President of Rwanda Paul Kagame joined Brandeis University for a talk and roundtable discussion among faculty, students and policy officials on April 23 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the end of the genocide in Rwanda.

"This is a time of remembrance as well as serious reflection," Kagame said in a video recording of the event posted online.

Kagame, who became Rwanda's president in 2000, "shared the lessons learned during and following the Rwandan genocide" and "spoke about the challenge of rebuilding Rwanda," according to an April 25 BrandeisNOW article.

"There is no template for putting a country back together after such a major tragedy," Kagame said. "Everything was a priority. Almost everything of value had been destroyed in Rwanda. We had to make decisions without any comfort of adequate time or resources."

The Gosman Sports and Convocation Center was shut down for the day of Kagame's visit, according to an email sent to the club sports leaders.

Several protesters stood across South Street with signs that read "Shame on you Brandeis." Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan wrote in an email to the Justice that the group was "allowed to protest away from the Gosman Center." He said he did not believe the protesters were members of the Brandeis community.

Kagame has spoken at other universities including Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University in the past few weeks. According to accounts in the Tufts Daily, Kagame's appearance at their school was a ticketed event open to the community, and he spoke before a packed auditorium.

Editorial pages at each of these universities' campus newspapers were critical of the Rwandan president's visit. An op-ed by Stanford's STAND, a student-led movement against genocide and mass atrocity, called for the organizers of the talk to "actively address the Rwandan president's unambiguous record of human rights violations, his consistent oppression of political opposition and his prominent role in the violence and political instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

The event at Brandeis was invitation-only with no publicity within the general Brandeis community. The event also had tight security restrictions. "I have been told that there were a number of security restrictions around his visit and that everyone in attendance had to be submitted to the security detail several days in advance," wrote Senior Vice President for Communications Ellen De Graffenreid in an email to the Justice.
The Heller School for Social Policy and Management Sustainable International Development program and Coexistence and Conflict program sponsored Kagame's visit.

Prof. Alain Lempereur (Heller) moderated the roundtable discussion that followed Kagame's opening remarks.

-Marissa Ditkowsky contributed reporting.