Rwanda is located in the centre of the Great Lakes region, which is embattled in a 6-year-old conflict that has left millions of people dead. 6 countries have engaged in the conflict in the DRC, where Rwanda has deployed her troops, looking for those responsible for the genocide in '94. Today, the international Community calls upon Rwanda to withdraw her troops from Congo. Why is the international community putting so much pressure on Rwanda and what are the conditions for you to withdraw from Congo?


I should first of all thank your agency for having taken an interest in knowing how our country is faring, and how the overall situation is in the entire region. Regarding the war and the situation in our sub region within the Great Lakes, and more particularly the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in which our country is militarily engaged, I would first of all like to give a brief account of the background to our presence in the DRC. The main objective we wanted to achieve is security; the security of our country first, and then the stability of the entire Great Lakes region. Our country was for a time dangerously threatened by genocide forces, namely interahamwe and the ex-FAR who planned and took part in the 1994 genocide in our country. They fled to the DRC from where they reorganized themselves to fight back and go ahead with their genocidal sprees. We could not therefore tolerate that kind of situation. These people were the genocide perpetrators who ought, in principle, to have been dealt with by the whole international community. The International Community did not fulfill its obligations in this particular regard, as a matter of fact. It failed to address that issue adequately, and the Rwandan people could not endlessly go on bearing the brunt of the International Community's failures.

Was the International Community capable of preventing all these atrocities?

Certainly yes; the International Community was capable of finding an adequate solution to that issue, if proper care had been taken. Unfortunately, though, we've got evidences indicating that some members of the International Community did indeed, directly or indirectly, contribute to the reorganization of genocide forces in "refugee camps" in the DRC. Those criminal groups on the run, who had literally taken refugees as hostages, kept on re-arming and training militarily under the refugee cover, right on our borders; and the International Community, which paid no attention to our Government's security concerns so often raised in this connection, kept on supplying them food and various other items in those camps.

I would like to add that the International Community was legally bound to deal with this problem, in the first place. What we are talking about here is genocide, and this is a capital crime against humanity, which must normally be addressed by the International Community. Nobody was keen on doing anything right from the outset. Nothing was attempted as to preventing or stopping genocide in Rwanda. We even had to press hard for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to be created.

As a matter of fact, we faced an unprecedented and preposterous situation here: a massive and horrendous crime was carefully planned in no secret way, then it was overtly executed between April and July 1994, and the International Community just sat idly by, watching. The perpetrators of the crime escaped into the DRC, then known as "Zaire"; they reorganized themselves, trained and secured armaments to attack Rwanda. For a certain time, they indeed staged armed incursions into the country, killing some more people, and paralyzing economic activities within the country. Once we realized that the International Community was not prepared to handle the situation, we decided to attack the genocide perpetrators right where they were hiding, in their DRC rear bases. This was done jointly with the alliance of certain groups of Congolese citizens who were then disaffected with the dictatorial regime in their country.

The AFLD?

Yes, the AFDL led by late Laurent Kabila. We joined our efforts, and this allowed us to repatriate approximately 2 million Rwandans in the year 1996.They had been taken as hostages. And from that very situation, it became clear to us that some Congolese had the potential to contribute to the re-organization of their ruined country. We associated ourselves with them to help them go to the very end of their problem. A new Government was established in the DRC. Before long, though, the newly installed Kinshasa Government started conniving with the genocidal forces to destabilize our country. They started doing precisely what Mobutu's regime had done before them. We advised them to stop playing foul, but they wouldn't listen.

The situation was rather complex, how did you deal with it?

It is very difficult to explain; ordinarily when people join their efforts, they mean to achieve an objective. The objective for them was to overthrow Mobutu´s regime and nothing else mattered. The rest was no priority for them. For us (Rwandans), our objective was to neutralize the threat that hang about Rwanda and bring the perpetrators of genocide to the International Tribunal for Rwanda.

But the Congolese party's objective seemed to be elsewhere. We later realized that they had even decided to collaborate with the genocide suspects' soldiery, probably with the assistance and advice from some big world powers unknown to us. Well, they were Congolese, and they were in command in their own country; so, they had the freedom to run their own business the way they saw fit. Their country was in pieces and they were perhaps seeking international assistance. They probably struck a deal with genocide suspects in compliance with terms of assistance imposed upon them by some donors.

Congolese were interested in their power. And they did not have an army of their own; they probably feared that Rwanda would impose its will on them. Our intention was merely to collaborate with the regime in order to stabilize Congo and establish democracy. This was the only aspect that would have led us to achieving a definite solution of our security problems, posed precisely by the genocidal armed forces whose backbone was the Democratic Republic of Congo. But to our surprise, we came to realize that they were collaborating with those very people we had fought with. We therefore warned them against such an extraordinarily dangerous move, but to no avail. This was eventually a great loss on our part.

What happened afterwards?

In 1997-1998, we experienced a very intensive war at our border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, and that part of the country was totally cut off from the rest; and the occupying forces had their rear base in the DRC. It was true that some of our forces were in the Republic of Congo, but very far away. Our forces had been called upon to ensure security for the Government, which was established in Kinshasa, and to organize the new Congolese Army.

President Laurent Kabila's government kept on collaborating with the genocide forces infiltrating Rwanda to carry out gorilla warfare. Hence between 1996-1998, there was a fierce fighting within Rwandan provinces like Ruhengeri, Gisenyi, Cyangugu and Kibuye, all of which stretch along the borderline separating our country from the DRC. Various reports made by our intelligence indicated the presence of well-organized networks which transported these armed criminals from different locations deep inside the DRC, where they underwent military training. When they were through with their military training, they all converged onto the border between Rwanda and the DRC.

After having exhausted all the diplomatic and regional negotiations with other parties without success, we decided to embark on a military offensive. We took advantage of a political situation then prevailing in the DRC, namely the clash between RCD and AFDL. I may recall here that the original AFDL split into two conflicting factions, one of which kept the original name and remained headquartered in Kinshasa, while the other one, calling itself RCD, installed its headquarters in Goma, from where it launched a war against its Kinshasa rival, early August 1998. We told ourselves that this would permit us to associate ourselves with those people out there, so as to find a permanent solution to our security concerns. We then made an alliance with the RCD. We tried to organize at least the eastern part of the DRC, right from the moment we decided to launch the offensive war in coalition with RCD, in August 1998. And the war at our borders with the DRC curbed almost immediately, except for a few incursions, but generally speaking, the war came to an end.

We realized that it was time for us to call upon the International Community and the entire region. This was for them to see the real magnitude of the devastation that threatened our country. It is then that we provoked the Lusaka Negotiations in which we played a significant role, as we were the most interested in bringing peace to our region. In mid 1999, the Lusaka Peace Accord was signed, reflecting a certain compromise among the concerned parties. People hoped that this would result in lasting peace. Unfortunately, the Kinshasa Government didn't have the same vision.

Did you have the impression that the International Community was putting enough pressure to make all parties respect the Lusaka Peace Agreement?

What we request is that the problem of the criminal armed groups in the Congo be addressed so that we can withdraw our troops from the DRC once and for all. That is our condition. To achieve that, there are two ways. The first way is that the Congolese people should politically come to terms. Secondly, their country has to be politically stable. A new political dispensation has to be established in the DRC, since the present order has generated the problems we all know.