Has China become the world’s best problem-solver ?

Rwandan President Paul Kagame.”The Chinese bring what Africa needs: investment and money for governments and companies, -China is investing in infrastructure and building roads”

The “west” gets  short shrift from the Rwandan leader in an article with a German newspaper..

“Western firms have to a large extent polluted Africa and they are still doing it”

and he claims that European and American investment is inextricably linked with aid.

His words come a few days after China won praise for it’s talks with North Korea to bring them back to the negotiating table.

Rwanda : a real “reconciliation” ?

Everyone talks about it here .

Except they don’t. 

Wherever you go in Kigali, people will tell you that healing the wounds of 1994 is the number one topic, but they’re just too busy to dwell on it. 

Coax a story and everyone’s got one : the man who survived the genocide because he was kept hidden by Hutus, and when they returned from exile, he gave them his own house to live in til they got back on their feet. The man who lost 60 members of his own family and only survived because the day he was supposed to die was the same day the Rwandan capital was liberated by the RPF.

Officially, no one is a Hutu or a Tutsi any more, but you don’t have to speak to anyone for any length of time before the H word or the T word comes out- though usually in hushed tones.

Kigali looks like a place – and bear in mind none of us have ever been here before so we’re not able to compare the city with how it was – where everything is vibrant. The roads are busy, there are building sites all over the place, and the cafes and restaurants seem to be doing a good trade.

On air: Trading places

                        
If you live outside Africa, and you give money to causes there, can you ever imagine a day when you won’t do it? Whether the answer is yes or no, you’d also probably say, “but I’d like to”.

Well, Africans would like to get to that point too, but so far, no-one seems to have cracked just how to get the continent off the aid drip. But Rwanda has some ideas.

Rwanda Have Your Say

Next week, WHYS will broadcast its first ever programmes from Rwanda.

Madeleine, Claudia, Phil (our engineer) and myself leave on Sunday to present and produce three shows in and around the capital, Kigali.

Here’s a guide to the history of the country, though the events of 1994  will be for many of you, the abiding and most recent impression of Rwanda.