PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OF RWANDA

"The international community needs to give us a commitment that if we withdraw from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it will help us to deal with the consequences of that action", Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

That same international community, Mr. Kagame continued, was telling Rwanda that it had to withdraw its forces.  "We say yes, we will withdraw".  But no commitment had been forthcoming and no one was asking why his country went into the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the first place.  "We are in the Congo for our own security concerns", he stressed.

Mr. Kagame said there were no security problems inside his country.  The problem was the presence of forces, such as the ex-FAR and Interahamwe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who attempted to enter Rwanda and stir up a situation that had been stabilized.  More important was the fact that those forces received support from the Congolese Government, which was training and arming them, as they continued to push towards Rwanda and cause problems similar to those experienced in 1994.

Mr. Kagame said:  "The situation relating to the ex-FAR and Interahamwe in the Congo is simply what remains of a problem dating back to 1996.  We tried to resolve it then by dismantling the camps and bringing most of the Rwandese, who were living in other countries as refugees, back home".  The groups that stayed out, however, were the ones who continued to cause the present trouble.

The President said there was a clear definition for the ex-FAR –- they were formerly in the army.  The others were the militias, who worked with some of the people who were in the former army to chart out a genocide.  Most of them were known to be in the Congo, were genocide suspects, and continued to try and destabilize Rwanda. 

Noting Mr. Kagame's strong opposition to the immediate withdrawal of Rwandan troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a correspondent asked why it was not possible for Rwanda to maintain its own security from within and contain the external threats to security from there.

"By waiting for the problem to find us in Rwanda means to continue fighting within our country, while somebody is outside with the freedom to train, arm and send people to fight us", he said.  "Go to Rwanda and wait for our problems to come to us from the Congo?  That is not my sense of logic.  My sense of logic is to go and tackle the problem from its source."  Once the source realized that the problem required shared responsibility and resolution, then peace would be possible, he added. 

A correspondent wanted to know what new plans the President had to demonstrate goodwill towards implementing the peace agreements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mr. Kagame said his Government had tried to take some initiatives in terms of speeding up the peace process.  "For example, when we had the ceasefire that

was a bit fragile, it was Rwanda that actually suggested having a specific disengagement plan –- all forces should disengage from the point where they were fighting", he said.  In that regard, his country had also called for the creation of a buffer zone, with deployments of United Nations observers to ensure that the ceasefire lasted.  That disengagement plan was reached in Kampala, although the other parties would not let it work. 

Continuing, Mr. Kagame said that when the disengagement plan did not work, Rwanda offered to unilaterally withdraw 200 kilometres towards its border.  While that was welcomed, he said, when Rwanda tried to implement it, Laurent Kabila's Government organized an offensive to follow the withdrawal.  “Not only did they do that”, he added, “they actually killed a mass of people following us in areas from which we were withdrawing.”  Nevertheless, those were just some of the initiatives that Rwanda had actually taken to demonstrate its commitment.

Mr. Kagame said the security problems in the region had to be looked at in the long term.  The Lusaka peace process had three major elements.  One was to address the inter-Congolese dialogue and its contribution to establishing a stable situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Stabilizing that country would then prevent destabilization in the neighbouring countries.  

The Rwandan President said the second aspect of the peace process had been how to deal with the ex-FAR and Interahamwe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Disarming them, not helping them, and doing something that would prevent those groups from being a continuing security threat for Rwanda.

Mr. Kagame said that the third crucial point in the peace agreement had been the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, so that matters would then be left to the Congolese.  Those factors that he had just outlined were the three major aspects of the peace process.  "We are demanding that we concentrate on these and prevent the serious threat to our country."

Noting that Mr. Kagame had met with Joseph Kabila in Washington, D.C., recently, a correspondent wanted to know if the new President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was someone with whom Rwanda could do business on withdrawal.  The Rwandan President said he had met Mr. Kabila before.  He had, however, met Mr. Kabila in Washington, in a different capacity.  During that meeting, there was talk of wanting to support peace.  "But to be honest, we have talked with many people before about peace and it has not been forthcoming", he said.  "People say one thing and do another."

Mr. Kagame said that Mr. Kabila had also recognized that Rwanda's security concern was a legitimate one.  "Nevertheless, I want to be cautious, even though I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that this is a person with whom we could do business, based on his statements and the impression he made on me at that particular moment", he said.  What was more important was how those statements translated into real action for peace.

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