For the world's TV cameras, refugees stricken by starvation and cholera in camps in Zaire are a more photogenic and far safer subject than the victims of machetes and AK-47s in Rwanda itself. Can it be a coincidence that only now, as voyeurs from CNN pan over the dying, are rich countries finally starting to send help?
This was a disaster the experts knew would happen. Most African countries have their ethnic conflicts, propaganda wars, even foreign-based insurgencies. What was it in Rwanda that made those common-places explode into holocaust?
In the words of the Rwandan agriculture minister in 1991: 'We have high population pressure and decreasing agricultural productivity due to soil erosion . . . we can produce enough food for 5 million people, but we have 7.3 million . . . if the rate of population growth continues, we might have serious difficulties.' Rwanda has the highest population ...
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