Rwandan President Paul Kagame says he
doesn’t understand why people keep asking him how to end decades of
conflict in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, despite accusations by U.N. experts that Rwanda backs Congolese rebels. “It’s like, you know, the world has decided, for Congo,
you ask Rwanda. Why? I don’t understand,” Kagame told Reuters on the
sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York.
Millions of people have died from
violence, disease and hunger in Congo’s resource-rich eastern
borderlands during nearly two decades of ethnically driven conflict that
has its roots in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. A more than year-long
insurgency by M23 rebels is the latest incarnation of a Tutsi-dominated
rebellion. There have been repeated, and unsuccessful, efforts to
integrate rebel groups into the Congolese army. U.N. experts and the
Congolese government have accused Rwanda of backing the rebellion, a
charge Rwanda denies.
The United States and other countries
have called on Kigali to end support for M23 rebels, saying there is
evidence Rwandan military officials have been involved. “My question
always is, why doesn’t the country, the state of Congo,
deal with the issues themselves? They should be the ones telling the
world nothing is working, or what they think can work for them
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