Rwanda, 1998

On behalf of the people of Rwanda and on my own behalf,

allow me to convey sincere and heartfelt congratulations to

you on your outstanding election as President of the

General Assembly at its fifty-third session. This election

reflects the unanimous recognition by States of our

Organization of your country, Uruguay. A well-deserved

tribute is likewise extended to your distinguished

predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko,

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, who demonstrated

dedication, skill and open-mindedness at the last session.

Heartfelt fraternal thanks go to the Secretary-General,

Mr. Kofi Annan, for his skill, performance and far-

sightedness. This fifty-third session of the General

Assembly is the second in his term of office. The

Government and the people of Rwanda are grateful to the

Secretary-General for the working visit he made to Rwanda

in May 1998. That historic visit made it possible for him to

take stock of the results of the genocide committed in

Rwanda in 1994, and we thank him for his words of

encouragement to the Government and the people of

Rwanda for efforts made in the process of rebuilding the

country.

Each time we have had an opportunity to do so, the

Government of Rwanda has supported the proposals of the

Secretary-General with regard to the essential reforms of

our Organization and deemed that the same proposals for

reform were likewise valid for the reform of the Security

Council. We are prepared to continue our contribution to

and support for the collective efforts to bring about more

democratization in the Security Council at the dawn of the

third millennium.

The existence of the specialized agencies within the

United Nations has made this institution an instrument of

development, particularly in the economic, social, political

and cultural fields, and in many other areas. The

Government of Rwanda supports the existence of the

specialized agencies of the United Nations. The United

Nations reform under way should take them into account in

order to better structure them to be more operational.

Since the 1960s, the Democratic Republic of the

Congo has constantly been a source of concern to the

United Nations and the international community. One

United Nations Secretary-General even lost his life there in

the search for a solution to the problems of that country.

Today, more than in the past, this country, Congo —

which has since become the Democratic Republic of the

Congo — is experiencing the darkest times in its history,

because genocide is being committed there on the orders

of the highest authorities of that country.

Since 2 August 1998, Rwanda, like everyone, has

been witnessing a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of

the Congo against the Government and President Kabila.

Since then, the Government of Rwanda has consistently

pointed out that that crisis is purely internal and that Mr.

Kabila had definitely been facing a highly structured

rebellion. The commission of the Ministers for Foreign

Affairs of the Southern African Development Community

(SADC), composed of the four member countries

Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Namibia and Zambia, acknowledged

in its report to SADC, following its fact-finding mission,

that a rebellion exists against Mr. Kabila in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo. President Kabila

himself implicitly recognized the existence of this

rebellion when he published a long list of Congolese

authorities that he banished by withdrawing their

Congolese passports and issuing international arrest

warrants against them. These Congolese were banished by

President Kabila because they are leading the Congolese

rebellion against him. Mr. Kabila’s implicit recognition of

this rebellion was also shown when he arrested and

imprisoned six journalists from the Kinshasa news agency

“La Voix du Peuple” because he suspected them of

supporting the Congolese rebellion.

The position of Rwanda is to join its mediation

efforts with those of the international community to find

a solution to the Congolese crisis through negotiations

between the Congolese rebels and the Government of

President Kabila. Unfortunately, these efforts of the

Government of Rwanda have collided with the obstinacy

of President Kabila, who believes that the solution to this

inter-Congolese conflict is to persecute and massacre the

Banyamulenge, the Tutsi and the Rwandese living in

Congo, as well as Congolese who refuse to support his

grim designs.

In this respect, Rwanda, like other observers near

and far, is concerned at the increase in human rights

violations committed by the Government of President

Kabila, which is inciting the people to genocide,

massacres and racial and ethnic hatred. The Government

of Rwanda believes that the United Nations must

condemn the genocide as well as human rights violations

being committed in the Democratic Republic of the

4

Congo and take the necessary steps against the Government

of President Kabila.

This genocide and these human rights violations are

characterized by summary executions, incitement to hatred

by President Kabila and members of his Government,

massive arrests, arbitrary detentions and forced

disappearances. With regard to summary executions and

incitement to hatred taking place in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, the following facts are illustrative.

The present genocide and the massacres in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo are similar to those that occurred in

Rwanda in 1994 when the Radio Télévision Libre de Mille

Collines (RTLM) was inciting people to hunt down Tutsis

and their Hutu accomplices, as they were called by the

radio station at the time.

During the Victoria Falls Summit, which took place on

7 and 8 August 1998, President Kabila declared that those

who committed genocide in Rwanda were right and were

worthy of support then and now. This is tangible evidence

of recruitment by President Kabila of Interahamwe militias

and former members of the armed forces of Rwanda who

committed genocide in Rwanda and took refuge in Congo

Brazzaville, a fact recently denounced by the High

Commissioner for Refugees.

At that same Victoria Falls Summit, President Kabila

implied that Rwanda was seeking to establish a Hima

empire in the Great Lakes region. In that regard, my

Government believes that that statement by President Kabila

shows his racist leanings and theories, similar to those

spread during the 1980s by the late President Habyarimana

and his ilk, who invented this pseudo-empire to stifle the

claims of Rwandese refugees who had been in exile for

more than 30 years and who were beginning to vociferously

reclaim their inalienable rights to unconditional return to

their motherland.

