Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said that the recent report by the United Nations Group of Experts on DR Congo failed to detail the causes of insecurities in the country’s east, which is home to more than 130 local and foreign armed groups, The New Times, Rwanda’s largest daily newspaper, reported on Tuesday.
In an interview with the national broadcaster aired on Tuesday, Kagame said the report, which accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group and causing insecurity in eastern DR Congo, is similar to previous reports that failed to address the real issues in the Great Lakes Region and suggest possible solutions.
“There are just reports coming up, and when you look at it – and you’ve lived in this region and know what has happened and what is happening – sometimes you wonder what the exercise is all about,” he said.
“Is it really aimed at resolving problems? Do they present facts of the situation to help people to do the right thing to resolve the problems obtaining and move on to other things?” he wondered. “Or are they just aimed at sanitizing the involvement, the names of many perpetrators and really keeping the status quo, so that in the end there is money flowing into the situation and out and people living off it, and countries using it to manage other countries?”
Speaking of thousands of Congolese refugees who have lived in Rwanda for decades and others that recently fled to the country due to persecution and hate speech in DR Congo, Kagame said, “These reports always fall short of addressing even the understanding of this problem, let alone providing possible solutions.”
The UN experts did not visit Rwanda to talk to people who fled from DR Congo.
“They’ve never done that. Why do you think any expert who’s supposed to be taken seriously, and therefore the report they write, would not have done that? It shows something, maybe akin to bias of some sort.”
He said the Group of Experts maintains a narrative that was set close to 30 years ago around the story of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.