Cole Jensen’s Reviews > Road Trip Rwanda: A Journey Into the New Heart of Africa > Status Update

“No one is exempt. On the last Saturday of the month, everyone-government officials, judges, the prime minister, the president, teachers, students, shop owners, day labourers-is expected to show up at their local umuganda project to help out. You will be fined for not taking part, and if you want to receive certain government services, you may be asked to submit a card, signed and stamped, showing you did.” P.289

“Rwanda … has been calling on all African states to eliminate barriers to trade, study, and travel in order to encourage the open exchange of goods, people, and ideas. Randa has led by example, with an open-door visa policy for all Africans, not just members of the EAC. Rwanda today is one of the only countries in the world that issues automatic visas to all African nationals at point of entry.” P.166

“[The Catholic Church in Rwanda] supported ethnic ID cards and racial quotas and actively encouraged the insidious Hamitic myth that had entrenched these divisions. High-ranking bishops were often outspoken in their support of the genocidal regime, arguing that Tutsis were irredeemably "bad" by nature, a form of original sin, a mark of Cain.” P. 103

Rwanda has modelled its recovery on the Asian example. Geographically, Rwanda—a small, landlocked, mountainous country-is the "Switzerland of Africa," which is exactly how early European travellers described it. But socially and economically, it is rebranding itself as "Africa's Singapore": a tightly controlled, politically stable, economically innovative, autocratic democracy dominated by a single party.

A panel of military experts later concluded that Dallaire had been correct in his assessment: 5,000 troops early on, with minimal air cover and a more robust mandate, was all it would have taken to prevent at least half of the deaths that occurred; 500,000 people might have been saved. Dallaire laid the blame squarely on three members of the Security Council: the U.S., the U.K., and France.