Mr Kagame, 51, is entrepren-eurial and optimistic. He has tapped the talents of Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and the chief executive of Starbucks, Jim Donald, to build a post-genocide economy based on an IT revolution, universal education and agricultural reform. Starbucks advises Rwanda on coffee production. ICM, an Australian agribusiness organisation, is deeply involved in reshaping the rice industry. With plentiful water and fertile land, Rwanda, has the potential to become a breadbasket for Africa, where millions face starvation because of ancient land management practices and skyrocketing grain prices.

The contrast with Zimbabwe is stark. While Mr Mugabe and his generals have flaunted their disregard for elections and easy resort to violence, Mr Kagame has worked to bring about economic reforms. Zimbabwe's inflation rate is measured in six figures; Rwanda's is 7 per cent. The World Bank has Rwanda's economy growing at 7 per cent, Zimbabwe's is contracting.

Mr Kagame has been selling Rwanda as a secure stable democracy since he won 95 per cent of the vote in the peaceful but controversial 2003 election. He has entered negotiations with the US and the European Union for free market access. He has opened the door to investment and aid from China and the US, two powers hungry for Africa's energy and mineral wealth and acutely aware of its agricultural potential in a climatically challenged world.

Mr Kagame admits big-power rivalry provides a challenge and an opportunity. In the past, powers have milked Africa's resources but he denies he has a strategy to play them off against one another because "Washington and Beijing are already doing that". His challenge is working to ensure Rwanda's economy evolves beyond the quarry and farm and is no longer dependent on foreign aid.

"We need to make ourselves partners in the process, not just export resources in their raw form. China and America compete, but that is their business. Our duty is to make sure everybody benefits. African countries have to blame themselves for always being compliant."

Mr Kagame will accept expertise and investment where he can get it - the US, China or the EU.

One person with an intimate knowledge of his entrepreneurial approach is Michael Roux, Rwanda's honorary consul-general in Australia. A veteran Africa hand, Mr Roux was introduced to Mr Kagame by Nelson Mandela. With experience in banking and government (Mr Roux advised the former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett) he is one of the President's economic advisers. He has helped shape Mr Kagame's transition from genocide liberator to international statesman.

Mr Roux played a role in persuading Mr Kagame to visit the US and Davos to meet high-profile chief executives. After Bill Clinton admitted that one of his failings as US president was to stop the genocide in Rwanda, Mr Roux persuaded him to get involved in the country's reconstruction.

"President Kagame is an exceptional leader in a continent of unexceptional leaders," Mr Roux said. "It's a reflection of his power and charisma that both the US and China see Rwanda as a stable, politically central part of eastern Africa. They don't have to worry about riots and can concentrate on developing links."

Mr Roux believes international interest in central and east Africa has grown dramatically since climate change curbed grain production in Australia, and South and North America. "Attention is turning to Africa, where the potential to double or treble agricultural production is enormous … With grain prices going through the roof and the demand for food outstripping supply in many areas, attention is turning to Africa. Rwanda has plenty of water and fertile land."

A Tutsi refugee, Mr Kagame grew up in Uganda. In 1994 he abandoned his military studies in the US and a commission in the Ugandan army to fight Rwanda's genocidal Hutu regime. A self-proclaimed nationalist, he has appointed moderate Hutus to senior positions in his administration.

Mr Kagame is striving to reshape Rwanda into a modern state free of traditional ethnic conflict and hatred. He is ambitious but also realistic. He acknowledges the genocide has left the country vulnerable to a cycle of retribution and blood debts. "We have to recognise that," he says. "But the younger generation [half Rwanda's population was born after the genocide] has grown up in a different environment with better education and new institutions."

He believes people are not inherently bad. He told Philip Gourevitch, author of a book on the genocide, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families , people could be made bad and they could be taught to be good. The author said Mr Kagame was deeply convinced he could change Rwanda's history of brutality and bloodshed. Asked if the genocide could happen again, Mr Kagame said: "Not in my lifetime".

But emotions in the tiny nation remain raw, despite the passing of the years and high rates of intermarriage. Despite optimistic official proclamations that the past is the past, the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by a "vigorous totalitarian" regime remains a scar on the psyche of the African state.

Much depends on the success of the gacaca system to clear the backlog of genocide-related cases. According to Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, village justice can also be rough justice. Some 12,000 courts are scattered through the land-locked country, which makes monitoring a problem. Although the death penalty was abolished a year ago, witnesses have been intimidated, even murdered. Some accused, fearing the worst, have committed suicide. A number of presiding judges were found to have been involved in the genocide.

Despite the drawbacks there is consensus among human rights groups that the gacaca courts are a qualified success in dealing with the lesser crimes. The most brutal crimes are still handled by superior courts and the United Nations tribunal in Tanzania.

Kigali is a thriving capital free of the usual developing-world blight. Plastic bags are confiscated on arrival at the international airport; roads are well maintained, and each vacant city block seems to be a building site. Unlike many small African states, Rwanda's infrastructure makes business easy. But there is also a down side. HIV/AIDs is a big problem, the education system is producing only a dribble of skilled workers, and poverty is endemic.

Reconciliation is the policy but it may be another generation before Rwandans are reconciled. As Paul Kagame puts it: "That does not happen overnight. People have lost everything they had, including their families. It's not so easy getting past that. Either way, people were victims or they were associated with the perpetrators. But progress is happening here faster than we ever imagined … despite the loss … despite the bitterness."