Some what like Germany’s refusal to criticise Israeli excesses, international criticism of Rwanda, and its president, Paul Kagame, has been muted in recent years because of what might be termed “holocaust guilt”.

 

The failure of western countries to intervene to prevent the 1994 genocidal massacre of 800,000 of the country’s people has left Washington and London, the country’s main aid suppliers, notably silent about rebel leader and now president, Kagame’s increasing internal authoritarianism and the evidence of Rwanda’s support for a bloody militia, M23, creating mayhem in the Kivus in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

 

That guilt, and Kagame’s genuine success in rebuilding the country, its economy now booming, led to his being feted as Africa’s new hope by some western leaders, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair most notoriously.

 

But his tide has turned...