Council on Foreign Relations: a Conversation With President Kagame | New York, 19 September 2017

I'm Rick Stengel and I am presiding we are on the record today very unusual so glad to have you here on a very very busy week President Kagame is literally and figuratively a towering figure on the African stage he it's not too exaggerated to say that he was the savior of Rwanda when Rwanda after credible Wars and and devastation in 1994 he brought it back it's been an economic success story over the last 25 years one of the biggest ones on the world stage and not just an economic success story but a system but a story of changing and bring it into the modern world increased transparency less corruption many many opportunities for women in fact I think you may have the only Parliament where women dominate so there's a very very bright picture but there are some shadows on that picture too there's been accusations by human rights organizations of human rights abuses of discrimination against political rivals and President Kagame recently won re-election to an unprecedented third term with 98 percent of the vote and what I wanted the first question I want to ask you is how how do you win 98 percent of the vote and and because to the folks in the West that always you know brings a little bit of laughter and and depending on your answer having changed the Constitution to allow you to run an unprecedented third term are you indispensable to Rwanda well how do people win by 25 percent as I have seen in some cases and by the way you don't even have to get the popular vote in this country to win but seriously I think for us in Rwanda we saw it coming that it could even have been 100% because this election this last we had Kim on the basis of a demand that actually stand again for me I was ready to wind up and finish my second term by 2017 and all of a sudden there was mobilization there were four million signatures that we went to Parliament and wanting petitions were wanting that after they change the constitution and funny enough not just the Constitution in its entirety or to cover broad areas or long term it was particularly asked that it be changed almost to suit what they wanted and that was for me to have another term that became a complicated issue in fact for me we went back and forth and and I was trying to tell people that maybe we should actually accept change as and when it should happen and I was for that change to happen but the people sister it was completely different situation and they tried to contextualize the political and other problems of wonder and history and all kinds of things and so that that's what it followed so it was more less an agreed you know result for the election so having over 90% in terms of the results wasn't surprising to people anyone who followed closely the issues over and and who can relate those things happening with the history particular history and the particular context over one if you are talking about other countries maybe you'll be seeing different things happen they're talking about Rwanda it's not surprising that it can't happen and again it goes back to the same point in time you alluded to of what has happened in our country country that 23 years ago was almost normal which was not that we had to build it to rebuild it right from scratch but the three years ago now it is a country that is standing and making some progress and people the country getting more United than ever before because initially and what led to those problems was political and other divides that were created for a long time where we lost to 1 million people in just 100 days that if anyone thinks that doesn't have any implications on people's lives or society or thinking or even in the politics I think one would be mistaken and really I'm trying to say this is related to that history to those events what happened and even the psyche that was created in a society because of that time so the the one of the unfortunate cliches about African leadership and it's a cliche because it's happened so often our men who won't leave the stage as you know I work with Nelson Mandela and one of the most extraordinary things he did in his whole long life was to decide not to run for reelection and I think he did that in part to give a model to the rest of Africa what does it say though about about you and we chatted a little bit about this beforehand so you have now you'll have another seven-year term and then you also have an opportunity for two successive five-year terms after that what does that say to the continent about about succession for leadership well I know quite a bit about Mandela you I was fortunate different times to associate with him and time also is it is not entirely true that he left because he wanted to have that as a demonstration of how to deal with the power know there are other reasons but my point here is in fact in 2002 interior sterility answers the question to an extent where with him in Barcelona there was from a President Bill Clinton there was the current Secretary General of the UN uterus he was prime minister at the time in Portugal and the number of other Ilias and who had the discussion the same Monday great man he was indeed brought up an issue and was somebody have you started it by asking a Guterres whether the secret sacred you know whether I was actually ending his because though he was in his second term and wasn't coming but and somebody said but don't you ever think about you know continuing because at that time he was really fine in Portugal and so on and so forth but that sparked a conversation where in fact Mandara angry was telling people the time says he's tired of you know because it was happening and there was a case developing