Kagame has 'no problem' with Rwanda being excluded from Congo regional force
Image: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
President Paul Kagame said on Monday he did not mind Rwanda being excluded from a regional military force battling rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, removing a potential stumbling block to the initiative.
In April the seven countries of the East African Community (EAC) agreed to set up a joint force to try to end decades of bloodshed in eastern parts of Congo.
Congo welcomed the plan, but said it would not accept the involvement of Rwanda, which it accuses of backing rebels — an accusation Rwanda denies.
“I have no problem with that. We are not begging anyone that we participate in the force,” Kagame told Rwanda's state broadcaster in a wide-ranging interview.
“If anybody's coming from anywhere, excluding Rwanda, but will provide the solution that we're all looking for, why would I have a problem,” Kagame said.
Congo accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group, which has been waging its most sustained offensive in Congo's eastern borderlands since capturing vast swathes of territory in 2012-2013.
Rwanda denies this and in turn accuses Congo's army of firing into Rwandan territory and of fighting alongside the FDLR, an armed group run by ethnic Hutus who fled Rwanda after taking part in the 1994 genocide.
The EAC has called on local armed groups to join a political process to resolve their grievances or “be handled militarily”, the office of Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is the chairperson of the EAC, said in April.
Recent attempts to stop the violence militarily have proven unsuccessful, and in some cases backfired, security analysts and human rights groups say.
Despite billions of dollars spent on one of the UN's largest peacekeeping forces, more than 120 rebel groups continue to operate across large swathes of east Congo almost two decades after the official end of the central African country's civil wars.