PRESS RELEASE NO. 2/2001

STATEMENT ON THE SITUATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

The people of Rwanda has been shocked and saddened by the assassination of President Laurent-Desire Kabila. In recent years, we have witnessed frequent violent changes of power through assassinations, military coups or civil wars in the African Great Lakes region. On October 1993, the democratically-elected Burundian leader, His Excellency Mr. Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated in a military coup. On April 6, 1994, the Rwandan leader, Major-General Juvenal Habyarimana, and his Burundian counterpart, His Excellency Mr. Cyprien Ntaryamira, were killed in Kigali when their plane was shot down. Their assassins are still free and enjoy complete impunity. This sad trend must be reversed. On behalf of the oppressed people of Rwanda struggling for democracy, liberty and justice, the Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda (RDR) condemns the barbaric assassination of President Kabila and extends its condolences to his family, to the government and people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C.).

Foreign invasion under the disguise of an internal rebellion has been the most favoured tactic of the Ugandan army for the installation of friendly or puppet governments in neighbouring countries. On October 1, 1990, the Ugandan army invaded Rwanda under the disguise of an internal rebellion by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). That invasion has not been condemned by the international community. That invasion triggered tensions inside Rwanda which developed into widespread massacres in the 1994’s Rwandan genocide. The Ugandan-backed RPF finally took control of Rwanda in July 1994 after committing numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity which are still unpunished.

In August 1996, the Rwandan and Ugandan armies invaded the ex-Zaïre, now D.R.C., under the disguise of an internal rebellion «Alliance des Forces Démocratiques de Libération (AFDL)» headed by Laurent Desire Kabila. The Rwandan government‘s army, the Patriotic Army (RPA), destroyed Rwandan Hutu refugees’ camps in Eastern Congo and systematically massacred more than 200,000 Hutu refugees and committed other numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity which are still unpunished. When Kabila took power in Kinshasa in May 1997, he appointed the Rwandan Colonel James Kabarebe, then Chief of the RPA’s operations in DRC and now Brigadier-General and Deputy Chief of Staff of the RPA, as Chief of Staff of the new Congolese army. Over a year, the Rwandan army militarily controlled the DRC and applied on the Congolese civilians all the panoply of barbaric methods of torture, terror, ill treatment and massacres.

The second war erupted in D.R.C. in August 1998 when President Kabila decided to repatriate back home Rwandan military advisers. Rwandan officers and soldiers refused then to leave Congo when ordered to do so. Rwanda and Uganda suddenly invaded Congo under the disguise of a new internal rebellion, the «Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD)». The Rwandan Colonel James Kabarebe hijacked planes he used to airlift troops from Goma to Lower-Congo in order to take Kinshasa. Endowed with abundant natural resources (diamonds, gold, copper, silver, cadmium, zinc, timber, tantalum, niobium, ivory, coffee beans, etc. ) but having a weak army, the Rwandan and Ugandan armies considered and continue to consider Congo as their Ali Baba’s cave. The objective of taking Kinshasa failed with the intervention of the Angolan, Zimbabwean and Namibian armies on the Kabila’s side. Defeated Rwandan and Ugandan troops retreated then in Eastern Congo and try to justify their illegal occupation by false reason: «the prevention of the genocide of Tutsis». In reality, their presence in Congo is mainly motivated by greed. By looting Congolese natural resources and selling drugs and stolen goods, high-ranking Rwandan and Ugandan officials get rich quickly than they would be with their meagre official salaries. International businessmen motivated by profits from sales of arms and purchases of Congolese minerals at cheap prices actively finance the military adventures of the invading forces while their governments exert no effective pressure on them. Greed for riches had split the RCD into factions, led to the creation of another surrogate force backed by Uganda, the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (M.L.C.) headed by Jean-Pierre Bemba, and to two confrontations last year between the Rwandan and Ugandan armies in Kisangani.

The continuing existence of brutal dictatorships in Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi is the most important cause of war in the DRC. Internally, each dictatorial regime is at war against its people; this creates frequent flows of refugees. To resolve the central African crisis needs a global approach. The RDC cannot reach long-lasting peace without a solution to the political problem in Rwanda. Historical evidence shows that two democracies almost never go to war with each other. The RDR believes that a solution to the conflicts in the African Great Lakes region lies in good governance underpinned by democracy, genuine reconciliation, rule of law, end of impunity and economic development. We ask the United Nations, the European Union and the OAU to convene an international conference on durable peace and security in the African Great Lakes region to which genuine representatives of all important stakeholders would be invited. We ask the Bretton Woods’ institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund) and all western donors to condition their financial aids to each country in this region on concrete steps taken on the road to political freedom, and not only on economic freedom. This will play an important role for long-lasting peace and create conditions for economic growth and development in the African Great Lakes region.

Done in Montreal on 21 January 2001

For the RDR

Emmanuel Nyemera, Ph.D.

Vice-President