and I'm sure you are aware of this in Namibia about her Roma who was supposed to continue and there was a discussion and there was external you know backlash that you know he must go in constants and so forth and man I said why don't have people out to make their decisions and choices about how their countries are to be money why why is there ever well you know something's talked about in this desert you can't stay you can't be there you must boy was hungry saying that the discussion we went on our own and in fact my viewpoint at that time on which I raised in that particular meeting was telling myself exactly partly what you are pointing out I said you see where I appreciated the point that President Mandela then was actually bringing up of always you know these dictates coming in from outside and retaining the countries and the people say you can't have this you can't do that and I said the danger indeed has been at times when leaders are will continue and stay in power it's not clear whether it's on the basis of the choice of the people on that country if it is clear if they can be identified and they made it clear and everyone sees that then it ought to be justified that the people any country could make any decision and they should have what they want but that is where the problem lies sometimes you're not sure whether it is the people saying they want this to happen or it is the leaders deciding by themselves to say we want to continue this was the conversation I'm just trying to show you that you know some of these things are not just clear-cut that you know when this is written like this it should happen like that and of course this extension well and and you've been eloquent talking about the distinction between Western views of democracy and perhaps what democracy is in Africa or Rwanda and that I think we Americans until recently in any rate yeah ii mean is alert yes it seemed you know we seem to think that we are ideas of democracy a universal but but you've talked about why it's not great to superimpose Western ideas on Africa and Rwanda I'd love to hear you talk a little more about that democracy is democracy this whole thing of our being Western it's okay but what does it mean because our countries our peoples of this world can hardly fit into this sort of definition they can't fit there because we come from different background different places different histories different culture different contexts it will all come to fit into that sort of description but there is this one very important one in democracy absolutely that is the principle all of us would wish to associate with but associate with in as far as the history the culture the context allows that and to what extent and maybe even saying that the West trying to tell everybody to you know fit into that sort of demand and description comes also with another sort of connotation that in fact where the West talks about and teaches so much about freedoms that memory are also associated with democracy by indeed imposing or telling people how they should live their lives without this context this history or values and cultures that people have been brought up in truth he's actually denying people freedom so in other words on one hand you have iniquity prescribing for others how they should live their lives but the same people who also say they abide by freedoms and they want people to be free how am I going to be free when you want to dictate to me how I should live my life this becomes the question and of course you have seen also the consequences in this across Africa in many places one thing adding to another in a history of long time where I mean until recently even in the recent times dictation made to countries how they should run manage their politics and the arrivals problems happen and the same people who imposed it what must be done we turn around and play blame the same people for the problems that we have developed out of quite the important I mean we don't need to look for you can take a case of recent cases of Libya Libya was no democracy Gaddafi had his own problems with all of us and across the continent he had problems with his own people some people well part of it was created from within on its own other things happened from outside and they went to Libya and bombed the hair out of everybody in Libya and ended up with a graph reading the question is what is happening in Libya people who wanted to create a different situation maybe a better situation maybe create some democracy in Libya where they and what do we have we can talk about many places in Africa forgetting the way the societies are organized how they have come to be they were there and maybe things the demands for changes across Africa but these changes don't just happen overnight and don't happen anyhow if you don't look at the session you're having to deal with and understand it and just say things must change sometimes to the point of even in dictating who must be what like let me go back to my case you know it was very ridiculous just before even the Constitution's change and so and so forth from across we have friends all over here ignited states Europe wherever and they would say oh no President Kagame you must go I said I'm happy to go I said you know other people can come and take over after you and things will be fine they say that's okay I said how do you want me to do it they would have been in M&Ms you would through Andes you say no no but so and so can you know do it and so on so oh you can actually look for somebody you can ruin somebody and have him you know take over from you and so on and so forth and then I would point out a couple of weaknesses in that first I'm saying you are the people who are teaching