These, then, are the racist theories cunningly invented

and orchestrated by the former President of Rwanda,

Mr. Habyarimana, and his regime in order to demonize the

Tutsi. Now, unfortunately, Mr. Kabila is making use of

them once more to demonize not only the Tutsi but the

whole of Rwanda and all its people. In that context, the

Government of Rwanda requests the international

community to put an end to these groundless racist theories

and this campaign to demonize Rwanda and its people.

President Kabila and his close collaborators are

inciting the Congolese people to acts of mindless violence

against any person suspected of being a rebel, any person

of Tutsi origin and any person who, according to them, is

in league, directly or indirectly, with the rebellion.

The governmental authorities of Kinshasa are calling

upon the people, through the official media, “to treat the

enemy like a virus, a mosquito, a piece of garbage that

must be crushed with determination and without mercy”.

The Congolese Minister of Justice, who after all is

supposed to be safeguarding everyone’s human rights, has

said, “These Rwandans, these Tutsis, they are insects,

microbes that must be methodically eradicated.”

In support of the words of President Kabila, who

said he would export war to Rwanda, the Congolese

Minister of Health, Dr. Jean-Baptiste Nsonji, stated, “The

Rwandans will become like snakes whose head and tail

have been cut off, unable to move, unable to escape.”

In response to these incitements to hatred and

violence spread by President Kabila and the Congolese

Minister of Information, Mr. Didier Mumengi, the

Minister of Health, Dr. Jean-Baptiste Nsonji, and the

Director of President Kabila’s cabinet, Mr. Yerodia

Abdoulaye, the population has begun to attack persons

suspected of being in league with the rebels. People have

been burnt alive because they were caught with red mud

on their shoes — red being the colour of the mud in the

region of the lower part of the Democratic Republic of

the Congo, at that time occupied by rebels.

The Government’s soldiers have fired point blank at

other suspects whose bodies were abandoned in the

streets. Several mentally ill people were summarily

executed because of a rumour, spread by Kabila’s

Government, that the rebels had disguised themselves as

madmen in order to pass unnoticed. On 27 August 1998,

a mentally ill person living at the corner of Kasai and

Usoke streets in the town of Barumbu was riddled with

bullets in the central market of Kinshasa. An unidentified

person was summarily shot down because he was caught

speaking on a cellular phone. Another person was

executed purely and simply because he was speaking

English.

President Kabila’s governmental troops are using all

possible means to wipe out the evidence of the atrocities

they commit. Several witnesses, including some

fishermen, agree that they saw human bodies carried on

the waters of the Congo river. Other persons suspected of

being rebels have been buried alive in Kitambo and

Masina.

5

The mass arrests, arbitrary detentions and forced

disappearances in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

have been denounced in particular by an African human

rights association (ASADHO) that works in Kinshasa. The

association denounced these arrests and disappearances on

10 August and 3 September 1998, and the following facts

were stated by this Congolese human rights association:

“Several individuals of Tutsi origin were arrested and

arbitrarily detained in the Kokola and Tshatshi camps

and in various jails belonging to the information

service and in the Kin-Mazière jail in Kinshasa-

Gombe; more than 500 soldiers from the former

Zairian armed forces were arrested, and some are still

missing to this day.

“Other Congolese who are married to Tutsis, friends

of Tutsis or who look like Tutsis have been arrested

in connection with this inter-Congolese conflict. Some

persons have been removed from their homes, their

hotel rooms and even from the premises of the United

Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in

Kinshasa, as a result of curfews and various manhunt

operations decreed by the Kabila Government.”

All these facts are cited from that Congolese human rights

association.

The Rwandan Government believes, once again, that

the solution to this inter-Congolese conflict lies in political

negotiations between the Kabila Government and the rebels,

for the following reasons.

First, the Congolese must resolve among themselves,

once and for all, the question of nationality and citizenship,

though this is not negotiable. Normally, a question of

nationality or citizenship is not up for negotiation, but we

believe that this problem has to be resolved among the

Congolese. Indeed, we wonder why President Kabila’s

former ministers, such as the Minister for Foreign Affairs,

Mr. Karaha, and the Minister of State to the Presidency of

the Republic, Mr. Bugera, and many other Congolese

citizens from the eastern part of the country have been

banished from their homes and from Congolese territory. It

is Rwanda’s view that we cannot eternally have stateless

people on our borders, especially the eastern border of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Secondly, this inter-Congolese conflict has

repercussions for the security of the neighbouring countries,

particularly Rwanda, given that Kabila’s forces are a

combination of all the criminal elements of the countries of

the region. Security in the north of Rwanda is constantly

menaced by elements of the former Rwandan Armed

Forces and the Interahamwe soldiers who committed the

genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and who still use Congolese

territory as a rear base in order to reprise their gruesome

crimes. The security of neighbouring countries must be a

constant source of concern to the Government and the

people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The

Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

must be constantly mindful of the fact that each time the

forces of evil seek to sow insecurity in a neighbouring

country, the country of origin of these destabilizing forces

forfeits its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Thirdly, the Congolese army should be national, not

a Katangese militia composed of followers of President

Kabila; the Congolese of the eastern part of the country,

the Banyamulengue, the Congolese of Masisi, those of

Jomba and those of Rutshuru and other eastern locales, as

well as other regions of the country, should also be part

of it.

