By: Kimberly Ramkhalawan
April 15, 2022
President of the Republic of Rwanda, His Excellency Paul Kagame, arrived in Jamaica on Wednesday for a three-day State visit.
On hand to great him was Prime Minister Andrew Holness, while it was all pomp and fanfare to receive the African statesman, as Jamaica’s defense force provided a 21 gun salute upon the arrival known as the Guard of Honour, prior to meeting with Governor-General of Jamaica, Sir Patrick Allen.
The visit comes ahead of the Jamaica’s 60th anniversary of Independence in August.
As his first order of business upon arrival, Kagame paid tribute to Marcus Garvey at the National Heroes Circle where he laid a floral tribute at the monument of the national hero.
He continued his tribute to the Jamaican hero on Thursday during the Joint Sitting of the Houses of Parliament, Kagame said ‘the ideas championed by Garvey and many others on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean united the Africans of the world while the idea of African unity came out from this very same island. Among the descendants of those who were separated from their ancestral homeland, the pain was deeply felt and his message was corroborated in Africa as well’.
He added that from ‘the struggle for Independence to the development challenges of nation building, the Pan African ideas has served as a guide for how things should be, even if don’t always live up to it in the practice. Celebrating what we share as Africans and African diaspora helps us confront the harsh realities of this world we live in.’
Kagame added that ‘the power of anniversary comes from an opportunity to remind a generation of the struggles we had before. Africa and the Caribbean should work together to advance common positions in the Commonwealth & other bodies where our interests align as they often do’.
Prior to the visit, the Jamaican Office of the Prime Minister described the visit as representing an important opportunity for the deepening of bilateral relations between the countries. It added that the visit also helps reinforce “the steadily burgeoning relationship between the African continent and the CARICOM Region”.
President Kagame took office in 2000, after the 1994 genocide where an estimated 800,000 people were killed. However, he served as Vice President and Minister of Defence under President Pasteur Bizimungu, from 1994 to 2000. He was re-elected in 2010 and again in 2017, on a mandate to continue the stability and growth he brought to the country and stands Rwanda’s sixth President, serving approximately 12.3m people. Fifty per cent of the population are said to be under 20 years old, is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, at about eight per cent per annum.