us about democracy at the same time you are actually coming to me and say you know so-and-so can actually be President over one so you are making you are the one choosing what would in that double standard was for them if if that happened it wouldn't be democracy because they wanted it second I would say if you are telling me to choose who takes over after me again it's not a democracy you're telling me actually that we should be respected meaning you are saying either we choose or you choose who takes over from you that's it and then I said how about the people who are I haven't heard of them in this decision you're just saying we can advise you who takes over after you oh you can actually decide who will take over how about the people want yeah it is absolute confusion about this whole you know definition and the application of many things we are told we should be being and the people of any country are left out of this process understand making no that's that's absolutely fair to come down from 30,000 feet to a little bit closer to the ground what is it about what Rwanda has accomplished economically over the last 23 24 years that can be a model for other countries in Africa what I mean if it was a Harvard Business School study what would you say here that you know here are the main points that we that we adhered to and accomplished and that is what helped change the economy and finally because I think I it's my last question before going out here what role did foreign aid play in all of that maybe let me start with the last one for an eighth played a big role in the development of our country and in fact we tried to engage the aid donors to modify either how they understand aid and more importantly the use of it because we try to engage them on the best that we the people of Rwanda should be given some space to decide on how and where to invest these resources they give us rather than bringing the money and deciding where they put it and how they deployed and in the end they are not bothered about the outcome so we had a long discussion over this and unfortunately some of them agreed with us and even to make them comfortable we decided that we could actually have an agreement even to monitor what happens with the use of Aid and also to measure the outcomes but we wanted to and to remain in the driving seat because at the end of the day they give us aid wanting to improve our lives and it is including how to manage our affairs this is we think this but we always thought was part of it and we raised these issues with it and so aid worked very well for us second and this economic problems we witnessed in Irwin by the way he is also linked to some of the political issues that we were discussing because anyone asking questions about democracy or about freedoms or about these and many criticisms you fought through that we have come under which well I think maybe this ability to improve us than for us to do things better and move on if you look at how invested we had fuss over a vision for the country that would span 20 years from 2000 to 2020 and top of that was how we were going to invest in our people education health food security and so on that we spelled it out and was clear and win sort from the donors number to governance how are we going to govern ourselves based on involvement of everyone men women or those who have played a part three infrastructure for development of the private sector and so on so whose regional integration with all kinds of implications of enraging know expanding markets and reaching out and so on and so forth and I want to sit here I'm not going to say we did anything so that we may become a model for others to follow or anything no we were really focused on how to improve ourselves and how we can get our country from weight has been very low base on everything and you know take the people wonder where they deserve to be this is what we concentrate and so we were single-minded in terms of where we are coming from what we need to do for ourselves and focus on the results not getting lost in the processes at knitting results of improving our people's lives reduction of poverty and so on and so forth so in the last 15 years the last 15 years we've seen our economy grow between 7 and 8 percent every now that also meant inclusive growth because were 94 the fact that this growth shouldn't just be impressive in terms of numbers but it really needs to have impact we need to measure it we need to see and what has been measured in the last 15 years in those areas by people either the World Bank Gallup poll is about World Economic Forum is you know can name 10 or nothing they've been on the ground worked with us they have seen the vast wonders they've been anywhere they want they can attest to this fact that good progress has been made whether it is women empowerment and involvement decision-making it's how many children go to school who have the highest enrollment rate of primary and secondary school in sub-saharan Africa we have health insurance that covers 87% of our population we have food self-sufficiency we have you know we can talk about doing business how it is you come to wonder you register company in six hours it is to take two months hmm we can't go on and on oh no so the kinds of infrastructure we have developed government and the private sector information and communication technologies putting in the hands of Rwandans means of communication under the formation to be formed now if you do this at the same time you say people are not free I can't be giving you tools to make yourself free and then you say doesn't make sense so these are things we've tried to do in the last 23 years and by checking the country from almost total destruction