Safari Notes

Twenty years ago, one of the darkest and most horrific tragedies in human history was viciously and mercilessly executed in one of the most beautiful countries one can ever imagine: Rwanda. No other human tragedy is comparable to this in the last one-hundred years, except the horrific events of World War I and World War II.  In 100 days in 1994, about 6,000,000 Rwandans were displaced. An estimated 1,000,000 people, mostly Tutsis and some moderate Hutus, were mercilessly hunted and slaughtered: children, the old, the disabled, women - it made no difference to the Hutu extremists who had meticulously planned the exterminations. Neighbours killed neighbours and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives, saying they would be killed if they refused. At the time, ID cards had people's ethnic group on them, so militias set up roadblocks where Tutsis were slaughtered, often with machetes which most Rwandans kept around the house. Thousands of Tutsi women were taken away and kept a

Rows of human skulls sit in glass cases near the red brick Catholic church here. Some are cracked in half; holes are punched in others. Hundreds of arm and leg bones lie nearby. To the left is a table of tools: rusty shovels, hoes, pipes, and a machete — the weapons of genocide.

Transparency International has ranked Rwanda the least corrupt country on the African continent. According to a report dubbed ‘The Global Corruption Barometer’ (TI GCB 2013), countries  were put in clusters depending on the prevalence of corruption. Rwanda is in the group whose  corruption incidence ranges between 10 and 14.9 per cent. The report was released yesterday. Rwanda’s bribery rate was put at 13 per cent. No other African country appeared in this category. Sudan and Tunisia follow as the second least corrupt countries (between 15-19.9 per cent), while Madagascar is in the next category (20-29 per cent).

Gallup Rankings Ever thought of Rwandans feeling very loved? According to a gallup data just published - in response to the question: “ "Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday ?" How about love ?" According to Gallup - the result is the most comprehensive global index of love ever constructed. Most Rwandans answered positively. Rwanda does not only rank first in Africa, but it is one out of only three other population surveyed where at least nine in 10 respondents reported feeling loved; and it ranks 2nd globally. For a country that has gone through so much suffering and misery just a few years ago , that is the best and greatest recognition and teastament to how much forgiving Rwandans are and how much healed they feel. And how do other people in East Africa feel? Do they, too, feel loved? After Rwanda, Tanzania ranks second in East Africa and 15th globally; Kenya ranks third in East Africa and 47th globally; and Uganda r

Despite its many problems, Rwanda's visionary leaders have set forth an ambitious plan to establish Rwanda as a globally competitive, knowledge-based society and economy; this has resulted in the rapid expansion of phone and Internet subscribers and users. For a country that went through one of the worst horrors Africa and the world has ever known , this has not been easy. Rwanda, one of the first countries in Africa to gain full Internet connectivity, has ten licensed Internet Service Providers and 754,156 Internet subscribers as of June 2012 (according to the Rwanda Utlities Regulatory Agency ) - which is about 6.5% of its population of about twelve million people. The number of people using Internet, as in other East African countries - is growing rapidly in the country. And so is social-networking. Some of its leaders are regularly and comfortably using Google+, Facebook and Twitter.

Remember the movie ' Hotel Rwanda '? Which told the very painful, gruesome story of how some Rwandans went through the genocide? Now there is another motion picture which, too, tells a story based on events during the Rwandan genocide. With a different perspective. It is a powerful, touching, very painful and eye-opening, award winning movie, Kinyarwanda: Forgiveness is Freedom - about those horrific one-hundred-or-so days of the Rwandan genocide - which resulted in almost one million people being mercilessly hunted and butchered; and the very peaceful, caring role Muslims played during that period:

Click on it to enlarge Do global rankings matter? According to the World Economic Forum, they do. The Forum's report for 2011-2012 , just released, puts most African countries at the bottom of the rankings. I quote from Business Live : Only two Sub-Saharan African economies, South Africa and Mauritius, were in the top half of the Global Competitiveness Index rankings; in fact, among the bottom 20 economies, 13 hailed from the region . Two of my most favorite African countries have done well: Mauritius and Rwanda . Both, small. Both, without any of the valued natural resources. Except, both - have visionary, gifted leaders and governance. Mauritius moved only one step this year. While Rwanda, the wonder nation, moved ten ranks up. For some reason, some countries like Seychelles , the Comoros and a few other countries are not included. Of the East African countries, Kenya , out of the 142 countries, has moved up four places and ranks 102nd; while Tanzania falls by six ranks

Juba - click on map to enlarge The capital might be changed, but, today, Juba, is the capital city of the world's newest nation: South Sudan. The city, like the country, has to start from scratch: its infrastructure (systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, housing and transportation), institutions and all the basics a city should have, are almost non-existent. With so many people - Sudanese and non-Sudanese - migrating to or entering the city from within South Sudan, from the North and from other countries, it is very hard to know the present real population of Juba. It could be half-a-million or one million or more; most of who are poor. Those planning, administering and managing Juba, on the White Nile, have a most daunting task. At the same time, with South Sudan awash in oil and the city being built from almost nothing , they can build the city into whatever they want it to be. Properly planned and managed, Juba can be a clean, organized and sustainable metropolis.

