President Kagame said that Rwanda cannot continue to be blamed for DRC’s failure to address issues. Photos/Urugwiro Village.
President Paul Kagame says Rwanda has been made a scapegoat of problems the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has failed to solve for decades, reiterating his call for a political solution to address the issues that have created conditions for armed conflicts to prevail, in the first place, instead of blame games.
The Head of State made the observation on Thursday at a press conference where he addressed a wide range of issues, including the ongoing conflict in the Eastern part of DRC, involving the M23 rebels and government forces, FARDC, as well as hundreds of other armed groups operating in the country for more than three decades.
President Kagame, responding to recent condemnation directed towards Rwanda, over alleged support of M23 rebels, pointed out that the conflict cannot be addressed without tackling the root causes, including why the M23 rebels are fighting and why the DRC government has failed to address its grievances for decades.
Without mentioning names or countries, President Kagame said that those who are accusing Rwanda of different things are responsible for, and are aware of the root causes which date back to the colonial times, when borders were drawn and Kinyarwanda-speaking communities found themselves on the other side of the border -something he said cannot be blamed on Rwanda.
He said that the same people who drew the borders, created divisions and are still involved in the conflicts in one way or another, are responsible for manipulating the truth and for selectively finding who to blame for the problems they caused.
“Those who were involved in the colonial times and who were blamed for it have the power to manipulate and always fall short of doing what is right. You find they have groups they create, they say “Groups of Expert”, expert in doing what? You find these experts are led by people who are supposed to come and really cover up the blame that should be leveled against those who are responsible for those crimes of colonial times,” he said.
President Kagame spoke at length about the DRC crisis, blasting those blaming Rwanda for disregarding facts
President Kagame emphasized that the M23 are Congolese, a fact which even the Congolese governments, past or present, acknowledge, but have failed to tackle their issues or keep their word in different agreements that have been signed to end the conflict, instead opting to shift the blame to Rwanda, which also has its own grievances, including the existence of FDLR in DRC.
Before blaming Rwanda, President Kagame said that those doing so should ask themselves why DRC is home to hundreds of armed groups, including the FDLR and why countries like Rwanda continue to bear the brunt of the conflict, hosting more than 100, 000 refugees displaced by fighting.
He said the rebels are not fighting because they love to fight and neither is Rwanda hosting Congolese refugees because it loves refugees, but the underlying causes are what everyone is ignoring and instead dwelling on finger-pointing. The Head of State said that the current M23 rebellion was started by fighters who did not even come from Rwanda and are not Rwandan.
“The fighting that was started two or more years ago; these people that are fighting didn’t come from Rwanda as of the time the war started. I don’t know whether it would even be right to say that it originated from Rwanda.
“Most of them, Congo found them where they are or where they were. It is not like there was a movement from Rwanda,” President Kagame said, adding that even those who could have moved did so long ago, but essentially, they are all Congolese and the fact is well-known by those pointing a finger at Rwanda.
President Kagame speaks to the media on Thursday, January 9. Photos/Urugwiro Village.
“That is why Congolese leaders at one point admit that these (M23) are Congolese and then try to find another reason saying the fight is supported by Rwanda, but they can’t tell anybody and convince anybody that the actual people who are fighting now- who started this fight we are talking about, came from Rwanda,”
“They did not come from Rwanda…these leaders of M23 and majority of their fighters came from Uganda where they had been as refugees,” President Kagame said.
He pointed out that the groups fighting in eastern DRC have nothing to do with Rwanda, adding that the only reason Rwanda comes into the picture is because the fighters speak Kinyarwanda- something he said became their main crime in Congo, becoming targets of persecution and ethnic violence.
“That is why we have refugees here for over two decades. The other reason is the FDLR,” President Kagame said, questioning why the international community has failed to take action on the group, which is linked to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
President Kagame said that either the international community chose to preserve FDLR for committing genocide Rwanda or because they are anti- Rwandan government and would be used whenever possible, against Rwanda, to control and manage it the way they want.
Endless meetings, no solution
President Kagame said that without addressing the underlying issues that caused the conflict, no amount of summits or posturing would solve the issue, which he said is solely a responsibility of DRC and not Rwanda. He said that even taking Rwanda out of the picture or off the map would not solve DRC’s problems.
“If you could relocate Rwanda to another part of the world and remove it from here, would that solve the problems of Congo, or of the region? People get lost in the blame game and forget to really address the root causes of the problems we have and find a solution.”
Journalist Scovia Mutesi asks questions. President Kagame responded to questions on different topics.
President Kagame said that while some countries in the region have openly deployed troops in DRC, including Burundi, it is Rwanda which continues to take the blame, but those who understand the history of the region know the genesis of the issue and it is not what the group of experts say.
“Honestly for the last 30 years, if anybody wanted to understand what the problems are and what the solutions should be, you don’t even need to be an expert, you just need to be wanting to resolve these problems and allow people to have peace,” President Kagame said.
Speaking about not turning up in Luanda for the Heads of State summit, which was scheduled for December 15, President Kagame said that many meetings have been held, with the view of finding a solution but it is often DRC which turns around to reject the proposed solutions or reneges on its role.
He further said that he changed his mind to go to the Angolan capital at the last minute after he realised that there was no goodwill, especially on the side of the DRC, to address the outstanding issues that would form part of the solution.
President Kagame pointed to endless meetings with no political will to address issues at hand.
“Wherever there were meetings to discuss how to end this problem, Rwanda was present. But I have discovered that being there and not being there amounts to the same thing – it doesn’t address the problem. The leaders of those processes holding people’s hands is not an end in itself. We have to have results built on addressing the root causes,” he said.
President Kagame emphasized however that a solution can still be found if all sides can acknowledge what the problem is, rather than trying to cover it up or taking sides.
“This problem is not unsurmountable, it can be addressed, it can end. It should have ended in actual fact, long ago. But you can’t end it by manipulation, by playing games,” President Kagame said, questioning the double standards in dealing with the issue.
“There must be an effort to continue finding a solution to this problem. But it can’t be business as usual, we can’t continue the way we have been doing it-putting the importance of the process above the results,” he said.