for those who in Rwanda in 1994 they know what they found yes but these no towns of our country you know cops is all over the place everything was a bit it's the people it's the infrastructure it's everything so where we are today I think we can't afford to absorb any prejudice so I'd like to open it up now to questions we have about 25 minutes and again the wait for a microphone this is on the record and this gentleman in the dark blue shirt here who had his hand up first sometimes it works thank you Jeff Laurenti mr. president you've just described the successes in a small compact landlocked densely populated country right next door you have a huge sprawling minerals rich country traveling under the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has had a very hard time in being able to establish either political or success Rwanda had had some role in bringing the Kabila's to power and that hasn't really turned out all that well and the United Nations has been running for 15 some years on yet another giant peacekeeping operation there a great expense that seems to have no light at the end of the tunnel what do you think accounts for congo's inability to get on track politically and economically is this whole UN peacekeeping operation kind of a fool's errand that can never put this Humpty Dumpty back together and what do you see is the path that the Congolese can realistically hope to take to be able to make something of that vast sprawling country possible what what has been what has prevented the Congo to make a difference from for themselves he's between Congo itself and the international community that in every honest lessons and and just whatever whatever they go to war within within the Congo was to mess it up what you started by saying when for example we had responsibilities in in the Congo at some point even what you said you know burying those who came to power it wasn't it wasn't really an international mission you had in the favor of Congo are not doing them any favors it was because they wanted to address our own problem that was originating from our best in Como that was one can look at it like that but something else you say that is important if you look at how many billions of dollars that have been spent in the Congo by the international community through the UN and for how long and no result to show for it then you you you it just can't be the Congo that is the problem it's also those who try to associated with the Congo that in one form or another er you either created a part of the problem we used to ask for the last 10 15 years you say okay you have 20,000 troops in the call you have so far central billions spent millions there do you ever take stock of what you are involved with it what is it you are doing what are you getting out of it how are you impacting the people of this country where you involve wouldn't you say to befriend her in fact one time we used to agree with the UN and others say you know if you spent half of that money but on assisting Congress themselves you probably have a better chance of improving the situation instead of spending it on the peacekeepers who so and yes I wanted to end by saying even if theoretically I would have some ideas about what is the problem and well today I don't fear it is my press my role to be lecturing the people on issues to do with the convoy it is my country I will tell you whatever you want but he does I want to leave it to you although you will become in January the head of the African Union for next year as well more questions let's try this side of the room the gentleman in the back there in the green shirt thank you um James Hyman which I'm the president of China Institute here in New York and therefore I'm curious about your views about China and Africa China's role has been broad it's been deep and I'm wondering about your thoughts about the positive and negative sides of that recent interest that's true there are many things to say about that again I would not so much be interested I wouldn't be interested in talking about China others I'm more interested in talking about ourselves with the Africans with their 1ds because if you're not sure of what you read want for yourself and how to articulate that and how to design how you go about different things I tell you let's not blame China alone anyone else will come and just help himself with whatever they want and believe you lost in your own mess so the problem is can Africa can wander raise ourselves to a level where if we are engaging partners whether bilateral region real as a continent can we have you know some fair demands about what we expect of this relationship for interaction and bear in mind what others must get out of it so unfortunately it doesn't happen like that you will find most of our countries are not ready and maybe don't even make much effort to be assistant to be ready to be able to articulate what we want in our relationships with other people we are comfortable with the idea sort of relationships were talking about where people just come and carrots what to do whether it is good for us or not and later on do whatever they want I think the problem lies there with China or with any other partners actually one of the first meetings I had at the State Department was with a African Foreign Minister not from Rwanda and at the end of the meeting he said you Americans lecture me about transparency and the Chinese come and build me a superhighway the young woman right there I didn't want to say that from the ralph bunche Institute I I was at the Secretary General's Office I was a senior economist during the genocide so I learn of that very closely since they not be working on war-torn countries and as an economist the only