One of my, few, most favorite African countries is Rwanda: not only because I have always deeply sympathized with the country due to the genocide ; not only because Kigali is the cleanest city in East Africa and one of the cleanest in Africa ; not only because Rwanda is one of the least corrupt countries in Africa ; not only because I am an avid admirer and supporter of President Paul Kagame ; I have another reason to be very concerned with Rwanda: gorillas . These great apes, who share 99% of their genes with us humans, are rapidly declining in numbers; and are listed as critically endangered; but, there is a place that these very rare creatures are very well protected and are multiplying in numbers . In Rwanda: A latest census put the number of Gorillas to 480 from 380 indicating a 26.3 percent increase in last seven years . All along this week, Rwandans, lead by their president, are celebrating this incredible success in caring for these mountain gorillas. This Saturday, June th

Kigali Future City Rwanda is planning BIG. As much as I hate urban jungles of concrete, slab and glasses - I have to salute and congratulate the Rwandan leadership for having uplifted their people from one of the greatest tragedies ever , to where/what Rwanda is now. And now, the country's leadership is having grand plans for its main city: Kigali. New Kigali Future City  The visionary Rwandan leadership wants to recreate Kigali and make it a center for investments and business. Rwanda is small and seemingly poor; but so was Singapore when its leaders embarked on a grandiose plan to make their city-state what it is today. Rwanda/Kigali is very well placed geographically - right in the center of Africa - to achieve what Singapore has. All great cities, all great projects for that matter, were founded through the vision of a few people or leaders or just one leader. To recreate Kigali into a dynamic, modern business hub and center, Kigali will need the infrastructure; the

A baby gorilla has been seized from animal traffickers by ICCN following a 3-month undercover investigation to bust an international wildlife smuggling ring , reports the official website of Virunga National Park . One suspected trafficker was caught and arrested at Goma International Airport on Sunday while disembarking from a flight from Walikale (in the interior of the country and close to gorilla habitat) with an eastern lowland gorilla (remember these animals are only found in DR Congo). The gorilla was found concealed under clothes at the bottom of a bag and was suffering from over-heating and dehydration after spending over 6 hours in transit. Baby gorillas can be sold for up to $20,000 each; for some people, that's a price that can drive them to such extreme cruelty. As for whoever would want to buy gorillas and other such wild animals, and accept the animals being so mistreated, they must be utterly heartless and sick. Gorillas should be in the wild. There are less th

It's very shocking and extremely disturbing that, there are some people who deny that there was Genocide in Rwanda ; there are those who have been trying hard to spread lies and propaganda and twist real facts and the truth about the Rwandan genocide; there are those who deny that , it took meticulous planning - resulting in about 800,000 Tutsis and some Hutus, systematically being brutally butchered, in Rwanda, in 1994: .........thousands of children butchered individually, by machete. And the massacres at hundreds of churches, mostly Catholic churches at that. Not to mention the systematic gang rapes of Tutsi women and girls which led the international tribunal to define rape as an act of genocide when part of an extermination campaign. The genocide, while it coincided with the civil war and was clearly driven by the politics around the conflict, was mostly carried out by civilians against civilians far from the front. There was no "other side". There were the murde

Since the brutal assassination of Patrice Lumumba and through the dictatorship of the Western supported Mobutu in the DRC; through all the brutal and bloody regimes and wars that Uganda has seen; and though the many of the senseless mass killings and vendettas between the Hutus and Tutsis - the Great Lakes region of Africa : Uganda, the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi - has been the most unstable in Africa and one of the most conflict prone in the World. What has made the region even more unstable and cost the lives of millions of people, the worse being the Rwandan genocide of 1994 , is outside and foreign interference in there. Because of its vast and varied natural resources, foreign powers, especially from Europe - have, most times, not helped in allowing the region to have a long lasting peace. It's this interference that lead to the long and unwavering support for the dictator - Mobutu - after he had tortured and slayed Patrice Lumumba; after he continued to allow the looting, plund

"The man who kills the animals today is the man who kills the people who get in his way tomorrow." "When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future." "I feel more comfortable with gorillas than people. I can anticipate what a gorilla's going to do, and they're purely motivated." More on Fossey: Gorilla Fund , The Goriolla Org. , webster.edu , unmuseum , mnsu.org , Boigraphy Channel Diane Fossey Googled: News , Books , Scholar , Video Image: rwandagateway.org

Rwanda is a land of great diversity and beauty. Popularly known as ‘the land of a thousand hills’, Rwanda has six volcanoes, twenty-three lakes and numerous rivers, some forming the source of the great River Nile. The landscapes in this green country are truly breathtaking. Many a visitor to Rwanda has remarked that the physical beauty of the country is without equal on the African continent. Spectacular volcanoes and dense tropical forests dominate the north of the country, while gentle hills and valleys, calm lakes and turbulent rivers in both savannah and dense tropical vegetation dominate the rest of the country. Rwanda boasts a wide variety of wildlife. The Parc National des Volcans, in northern Rwanda is home to the world’s largest number of endangered mountain gorillas. Numbering in the hundreds, the gorillas live in a protected area, free from poachers. The gorillas can be viewed in their natural mountain habitats at a fairly close range . Official Website   Rwanda, ju