A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed it.

• Author: Bullington, J.R.
• Position: Book review

A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It

Book reviewed: Stephen Kinzer, A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It, John Wiley & Sons, 2008, pp 380, $25.95

Rwanda has receded back into the obscurity from which it so suddenly and sadly emerged in 1994, when it experienced an epic genocide involving the slaughter--mostly by machetes--of about 800,000 (some say a million) people--mostly the minority Tutsis but moderate Hutus as well--out of a total population of around 11 million. Such obscurity, in terms of international media attention, is usually a good sign for African countries, since they rarely elicit any coverage except for disasters of one sort or another.

Thus I was pleasantly surprised to see two recent Washington Post articles, very positive in tone, datelined Kigali. One reported that in September Rwanda's parliament became the first in the world where women constitute a majority, startling evidence of emerging gender equality in this traditionally patriarchic society. The articles also reported that the government has changed the language of instruction in schools from French to English; the economy is growing and foreign investors are pouring in; there is a surprising degree of reconciliation taking place; and although "profound tensions and scars from the genocide still exist here, so does a strong sense of national purpose ..."

This good news from a country I visited on several occasions when I was U.S. ambassador in neighboring Burundi in the mid-1980s, plus a presentation by the author on C-Span's Book TV, prompted me to order Stephen Kinzer's new book on Rwanda. It came with high praise from the likes of Walter Isaacson, the eminent biographer of Kissinger, Einstein, Franklin, and others:

What a fascinating tale! What an inspiration! The courage and triumph of Paul Kagame show the beauty of reconciliation and of transcendent leadership. The world needs to learn his lessons, and Stephen Kinzer's brilliant narrative will help make this enlightenment possible. I found this praise to be merited.

This is a 'life and times' biography, and both President Paul Kagame's life and the recent Rwandan history he lived through, and shaped, are dramatically compelling. Forced to flee Rwanda as a child in an anti-Tutsi pogrom at the time of independence, Kagame grew up in Uganda, joined Yoweri Museveni's rebel movement, and when it succeeded became a senior officer in the Ugandan Army. He used that...