success story I can think of is Rwanda and I think Richard asked you very two very important questions one Oh what did you do on the economic side and the other one on aid I just publish a book where I show that of the 21 un-led or us-led operations 57% returned to war in the first ten years and the most of them ended up a dependent and that's another big achievement in Rwanda where Aid has been decreasing since 94 you mentioned the things you did on on human development infrastructure not that I I compare Rwanda with Afghanistan because they are both landlocked and there they had the same income per capita when they started and all that and the difference is dramatic and I think one of the things that you didn't mention but it's a very good very good example for other countries in this situation is that seventy five eighty percent of the population lived in rural areas and one of the first things you did was to improve subsistence agriculture so people could have a peace dividend in terms of better lives and livelihoods and that worked very well even they the IMF complemented it because it decrease poverty even though poverty is still high it decrease poverty and that was very important for everyone than an economy well so I brought you a book where I mentioned one thank you give it to you thank you for doing the very impressive points about thank you alright the gentleman there with the whole piece of paper thank you very much my name is Mahesh Kotecha I heard on a small financial advisory firm but I'm from Uganda neighbor of yours and you have truly achieved a remarkable story in Rwanda I'd like to pick up on two points that you mentioned one is infrastructure and the other is the regional collaboration you use some term for about and you're going to be at the AU could you tell us about the vision that you have for the East African community for the camisa for the subject they are trying to do things together for the whole issue of integration in Africa because there is such a degree of fragmentation that international investors who are looking to come in they get confused there how do they know it's hard to get to know one country let alone 54 so could you talk a little bit about integration in East Africa and then beyond by the way I'm on the advisory board of East African Development Bank as our disclosure well integration regional integration has been they were to go much as more has been said than what has been done that's another problem we have to overcome but I think the benefits of integration are very obvious to many even those who don't practice what he needs to be practiced already know they have their knowledge they know the importance of it but somehow politics of some kind we step in and people end up not doing what they actually author of that so we started with the East African Community which now has six I think seven partner states and we have a system if you look at what we lose in not emphasizing infra African trade which regional integration would Israel facilitate is huge the intra African trade that just is less than a fifth of what it should be give us if we unlocked that you to give us more than we we are getting from anywhere whether through a doe by Chinese or by others so we try to emphasize this and encourage even integrating we have for example a master plan for infrastructure as for the region for these countries wait is the railways roads the energy and so as a catalyst of other forms of integration we also insist on freedom of movement of people across the regions and other forms of integration for example we started with the customs union the common market people are talking about these underway is discussion about monetary union then people are saying you know we can actually fold this into one country six countries can turn into unconscious put into a Federation so the fact that people entertaining this kind of discussion and later on doing some things about certain things that can happen I think he is already demonstrating the understanding and that importance but we just need to accelerate things so they happen faster they back to this side you've been waiting him excellency my name is Roland Paul I'm a lawyer I've been in the US government a couple of times you have quite properly referred several times in your remarks to the sad events of 1994 in your country and I'd like to ask you one specific aspect of that I'm told by several well-informed or reasonably well-informed American observers that many people's lives would have been saved if the United States had sent a force of it as small as one battalion of American troops to Rwanda that 700 soldiers as you know do you agree with that it's an older study I think many people agree with that maybe even if people had done simpler things than that could happen if people had even just even with the threat of you know something smaller than that could happen but the fact was nobody no part of it was for example the government at the time used the radios communicating to the general public telling them how to kid who to go on the kid and it went on for weeks and months and where do you see this radio and till at some point those of us way involved in the world decided you know to use some crude methods to take them out but there were better technologies you could easily have but understand there was an argument one I think there was freedom of speech secondly it was too expensive because was going to cost I think two hundred thousand dollars so 1 million released a new tiara was two hundred three thousand dollars if I may be sarcastic for that I think you won't know the answer the gentleman right here I'm curious the Rwanda for all of its progress is still somewhat dependent on foreign