and Chief of Staff of Defense Gen. Charles Kayonga--inaugurated
yesterday, Monday, July 23, the university-accredited Rwanda Defence
Force Command and Staff College at Nyakinama, Musaze district,
Kigali-based New Times reporters Edwin Musoni and Sam Nkurunziza write
today.
In his address to the 45 officers of the first promotion of what will
be the most prestigious military academy in Central and Eastern
Africa, President Kagame took the opportunity to take jabs at Western
countries, the experts of the United Nations, Kabila and the DRC.
His statements no doubt would add to the growing domestic pressure on
President Joseph Kabila to take a public clear-cut stand on the M23
insurgency and on his war plans in eastern DRC.
Especially as President Kagame made some explosive charges against
President Kabila in his address.
President Kagame alleged that in a phone chat with Kabila, the latter
confided to him his unwillingness to hand over war criminal suspect
Jean-Bosco Ntaganda to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
He also disclosed that secret meetings between M23 insurgents and
Kinshasa officials were held in April of this year at the Rwandan
border of Rubavu.
What's more, President Kagame remains adamantly averse to accepting
Rwanda's responsibility in triggering, arming, and providing fresh
recruits to M23 insurgents, as UN experts have charged.
Those UN experts are expected this week in Rwanda and Kigali has vowed
it'd undertake a line by line close reading of their report with them.
The fear in Kinshasa is that when confronted with the pugnacious
Rwandan side, the UN experts might end up watering down their report.
Here's an anthology of President Kagame's statements as sampled by
Edwin Musoni and Sam Nkurunziza:
1) ON THE M23 INSURGENCY
"This problem has not been caused by Rwanda and it has not been
abetted by Rwanda.
"On the contrary, in the last four years, nobody in this region, on
this continent and beyond, has worked very hard to see peace coming to
our country and our neighboring country than Rwanda."
2) ON WESTERN RESPONSIBILTY IN CONGO'S CRISIS:
"[Western countries] twisted everything, leaving the two countries
[Rwanda & DRC] in extreme misunderstandings and putting the blame on
Rwanda."
"Actually, the problem of DRC came from outside.
"It was created by the international community--our partners-- because
they're so arrogant to listen and in the end they don't provide a
solution.
"They just keep creating problems for us.
"We know better our problems, we know better about this region's problems."
"We're genuine about trying to find a solution for this problem, but
they come and run over everything and when things explode, they'll
come around come around and blame us for it, even when they're the
ones who cause the problems."
3) ON INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE TO ARREST WAR CRIMINAL SUSPECT JEAN-BOSCO NTAGANDA:
"We worked hard with them [Congolese] to deal with the challenges they
had within their own country, and then some people weren't happy about
that.
"They came up with the idea of arresting some people [Ntaganda] in the
Congo for justice and accountability.
"Which is good if only it was not selective.
"We asked them [international community] that 'how does that become
our problem, why don't you go and arrest him?'
"They insisted that we must have to help, and the pressure turned from
Congo to us!
"This was before this conflict, and this kept going on and on!
"We appealed to them, we advised them that that they were going to
mess up progress that has been made; but they couldn't listen.
"After that, members of the international community developed an idea
that if Rwanda
can't support them to arrest someone in another country, then they
would put us together with
those they want to arrest, and this is really how it turned out to be.
"I am not dramatizing anything here, I am telling the real story!"
4) ON PHONE CHATS WITH KABILA AFTER M23 INSURGENCY BROKE OUT FOLLOWING
DRC'S ATTEMPTED ARREST OF NTAGANDA :
"I asked him [Kabila] if he was aware of what was going on, if he had
a hand in it, and if he wasn't
creating problems for himself, and he said no and that he had been
approached [by Western countries] and added that 'my approach is
different, I want to arrest some people for indiscipline but not
handing them over
to ICC.'"
5) ON SECRET MEETINGS BETWEEN M23 & KINSHASA OFFICIALS AT BORDER TOWN
OF RUBAVU [RWANDA] AND ON ALLEGED RWANDAN SUPPORT TO INSURGENTS:
"On the request of the Government of the DRC, Congolese officials
called in the representatives of
the [M23] rebels, one of them being the current leader of the rebellion.
"The group explained their grievances and the officials of the
Government of Congo were taking
note of the problems that were being raised and saying that they were
aware of the problems that
were being mentioned; they said they would address the problems when
they go back to Kinshasa."
"Then the International Community was saying that Rwanda is helping rebels.
"But helping them with what? And for what reason?
"They say we supply them with ammunition, but these people get guns
from the Congolese army.
"The ammunition they have is from their Congolese armories.
"We are not supplying even one bullet, we have not and we will not.
"If we had supplied them, by the way, I would be telling you that we
have done so because we would have done it for a reason!
"But we have not even had a reason to have this conflict going on.
"On the contrary, we tried to prevent it and we advised both Congo and
the international community."
6) ON UN EXPERTS:
"If the world has these kinds of experts on whose account of their
report people are going to be
penalized and abused, then please if you can't prevent that, then you
need to know how to constantly challenge it."
(Page Address: www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15063&a=56268)
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CARTOON: Damien Glez
CREDITS: rnw.nl
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