"A bus that is a central part of a government initiative to bring technology to impoverished rural areas of the country."
Yeah, that's the solution to everything.
"After genocide, Rwanda looks to technology for transformation" by Sudarsan Raghavan | Washington Post April 13, 2014
BUSOGO, Rwanda — Rwanda this month is remembering the more than 800,000 people — mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus — butchered over 100 days by the nation’s Hutu majority 20 years ago. With resentment still lingering, the government is in the midst of an ambitious effort to transform itself, the economy, and society.
Related: Remembering Rwanda
Ah, that's the past. I'm looking forward to healing and hope.
The goal of President Paul Kagame is nothing short of making tiny, landlocked Rwanda a regional Silicon Valley that will attract investors and multinational companies.
Kagame is into corporati$m and thus his crimes are overlooked (unless he steps out of line when they can be revived in my agenda-pushing war daily).
That, he hopes, will speed Rwanda’s transition from an agriculture-based economy to a services-oriented one, and help build up a middle class and a new generation of tech-savvy citizens who value national identity over ethnicity.
In AmeriKa we have the tech-savvy citizens, but the oligarchy has destroyed the middle class.
Creating a more equal society, Rwandans hope, will prevent the ignorance, hatred, and envy that fueled the massacres in 1994.
????
Is that why our rulers are impoverishing us, dear fellow citizens? Is that why we get Donald Sterling on the front pages for three days?
And what about the ignorance and hatred stirred up by the lying, war-promoting corporate media? They just in denial, or really believe they are good folk and not the mouthpiece of the oligarchy that owns them?
‘‘One of the ingredients of genocide is poverty, and addressing it is an important part of the rebuilding of the country,’’ said Jean Philbert Nsengimana, the country’s minister for youth and information and communications technology. ‘‘So what Rwanda has decided is to make IT a key component of the whole economic model.’’
Gandhi said poverty is the worst form of violence, and while I always thought the overt and covert acts of war were, he could well be right in this day and age.
A more digitally literate country will help create more accountability and transparency among leaders, mitigate communal tensions, and prevent Rwandans from being manipulated into killing again, he said.
In a way, the same thing has happened to AmeriKa. The citizens have become literate in the sense that the mouthpiece narrative of corrupt corporate power has been dethroned as a credible source (not that they ever were) and we are no longer malleable to the wars (why they are having such a hard time selling their lies), although government transparency and accountability is nowhere to be found here.
But Rwanda’s aspirations face significant hurdles. Kagame’s rule has been criticized as increasingly authoritarian, and the United States and other nations have warned about a lack of freedoms and the targeting of political opponents and journalists.
All involved in the genocide, and like I said, mass-murdering empires keep things in their back pocket just in case they need to be used. Remember Chuck Taylor?!
Last month, Representative Ed Royce, Republican of California, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged Secretary of State John Kerry in a letter ‘‘to closely reevaluate US engagements with Rwanda,’’ especially when considering ‘‘future assistance.’’
In the years after the genocide, the United States and other Western donors poured billions of dollars in aid into Rwanda, driven in part by guilt for failing to act in 1994 to stop the killings.
Was it guilt for failing to act or guilt for helping carry it out?!!
That, combined with government policies that fostered businesses and cracked down on corruption, turned Rwanda into an economic darling, lauded by the West for rebuilding the nation from the ashes of the genocide.
Education, health care, and access to basic services expanded and foreign investment poured in. People living below the poverty line dropped.
So what happened?
****************
Today, the streets of the capital, Kigali, are lined with new construction, elegant boutique hotels, and fancy restaurants. The roads are among the best on the continent. The nation consistently tops lists as the least corrupt and most business-friendly in Africa.
But Rwanda’s staunchest allies are now voicing their displeasure at Kagame’s policies.
Why? What could be wrong?
Last month, South Africa expelled three Rwandan diplomats, linking them to murders and attempted murders of Rwandan dissidents living in exile. Kagame has denied any involvement but has also publicly branded them traitors, adding that Rwanda has a right to defend itself against those who ‘‘betray’’ it.
The United States, Britain, and other Western donors have also partially suspended aid to Rwanda for its backing of rebels in the neighboring Congo, which Kagame has denied.
I thought I cleaned up the Congo but I could be a bit confused about that.
And talk about a genocide. Tens times as many people were killed there, and yet it's an afterthought in the final paragraph. Maybe topping the magic 6 million figure hurts them in the Holocaust™ department. That and the skin color.
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All of a sudden future isn't looking so bright.