aid the balance its budget and so forth if you could imagine a day when Rwanda no longer is dependent upon foreign aid what will Rwanda have to look like what will have to happen in order for Rwanda to reach that what's different will need to be different in Rwanda to get to that point well I think we have many countries that are not dependent on aid so look like those countries okay we have only three or four minutes left so if we do two quick questions how about that gentleman in the bowtie as a whole family since 2003 and in my time there I often was frustrated because I couldn't get people to raise hands and say this is our decision here and other people are raised on the side and the majority would win people always say doctor slow down let's talk some more and meetings went very long but a consensus was achieved at the end and I'm wondering if this is a better explanation for the ninety-eight percent than many others if you if you would agree that I think also people look back at 94 and they say this many people saying yes this many people saying no that actually can turn us backwards toward ethnic division and I'm wondering if the 98% is really a manifestation of the culture as a whole doing elections in the same way that all decisions are made which is usually by people coming together at one accord is about consensus but it's about many things you know it's not one explanation there is something else in fact we have other political groups operating in the world but the problem they face I really sympathize with some the things people would run you know politics on to deliver something to devote is not being the river to introduce something that is new they find all these things are being done and the people themselves are the ones doing that and they know it is so you can't come and say I give you this when they already a that they are having it all during the process of achieving it because they are doing it themselves unless you tell them lies which would only work for a short time but the idea to know that you were telling them lies so they have that problem and also that history the history you know that affected of course produced the victims but has perpetrators we have created a situation where the victims and perpetrators have come together and have been source searching among themselves say what is it that went wrong why did it go wrong and then they formulate what they need to do to actually become that past together that has been happening in fact that's why even their conservation process has taken place beyond even our own expectation so and they stick together on this and it's like know if anything came from outside and said I'll do this for you are taking us back yes you have found an Astra within us and among us and this is where we're going to stay it's very interesting there are many things I think those who study these societies you're welcome there are more things you can discuss in that place something else this externalization of politics in Africa and the mid one you know the moment somebody promotes I said no no no this Kagame my son or another they don't know they are making a big mistake these are wanted to say oh no they utter like him even more to defy these fellows who think they can do anything everything that people we know that sentiment here in this country as well so we have time for one short question and one short answer the young lady back there you've spoken a lot about democracy and I would just like to point to the accuses accusations of human rights abuses in terms of the elimination of your political opponents or the oppression of the press and I would just like to hear your comments towards that no I would like to hear your comments because for me it's like you know I it's always difficult you accuse me of anything and then you say prove yourself innocent I think I want to turn it to you and say prove me guilty that's where the problem lies you know the press human rights groups what they say about me personally or about one when you are in Rwanda and are dealing with these decent human beings also anyone and they tell you their own stories we won't trace even 0.001 percent of what they are talking about the real life there is it's completely different from what the younger is talking about absolutely different but people who stay here I will be in the US and wherever you've never even have been through endure they've never met one and is the rear of wonders they are there they're the real people of Rwanda who are no different from you what you aspire to be to have to do they are no different but it's as if organs or one is treated like a botanical garden where I just wonder water flowers and little human beings like anyone in this room absolutely so this is so-called human don't know what I tell you half of my life I've been living any trade she's not sure of living to the next day I didn't fight to be the president of my country never it came by accident I think so I was fighting for my own rights which anyone in any human rights organization could not give me and even now cannot give me O'Connor to give one so it's it's it's cynical and absurd that anyone would just be there talking about vibrations you know you me as the lead of my own people to be accused of violating their rights it's just an absurd insult but my answer is simple is to do my best to serve my people the best way they can be served that is the answer that's a great last word Thank You president Paul Kagame of Rwanda

Channel: Paul Kagame

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Keywords: Kagame, Rwanda

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Length: 54min 57sec (3297 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2017