Published: September 27, 2025
WASHINGTON — A former foreign minister of Rwanda has urged Liberians to face their wartime history head-on, reject divisive politics and rally around accountable governance and bold national goals, arguing that Rwanda’s post-genocide turnaround shows what is possible when a country “chooses to stay together.”
“When a nation builds its politics on division, discrimination and exclusion, the result is not just inequality. It can escalate into catastrophic violence,” Ambassador Charles Morugandi told the Liberia Diaspora Annual Conference 2025. “Preventing such outcomes requires constant vigilance against any policy or practice that divides citizens into ‘us’ and ‘them.’”
Speaking at an opening session attended by President Joseph N. Boakai and Liberians from North America, Europe and Australia, Morugandi framed his message around Rwanda’s experience after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi — “our darkest moment,” he said — when more than a million people were slaughtered and the state collapsed. The world’s failure to act, he added, left Rwandans to rebuild on their own.
Morugandi said Rwanda’s recovery rested on three deliberate choices. First, the country chose to stay together. Instead of revenge, Rwanda formed a broad-based government of national unity, repatriated nearly 3 million refugees and elevated a single national identity over ethnic labels. Community-based gacaca courts provided “restorative, not retributive” justice, and survivors received support for housing, health and education. Second, Rwanda chose accountable and transparent governance, decentralizing power, confronting corruption “relentlessly” and restoring public trust through better services. Third, Rwanda chose to think big, setting long-range visions, investing in health, education, technology and infrastructure, and positioning itself as a contributor on the global stage.
“Everything rises and falls on leadership,” he said. “Bad leadership brought calamity on our country, and good leadership has been slowly but surely transforming it.”
From that journey, he offered five lessons for Liberia: confront the past honestly because healing cannot rest on denial; build national unity as a bedrock of citizenship; pursue accountable governance so institutions earn public trust; create spaces for truth-telling, forgiveness and community healing; and think big about the future so conflict and poverty do not define national ambition.
Morugandi tied those themes directly to Liberia’s reckoning over civil-war abuses and efforts at national healing. “There is no higher duty for a national leader than reconciling and uniting its people,” he said, commending Boakai’s emphasis on reconciliation and Liberia’s recent diplomatic strides.
He pressed the diaspora to move from sentiment to action. “Liberia needs you now,” he said, invoking the biblical story of Nehemiah leaving comfort to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls. “Be pro bono ambassadors for your country — mobilize investment, tourism, knowledge and technology transfer, and create markets for Liberian goods and services.” He offered his own choice during Rwanda’s crisis, leaving a research post at Harvard to work at home for months without pay. “I never regretted it,” he said. “Looking back at Rwanda’s transformation, I am grateful to have made my modest contribution when my country needed me most.”
He pointed to results he said followed those choices: two decades of inclusive growth; major reductions in poverty; sharp gains in health and education; life expectancy rising from about 40 years in 2001 to 69 today; and an international reputation for safety and clean governance. Rwanda now hosts marquee global events and is among the world’s largest contributors to U.N. peacekeeping, he noted — a sign, he said, that “a nation can move from tragedy to global respect.”
“If Rwanda could rise from genocide to renewal, then surely Liberia, with its proud history, rich resources, resilient people, and vibrant diaspora, can build a future of unity, justice, and prosperity,” he said. “Let this conference be more than dialogue. Let it start commitment and action.”
Morugandi spoke after Liberia’s foreign minister, Sara Beysolow Nyanti, stressed data-driven engagement with the diaspora, and after diaspora representatives pressed for expanded consular services in places such as Australia, Canada and Europe. Boakai later cast the conference as a “dedicated platform for engagement, policy dialogue and partnership,” saying his administration is pursuing decentralization, performance-based governance and an inclusive economy.
But the morning’s central charge came from the Rwandan statesman: Liberia must choose unity over faction, truth over denial and ambition over fatalism — and the diaspora must lead by example.
“Do not let conflict define you,” Morugandi said. “Choose to stay together. Choose accountable governance. Choose to think big.”
Discussion about this post