President Paul Kagame is a fine soldier who saved the Tutsis from extermination in 1994 in Rwanda. But in his analysis of the genocide (“Building a Future After Rwanda’s Genocide,” op-ed, April 7), he glosses over some pertinent historical facts and his own appalling human-rights record.
It is somewhat naive to think that the threat of genocide can be eliminated by abolishing ethnic identity and distinctions. The real cause of ethnic violence or pogroms is the monopolization of power and the reluctance to relinquish or share it with other groups. Nearly all civil wars in post-colonial Africa were started by politically excluded or marginalized groups. Rebel leaders, like Mr. Kagame, head straight to the capital because that’s where power resides. Ethnicity has nothing to do with it. FULL STORY