I do not want to be cynical, but if developing nations are kept backward by being told, again and again, you belong to the poor and you are there, where you actually belong, then nothing will change.

I am not responsible for creating an opposition, neither am I responsible for appointing my own successor. My job is to allow for the opposition to exist within what the realms of the law. There is space in Rwanda for political parties - if fact we have about a dozen of them - as long as their objective is not to take us back twenty two years. On that point, we are and will always be very vigilant.

Democracy holds little appeal for people who are struggling to survive.

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.

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.

The situation in Congo shows nothing for which you could hold Rwanda responsible.

My purpose is to develop a country, to empower its population. It's from that same population that will emerge the man or woman who will succeed me. And they will be chosen based on the consensus that they have the capacity to lead the country.