Francophone summit

No plan to attack DRC, says Rwandan minister

Article published on the 2008-10-19 Latest update 2008-10-19 15:06 TU

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Rwanda's Minister for Governmental Affairs, Charles Murigande, has denied allegations of a troop build-up near the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). After meeting his Congolese counterpart at the French-speaking summit in Quebec City, Murigande told RFI that Kinshasa is trying to distract from its failure to expel groups implicated in genocide in his country.

Murigande claimed to have had a "very good meeting with my dear brother", but within seconds he was accusing the DRC of harbouring mass murderers and lying about his country's military intentions.

"I have no knowledge of unusual manoeuvres that are taking place in Gisenyi," he told RFI's David Coffey, when asked whether military action against the DRC was being planned in the border region. "We have not increased the number of soldiers in that region."

And he went on to accuse Kinshasa of spreading the rumour to cover up for its own failure to address issues of contention between the two countries.

"We are accustomed to this kind of rhetoric from DRC,"  Murigande said. "Whenever the DRC tries to fight Rwanda and fails, because it feels ashamed of having failed to address that problem, it resorts to accusing Rwanda."

Murigande admitted that Rwanda maintains "a sizeable military presence along the border with DRC" but said that is to repel attacks from former members of ethnic-Hutu militias, the Interahamwe, who now live in the DRC.

The minister insists that they must be expelled. And he blames the UN and France for allowing them to leave Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.

"The stumbling block between our two countries is the continued presence of the forces that committed the genocide in Rwanda," he said, adding that "thanks to the Franco-UN intervention, [they] were able to withdraw with all their weapons and their munitions into DRC from where they have been reorganising, rearming, from time to time launching attacks on Rwanda".

Murigande seems pessimistic about the prospects of an improvement in relations with Kinshasa.

"As long as this problem is not resolved, it is going to be very difficult to have a normal relationship with DRC and this, we have said it, repeatedly, it is up to the DRC to gather the political will that is required to address this problem," he said.