I just heard a very small snippet of this on the news the other evening and decided to check on it for fear it was true. Well my worst thoughts were proven when I found this on the web today:
The Time 2009 Top 100 Leaders
#13 Rwanda's President Paul Kagame
By Rick Warren
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1893847_1893843,00.htmlRwanda's President, Paul Kagame, is the face of emerging African leadership. His reconciliation strategy, management model, empowerment of women in leadership and insistence on self-reliance are transforming a failed state into one with a bright future.
Kagame, 51, is one of few leaders who have successfully modeled the transition from soldier to statesman. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the world watched in horror but did nothing. Kagame was responsible for ending the slaughter. After the genocide, the nation was in shambles. Kagame and others began the slow process of rebuilding. That process moved into hyperdrive when he was elected President in 2000. He launched a series of reforms and reconciliation strategies that have caught the attention of investors worldwide.
(More at link)
.............
Now least we forget here it is again:
Rick Warren's African Allies Tied To Massacres, Sex-Slavery, Forced Labor, Concentration Camps
By Bruce Wilson
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/1/19/113845/387/Front_Page/Rick_Warren_s_African_Allies_Tied_To_Massacres_Sex_Slavery_Forced_Labor_Concentration_CampsCritics of Barack Obama's choice to include Rick Warren in the upcoming January 20, 2008 presidential inauguration ceremony have focused on the celebrity evangelist's religious beliefs and at least one report has traced his ties to reactionary African religious leaders. Media coverage of Rick Warren has failed to note, however, his friendship and alliance with two African presidents accused of perpetrating terrorism and massive human rights violations including massacres and assassinations, mass-rape, slave labor, sex slavery, large scale concentration camps, and the use of child soldiers.
A December 12, 2008 UN report charges Warren's African allies, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame and Uganda's President Youwerie Museveni, with continuing to fuel the conflict in the Congo by supporting the renegade army of Laurent Nkunda, whose recent military offensive has created hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Rwanda and Uganda have been indicted, in a series of consecutive United Nations reports presented to the UN Security Council, released between 2001 and 2003 , for repeatedly invading and violating the sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of The Congo, and supporting renegade armies in that country, in order to loot the Congo's immense natural wealth. The more than one decade long running conflict has claimed an estimated 5.4 million civilian lives.
...........
And please don't forget this Time article on the very same Rick Warren that says he has huge global ambition:
The Global Ambition of Rick Warren
By David Van Biema Thursday, Aug. 07, 2008
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1830147,00.html(snip)
PEACE — an acronym for promote reconciliation; equip servant leaders; assist the poor; care for the sick; educate the next generation — "exemplifies Rick's capacity to capture big ideas and make them simple and memorable and motivational," says Crouch. Indeed, the idea is so big, only Warren could have hatched it. Warren dismisses those who claim he is trying to "build heaven on earth." He says, "I'm not that stupid." But there is nothing in his sales pitch — to thousands of pastors, dozens of heads of state, financiers at the Davos World Economic Forum and editorial boards — that suggests where its limits might be. He refers repeatedly to the "1 billion" Christians he thinks the plan can mobilize. His sell combines the aid wonk's jargon of "self-sufficiency, scalability and reproducibility," the dotcommer's dream of exponential growth and something older. Says one pastor participant: "This is like the fishes-and-loaves story. People think that that kind of miracle is happening."
In May, Warren, who had been beta-testing the plan, held its "IPO." He convened 1,700 pastors from the purpose-driven network to Saddleback and urged them to send out teams as part of the "PEACE Coalition." "There was a lot of energy afterward," he says. "Guys with tears in their eyes. A guy was going, 'I'll take Mozambique,' and one was going, 'I'll take Nigeria.' They were dividing up the world."
(snip)
The Rwandan Model -
The first nation to be so claimed — or to claim PEACE, really — was Rwanda. In 2005, Paul Kagame, who overthrew the genocidal regime of the small central African nation and later became its President, appeared at a celebration for Saddleback's 25th anniversary. Warren revealed that Kagame intended Rwanda to become the "first purpose-driven nation." Soon Saddleback members were commuting to and from Kigali, its capital. By the end of this year, 1,750 PEACE volunteers will have visited Rwanda. Not only have PEACE volunteers gone to work on health and development, Kagame says, but the more high-powered among them "use their contacts to draw on resources and attract investment. I can't have anything better than this." He admits that he is not a practicing Christian: "I cannot say I am devout, but I have a good sense of what faith is about and the usefulness of it." And in this case, he says, "what Saddleback is doing serves the church and serves us too."
Yet others, rather flatly, claim Warren's effort is invisible by the very terms on which he sold it. Visitors interested in the PEACE plan are still invariably flown not to a church but to the hospital in the town of Kibuye. PEACE is working with the University of Maryland to upgrade the facility and next year will give $500,000 as part of its province-wide $13 million commitment. But so far, aside from a paint job and some tidying up, there is little improvement. Laura Hoemeke, director of Twubakane, a USAID-funded Rwandan decentralization and health program, says, "Warren's people haven't done anything. For passing on information, mobilizing people, changing social norms, I think the church can be really effective. But ..." Others maintain that short-termers can't stay on top of the involved logistics of development.......
(more at link)
.............
The question is does anyone at Time Magazine read their own writers works and if so why didn't the do a follow up on this relationship with Warren and Kagame? What is the real truth and does anyone at Time really care about the truth?
And by the way Rick Warren came in 3rd in voting for the most influential person in the world - yes 3rd:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1883644_1886141,00.html:nopity:
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
