National security is vital for economic and social progress.

There are African leaders who have the dangerous habit of leading their people into an abyss. In Rwanda we've had presidents who killed. The one million people who died here were, to a certain extent, victims of their leader, President Juvénal Habyarimana, who died in a plane crash before the genocide began. He contributed to all that. The man who took over from him was running around ordering people to kill. If this president came back and landed in my hands, I would have him arrested and tried. Unfortunately, he died a natural death.

Rwanda is rebuilding itself once again as one nation and that is the reason why we are making progress. Now many Rwandans are making their ends meet and others are able to do better than they have before.

I often wonder why the West is much more interested in aid deliveries than in fair trade, for example. The fair exchange of goods would place far more money into the hands of the affected people than relief operations.

It is the first time in the history of Rwanda that political change in the highest leadership of the country has taken place in peace and security.

Reconciliation takes time. Sometimes many decades, as the example of Europe shows. It is hard work.

Such problems are not solved in one day but there is a great step toward peace and security in the region.