Tom Bower - Broken Vows: Tony Blair The Tragedy of Power

October 2007. Cherie Blair had just telephoned to cancel that evenings dinner engagement due to an emergency. She and the African president were due to discuss the creation of a justice ministry in his impoverished country. I understand he began, but was interrupted.

I cant come, said Cherie, but Tony says hed happily join you.

Excellent, said Paul Kagame, the ruler of Rwanda, a land-locked nation famous for its gorillas and thousand rolling hills, where 11 million people earn an average daily wage of $2.

Celebrated as the poster boy for British aid to Africa, the president was sitting in the penthouse apartment of a luxury hotel near Chelsea football ground that cost 2,100 per day. He had flown to London in his private jet after addressing the United Nations in New York. His four-day visit matched his celebrity. He would deliver a lecture to Britains power brokers at the London School of Economics, then address the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool as David Camerons guest, and finally meet Gordon Brown, the new prime minister, in Downing Street. Taking their lead from Tony Blair, all of Kagames hosts ignored the fact that their guest was widely accused of being a mass murderer.

Ever since Britain had learned of the horrendous genocide during the early 1990s of 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis by the dominant Hutu tribe, its government had turned a blind eye to the reprisals orchestrated by Kagame, a Tutsi. And now, to the presidents delight, his hero was coming for dinner. Blair arrived, warmly embraced his host and shook hands with David Himbara, a fifty-two-year-old Rwandan economist personally recruited by the president to rebuild their countrys economy with financial aid from Britain and America.

Youre a hero, Kagame had told Blair when the first millions of pounds were donated in 1999. Youre the man Ive been looking for. Youre giving us beautiful pounds to spend as we wish.

Eight years on, in the penthouse suite, Himbara watched as the president and the world-famous former prime minister bonded in mutual admiration. They charmed each other, he would recall. They both said to each other how great the other was. Blair felt pride that Kagames pledge to transform his country into the Singapore of Africa was, thanks to his inspiration, coming true.

The former prime minister, a youthful fifty-four, slim and tanned, set out his stall. Ive always been interested in you. You are a man with a vision, a leader Ive always admired. Now you need advisers to show you how to run a government, and Im your man.

Blair continued his pitch: I learned by bitter experience during ten years as prime minister the problems of getting the government machine to deliver what I wanted. I created a Delivery Unit, and that was a great success. It transformed everything. I want to bring that success to Africa.

Yes, said Kagame repeatedly. He agreed to welcome Blairs team.

The following day, Himbara arrived at Blairs new headquarters in Grosvenor Square, which Blair had rented for 550,000 a year following his resignation three months earlier. On the walls of the corridor leading to his office were photographs showing him with world leaders. The overwhelming impression was of entering the presence of a global celebrity. For two hours, Blair explained to Himbara how twelve experts, employed by his new Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), would work inside the presidents office and Rwandas economic ministry to improve the governments effectiveness. Himbara, formerly a professor of economics in South Africa, was relieved that Blairs experts would be more skilled than the DFID types untalented British civil servants sent after 1999 by Clare Shorts Department for International Development. But, unlike Blair, Himbara doubted that Kagame would take advice. That evening, he recalled a couple of years later, they lied to each other.

Blair was thrilled by Kagames enthusiasm. AGI, his banner programme, had been launched effortlessly. After the frustrations of Downing Street, he intended to modernise Africa and, through his Faith Foundation, heal religious intolerance across the world. Both charities would be financed by his personal income and bequests from the philanthropic billionaires who congregated at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos. Soon after, he solicited annual donations of about 1 million for AGI in Rwanda from David Sainsbury, the former science minister, and Bill Gates.

Within a year of AGIs launch, Jonathan Reynaga, a former Downing Street aide, arrived in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, to embed himself and his team. By then, Blair had introduced Kagame to the international circuit of leaders conferences across America and in Davos. He was presenting the president as Africas Mr Clean; no one mentioned the continuing massacre of Hutus in the neighbouring Congo by militia dispatched by Kagame. Nor did Blairs audience refer to the systematic theft by Kagames armed forces of diamonds, gold and other precious minerals from Congo to finance their lifestyle. After all, the presidents virtues were also hailed by Bill Clinton, Blairs ally.

The following year, 2008, Blair was welcomed by Himbara at Kigali airport, having stepped off a commercial flight from Nairobi. Like all visitors, he was impressed by Kigalis clean streets, new skyscrapers, Internet network and stock exchange. Soon he was telling his host how British and American aid was transforming the country into the continents showcase. But Himbara knew the truth: the Internet rarely worked because the country lacked electricity, and the stock exchange listed exactly seven corporations three of which were foreign-owned, with another belonging to the president. The legacy of Belgiums colonial occupation was a nation of illiterate subsistence farmers lacking the means to build a modern infrastructure. Despite all the millions in aid, the life of Rwandans outside the capital remained dire. Twelve AGI staff cannot turn around a dysfunctional state, Himbara reflected. How do you start in a country where most people cant spell?

Blair was more optimistic. As soon as he was ensconced in the presidential palace, his conversation with Kagame centred on him as an experienced leader willing to offer his advice at any time. At the end, Kagame summoned Himbara. Please arrange for Mr Blair to fly back to London on my private jet, he ordered. Shortly after, Blair and his staff climbed aboard the $30 million Bombardier BD-700 Global Express to fly non-stop to Stansted. The cost of the round-trip flight about $400,000 was billed to the Rwandan government.

A year later, Blair returned to Kigali, again on the presidents jet. Conditions were not as impressive as they had been on his last visit. Kagame feared the outcome of the upcoming elections but, since Blair paraded him as a model of African democracy, they could not be cancelled. Although there was no meaningful opposition party and Kagame was guaranteed over 90 per cent of the vote, his paranoia was causing fatal repercussions. Any journalist or businessman who was critical of the government was beaten up; his personal doctor had been murdered. A UN investigation into Kagames attacks against the Hutus in the Congo during the 1990s was due to report that the president was guilty of genocide.

Suspicious of any independent-minded Rwandan, Kagame forbade Himbara to spend time alone with Blair during his visit. Himbara carefully obeyed the orders until he bid Blair farewell outside the presidents palace. Jump in and come with me, Blair ordered, pulling Himbara into the limousine. Im a dead man, thought Himbara, as Blair asked him to recite his fears. By the end of their journey to the airport, Blair had heard that Its getting nasty here. People are disappearing. He did not comment. Once again, he boarded the presidents jet and flew towards Europe.