By James S. Tyree
CNHI News Service
OKLAHOMA CITY — Amid debate and disagreement over bills in the Oklahoma Legislature, representatives and senators took a break Wednesday afternoon to hear an African president speak of cooperation and overcoming tragedy.
Paul Kagame, president of the Republic of Rwanda, became the first African head of state to speak on the House floor when he addressed a joint legislative session. He was in Oklahoma City Wednesday as a guest of Oklahoma Christian University to deliver the Kilpatrick National Lecture that evening.
“We are separated by a sea, but we have so much in common,” Kagame said on the House floor.
Prior to his election as president in 2000, Kagame commanded the military overthrow of a regime considered responsible for tribal-based genocide in Rwanda in the mid-1990s. The war was dramatized in the movie “Hotel Rwanda.”
Kagame, whose youthful face contradicts his 48 years of age and 27 years of military and political experience, drew many comparisons between his native land and Oklahoma.
He said Rwanda and Oklahoma share Christian values, social and financial reliance on agriculture, and the ability to overcome extended periods of economic hardship. Both also had to rise from violent acts in the mid-1990s that shocked the world.
“In the senseless bombing of 1995, Oklahoma displayed the resilience and determination to rebuild,” he said. “Oklahoma is famous for that can-do attitude.”
Violence in Rwanda was far more widespread, as an estimated 500,000 people were slaughtered — some officials say the toll exceeds 800,000 — within a few months in 1994. Tutsis and moderate Hutus accounted for most of the victims.
Rwanda is still struggling to recover from the war’s lingering effects.
“We visit you today as friends,” Kagame said. “… We come to learn how you overcome shortages in the recent past. We come to gain insight in how you created vital tourism and how you turned outflow into an inflow of people.
“I believe we have found true friendship in Oklahoma,” he added, saying he hopes “our exchange of ideas become a permanent feature.”
Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin called Kagame an “eloquent spokesperson of freedom and human dignity” prior to his speech of about 20 minutes, and the floor and filled gallery gave the president a one-minute standing ovation.
Brenda Collins, an Oklahoma City retired school nurse who sat and listened from the gallery, came away mesmerized.
“I received an invitation at the last minute, and when I got here, my heart was just pounding,” Collins said afterward. “This is a historic moment, and after hearing his speech, I am not going to remain quiet about evil that’s going on. I will not; I will speak out and I will work.”
James S. Tyree is CNHI News Service Oklahoma reporter.
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