posted on Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 under Books about Rwanda, Uncategorized.
