Silence in the court of King Paul

摘要

Some of the supermarkets in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, ignored a recent ban on the use of plastic shopping bags. They were shut down. Greenpeace would doubtless applaud the government's zeal in protecting the environment. But many Rwandans see the incident as further evidence of their rulers' desire to control far too many aspects of their daily lives. For as long as anyone can remember, Rwanda has been a top-down, do-what-you're-told kind of place. The genocide of 1994 was, some would argue, a last lashing-out by a despotic regime that was about to lose power and thought that, by killing all the Tutsis, it could hang on to it.