Fourthly, the inter-Congolese conflict will be

resolved by good governance and good leadership that

does not incite people to commit genocide and massacre

of part of the population that it is supposed to protect.

The political negotiations between the Kabila Government

and the rebels must encourage the emergence of this kind

of leadership, which the Democratic Republic of the

Congo so urgently needs.

Fifthly, the philosophy of genocide and the culture

of murder that President Kabila is cultivating in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the assistance of

former elements of the Rwandan Armed Forces and the

Interahamwe soldiers that committed the genocide in

Rwanda, as well as terrorists in the pay of either country,

must be quickly eradicated from the Congolese population

by a new, enlightened leadership devoted to the national

cause, the cause of all Congolese without exception.

We have spoken at some length on the problems of

the Great Lakes region, and particularly those of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo; this is necessary in

view of my Government’s great esteem, respect and

consideration for the fraternal people of the Congo. That

is why my Government shouldered its responsibility and

did its neighbourly duty to the Congolese people, inter

alia by demonstrating solidarity with the fraternal people

of Congo in helping it rid itself of the 32-year

dictatorship of the former President Mobutu, who had

bankrupted the country.

6

In its efforts to find a solution to the present crisis in

the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Government of

Rwanda supports political negotiations leading to the

emergence of a leadership worthy to guide the Democratic

Republic of the Congo to a future other than that of

genocide — which, unfortunately, is the situation under the

regime of President Kabila.

But although President Kabila and his cronies have

brought disappointment and despair to the Congolese people

by sowing ethnic hatred in their country, Rwanda — which

had the misfortune to be the victim of the 1994

genocide — has the right to denounce the crime against

humanity that is now being perpetrated in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, in order to prevent it from being

exported to Rwanda, as appears to be on President Kabila’s

political and military agenda.

We hope that the United Nations will speedily

condemn the genocide being perpetrated in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo and will take the necessary steps to

halt it before it is too late. Copies of the Dallaire fax on the

genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are

without question to be found here in New York, at the

United Nations Office at Geneva, at the European Union

headquarters in Brussels and in every Western capital. In

the light of the existence of the Dallaire fax, no one can

claim not to have been informed in time to condemn

President Kabila’s acts of genocide and those of the

Interahamwe militia and the elements of the former

Rwandan Armed Forces, who planned and carried out the

genocide in Rwanda more than four years ago.

At the very beginning of the crisis, the Congolese

Minister of the Interior, Mr. Gaëtan Kakudji, quietly

approached the Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the High

Commissioner for Human Rights and told them that unless

they quickly organized the evacuation of all those who had

been arrested, those people would be killed. We wonder

what the United Nations did in response to that alarm

sounded by a Congolese official, none other than the

Minister of the Interior, who has now dissociated himself

from President Kabila’s acts of genocide by abandoning his

ministerial post and fleeing his country for Europe,

according to information in the media. The defection of the

Congolese Minister of the Interior, who is a cousin of

President Kabila, may be food for thought, and perhaps for

inspiration, for President Kabila’s new allies. Will they

continue to support a genocidal regime that has come to be

abhorred by its own people?

The Governor of Shaba-Katanga province also made

a discreet appeal to the United Nations and, thus, to the

international community; he revealed that he had official

orders to massacre all Congolese Tutsis, anyone of

Rwandese origin, and any Congolese who resisted this

grim plan. How did the United Nations respond to that

appeal from the Governor of Shaba-Katanga province?

Many people are wondering whether or not Rwanda

has a presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

They have, indeed, made this an overriding issue. The

problem of the situation in the Democratic Republic of

the Congo and of attempts to resolve it is not to find out

who is and who is not in the Congo; it is to try to

understand why. Why is a given actor present in the

Congo? What are the real reasons for such a presence

there, and why is another actor not present or even trying

to be there? Why is genocide being committed in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo on the orders of the

highest authorities, including President Kabila himself?

What is the meaning of the presence in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo of the combined genocidal forces

that came from Rwanda in 1994 — the Interahamwe

militia, elements of the former Rwandan Armed Forces,

elements of the ex-forces of the former Ugandan dictator

Idi Amin Dada, terrorists in the pay of one country or

another, and other trouble-makers? Around whom and

against whom are these fascist forces uniting in the

territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Will the United Nations and the entire international

community wait for genocide to be committed in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo before they dispatch

a commission of enquiry after the event? Could not the

International Criminal Court — whose recent

establishment through the adoption of a suitable statute

we welcome — quickly take up this matter and arrest the

leader and his henchmen who are now engaged in murder

in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Those are the real questions that in our humble view

should be asked about the present crisis in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo — a crisis to which a purely

political solution has to be found through political

negotiations between the Government of President Kabila

and the Congolese rebels.