NEVER AGAIN

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania -- Laura Bush says she is looking to Rwandan President Paul Kagame to suggest how the U.S. can make sure that a genocide his country experienced more than a decade ago is not repeated in the Sudan's Darfur region or anywhere else.

Mrs. Bush was closing out a weeklong trip through Africa with a visit Thursday to Rwanda, where a 100-day slaughter in 1994 by Hutu militias killed nearly half a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. She was being joined there by Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"I look forward to talking with both the first lady of Rwanda, as well as the president of Rwanda, about what the rest of the world can do in situations similar to this, like in Darfur, and see what they think is the best way for the world to help in situations like their genocide," the U.S. first lady said Wednesday to reporters.

On the 10th anniversary last year of the Rwandan genocide, Kagame criticized other nations and institutions for failing to halt the killing.

Instead of strengthening its peacekeeping force, the United Nations pulled troops. Both former President Clinton and the U.N. have since apologized. The massacre ended when Tutsi rebels led by Kagame ousted the extremist government.

President Bush, also speaking on the 10th anniversary, promised that the U.S. would help to unify Rwandan families, provide scholarships, combat AIDS and promote the rule of law.

Mrs. Bush, in several events in Kigali, was promoting such U.S.-supported efforts to help Rwanda by supporting women in political life and helping girls get an education

"The healing process, the reconciliation that Rwanda has managed to have is really amazing considering how extensive the genocide was and how violent," she said.

Her first stop, however, was the Kigali Memorial Center — Gisozi Genocide Memorial — where she planned to lay a wreath and sign a visitors' book.

"The genocide was recent enough that everyone still remembers it and no doubt many, many people are still grieving for their family members, their loved ones that they lost," Mrs. Bush said. "How difficult it must be, to live with a genocide like that in your country, to live with it in your history, is really, really hard to imagine."

Did you know Mrs. Bush was in Africa?

Did you know that she was reaching out to the people that survived the 1994 Rwandan genocide and hoping to help the people currently suffering atrocities in places like Darfur?

Judging by the media the past few days, Karl Rove is the center of the universe. No one else matters. Nothing in the world is more important than determining his role in the Plame/ Wilson case.

If only the media would devote as much attention and energy to Africa as they have to Rove, maybe the killing that took place in Rwanda would not be repeated in Darfur.

Both former President Clinton and the U.N. apologized for doing nothing to stop the systematic killing of half a million people in Rwanda.

Hopefully, it won't be necessary for President Bush to apologize for American inaction in Africa.