MEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — Rwanda President Paul Kagame told a U.S. audience Tuesday that the horrific slaughter of more than 800,000 people in his country two decades ago has taught people in the small East African nation that they “must ultimately be responsible for their own fate.”
“If you wait for help to come, you will just perish,” Kagame told students, faculty and others at Tufts University who came to hear him speak as Rwanda marks 20 years since the atrocity.
Kagame’s rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front ended the genocide by overthrowing the extremist government of the majority Hutus that orchestrated the slaughter of the ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates.
“Twenty is not a magic number. But the milestone has helped to refocus Rwanda and the world’s attention on the causes and consequences of the genocide,” he said. FULL STORY
