Editor, 

FORMER US ambassador to the United Nations Robert O’Brien’s words (during Monday’s reception in Los Angeles, hosted by GenNext and attended by President Paul Kagame), resonate fully with the feelings of the overwhelming majority of us Rwandans. 

Yes, we have all had a part, be it large or minor, in picking ourselves from the pit of 1994 — when Rwanda was slogging in the massacres during the Genocide against the Tutsi —, dusting ourselves off, wiping tears from our eyes and getting on with life with renewed determination never to find ourselves again in the abyss.

But none of our post-1994 reconstruction— physical, mental, moral and national —would have been possible without that Historic Man, President Kagame, the ambassador was talking about. 

It is a case of an entire nation owing everything to one gallant individual.

I know he feels discomfited with too much praise, but many of us, usually phlegmatically reticent Rwandans, can’t help it. 

We know how much we owe his visionary leadership in all things, whether of war, peace, justice, and the re-stitching together of a broken nation and its people. 

We thank him.

Mwene Kalinda, Rwanda

Reaction to the story, "We want to be in charge of our own destiny – Kagame” (The New Times, April 30)