Rwandan President delivers RUSI's First Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture

14:30, 18 Sep 2006
RUSI, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2ET

Link to map: multimap

About the event:

'The New Africa: Prospects For Sustainable Peace and Security '
Click here for the speech

In 2006 RUSI initiated a series of Africa-related activities in partnership with the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, with the generous support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

RUSI has already covered African affairs for some years; most recently, a major conference on the Darfur crisis in Sudan was held on 6 July 2006. However, given the multiplicity of the current challenges facing the African continent and their growing importance for the security of the United Kingdom, RUSI decided to cover African affairs on a more systematic basis, in partnership with The Brenthurst Foundation. The first annual Nelson Mandela Essay competition on African Security and Development was held earlier this year, a new African Visiting Fellow will join the Institute in the autumn, and a series of lectures are scheduled for next year.

The President of Rwanda, Mr Paul Kagame, launched RUSI’s African activities with a lecture at the Institute on 18 September. President Kagame spoke on 'The New Africa: Prospects for Sustainable Peace and Security'. Mr Kagame, as a firm advocate of a new approach to African security arrangements, outlined his ideas during his presentation.

 

About the Speaker

 

Mr Kagame became President of Rwanda in April 2000. In August 2003, he won a landslide victory in the first multi-party national elections since the country’s independence. In March of that year, he had been awarded the Young Presidents Organization’s Global Leadership Award for his role in leading and rebuilding Rwanda after the massacres. President Kagame was highly critical of the international community’s inability to prevent the 1994 genocide, and the deficiencies of the United Nations during the tragedy.

 

Event manager: Sabrina Downey