The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Felix Tshisekedi, has branded his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, as an «enemy» of the country, amid diplomatic tensions over the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group’s offensive in eastern DRC.
«It is no use seeing Rwandans as an enemy. It is the Rwandan regime, with Kagame at its head, that is an enemy of the DRC. Rwandans are our brothers and sisters,» said Tshisekedi, as reported by the Congolese radio station Radio Okapi.
He said that the Rwandan population «needs help to free themselves, because they are gagged. «They need our solidarity to get rid of this kind of retrograde leaders like Paul Kagame,» said Tshisekedi.
The Congolese president has stated that Kagame «prides himself on being a provocateur of wars.» «In his place, I would hide. I would be ashamed. It is shameful and I would say diabolical,» he said, before calling on the Congolese people to remain united despite political and ethnic differences.
In this sense, he stressed that «Africa must move forward». «Africa is the last of the class because of wars and divisions. That is how we have understood each other. Unfortunately, this has not happened just because, it is because of leaders like Paul Kagame», he reiterated, as reported by the news portal Actualité.
Tshisekedi thus responded harshly to Kagame’s latest accusations that the Congolese president was fomenting a security crisis in eastern DRC in order to postpone the elections scheduled for 2023.
The Rwandan president said last week that the conflict between the DRC and the M23 «would be easily solved if there was no country heading for elections next year and he was not trying to create an emergency to postpone them».
He also called for collective efforts to address the security threat posed by the armed group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) – made up of Hutu extremists, some of whom are responsible for the Rwandan genocide – and refused to blame the problem solely on Rwanda. «It is unfortunate that it has become convenient that all the problems fall on Rwanda’s shoulders. We are always to blame,» he said.
«I am beginning to believe something I never believed in. It’s been so long that I can’t help it. Someone, somewhere, wants this problem to exist forever because there are so many things at stake,» he warned, before criticizing the «narrative since 1994» that «perpetrators and victims (of the genocide) are the same.»
The M23 has been accused since November 2021 of carrying out attacks against DRC Army positions in North Kivu, seven years after the parties reached a truce. UN experts have accused Uganda and Rwanda of supporting the rebels, although both countries have denied this.
