Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Wednesday shrugged off a soaring death toll in the Democratic Republic of Congo, distancing his nation from mounting bloodshed on Rwanda’s doorstep.
Kagame said that the decades long problems in the Democratic Republic of Congo was not created by the RPF government led by Paul Kagame.
The Rwandan President added that since 18 90s when the Belgium King Léopold take over the country has its own problems and the people of Congo have been dying while the world is watching.
Kagame told an audience off-site from the US-Africa Summit in Washington.
Kagame who with other Africa Heads of States, is currently attending the US-African summit in Washington, at the invitation of the American President Joe Bidden.
Kagame told an audience off-site from the US-Africa Summit in Washington.
Kagame said he did not yet know whether he would meet with US President Joe Biden during the summit. But asked what he would tell Biden if a one-on-one meeting were arranged, Kagame said: ‘’Africa should not be ignored. Africa should not just be seen as a place with problems.’’
Kagame however acknowledged that both China and the United States jostle to gain influence in Africa, but his and other African nations will seek to avoid "choosing between the United States and China." "We resist being drawn to these big power plays," Kagame said.
He dismissed Western critics who charge China with "debt-trap diplomacy," lending money to countries that it knows cannot repay in order to gain political leverage. "We should blame it on both sides,& quot; Kagame said, noting that both debtor and creditor nations face exposure.
A preliminary investigation by the UN mission in DR Congo found that 131 men, women and children were shot dead or hacked to death late last month as part of reprisals against the civilian population by M23 rebels.
The insurgency is widely believed to be armed and supported by Rwanda, but Kagame and Rwanda government disavowed any link to the group's actions. Rwanda says it is not be responsible for the welfare of the Congolese of Rwandan descent in Congo who are being denied their rights as citizens by successive governments in Congo.
Fighting in the eastern North Kivu region has aggravated already tense relations between DR Congo and Rwanda. Kinshasa expelled the Rwandan ambassador on October 29 this year.
Democratic Republic of Congo President, Felix Tshisekedi , said recently that his country was victim of an "aggression which is hidden, but it's from Rwanda, and this has been destabilizing.
The UN's top representative for the conflict told the Security Council last week the M23 armed group is to blame for a security situation, beginning October 20, that & quot ;has deteriorated dramatically.& quot; A Bintou Keita, a Congolese official told the Eastafrican Watch in a separate interview that, an estimated additional 370,000 people have been uprooted and forced from their homes in the latest round of hostilities involving the M23.
Armed M23 fighters have advanced towards Goma, a city of some one million people that is the headquarters of UN humanitarian operations in eastern DR Congo, she said.
