With the announcement that it plans to lay 2,300 kilometers of fiber-optic cable in the next year, Rwanda has taken the lead in communications technology in Central Africa. Nearly any discussion about Rwanda, whether positive or critical, takes place against the backdrop of the 1994 genocide and the context that created it. This decision marks a huge step forward for that country and will help transform the country's economy while allowing it to become a regional telecommunications hub.
This news takes place against the backdrop of the seemingly perpetual chaos just across Rwanda's border in eastern Congo. Any positive developments in Rwanda occur against the backdrop of that vortex, into which Rwanda could be (and has been in past conflicts) easily subsumed. Thus Rwandans, though not Rwandans alone or even primarily, have to hope that a possible commitment of 3,000 more UN troops will stabilize the region long enough for negotiations and a political solution to emerge. Rwandans, Congolese, Ugandans, Burundians and others simply cannot afford a perpetual cycle of one-step-forward, two-steps-back. People with the least ground to lose cannot afford to lose more.
