Paul Kagame Quotations

There are things I admire, for example, about South Korea or Singapore. I admire their history, their development and how intensively they have invested in their people and in technology.

The West has institutions that can punish the misconduct of individuals. What drove Rwanda and Africa into decline was the fact that certain people weren't held accountable. When we move to make corrupt mayors or officers answer to the courts, people always immediately say that we are repressive. But should we allow these people to continue to get away with it?

Reconciliation takes time. Sometimes many decades, as the example of Europe shows. It is hard work.

Aid makes itself superfluous if it is working well. Good aid takes care to provide functioning structures and good training that enables the recipient country to later get by without foreign aid. Otherwise, it is bad aid.

The West is anything but altruistic.

I do not want to be cynical, but if developing nations are kept backward by being told, again and again, you belong to the poor and you are there, where you actually belong, then nothing will change.

Rwanda has its own problems and never sought to blame others or cause others trouble. I advise Burundi to do the same.

I know that the fact that I am candidate to my own succession in 2017 can be perceived to be a bad thing by some part of the public opinion outside Rwanda and I don't mind because I know that I am doing it for a good cause. It really doesn't matter to me that my name is associated to those critics as long as I know that I am doing the will of the people.

I am not responsible for creating an opposition, neither am I responsible for appointing my own successor. My job is to allow for the opposition to exist within what the realms of the law. There is space in Rwanda for political parties - if fact we have about a dozen of them - as long as their objective is not to take us back twenty two years. On that point, we are and will always be very vigilant.

It is better for a country to have a strong leader, this applies to the United States as well as to Rwanda.