Rwandan President Paul Kagame has firmly stated that Rwanda will not take responsibility for the ongoing crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), arguing that the conflict was started by the DRC and unfairly placed on Rwanda’s shoulders.
Speaking during the East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) Joint Summit in Tanzania, Kagame criticized the repeated diplomatic efforts that have yielded no tangible solutions. He insisted that Rwanda will not remain silent while facing security threats originating from the conflict in its neighboring country.
“This war was started by the DRC and not Rwanda. It was just brought and put on our shoulders, and we were told to own it. We can’t own it,” Kagame said, rejecting the notion that Rwanda is fueling instability in the region.
His remarks come amid renewed tensions as the M23 rebel group, which has been linked to Rwanda by some international observers, recently took control of Goma, a key city in eastern DRC. The Congolese government has long accused Rwanda of backing the rebels, an allegation Kigali has consistently denied.
Kagame emphasized that Rwanda has made numerous attempts to engage DRC in dialogue and find solutions, but those efforts have gone unheard. He warned that Rwanda would not allow its security concerns to be ignored while being blamed for a war it did not start.
“DRC cannot just tell us to keep quiet when they are mounting a security problem against our country. Nobody can tell us to shut up. We have been begging DRC and its leaders for a long time, we have shared our issues and asked DRC to address them, and they have refused,” he stated.
The Rwandan president urged the leaders gathered at the summit to take the crisis seriously and work toward concrete solutions instead of holding discussions that lead to no action. He identified the root cause of the conflict as ethnic tensions, which have historically affected both Rwanda and the DRC.
“Let us not just have another meeting like the many we have had. We can’t go on forever massaging problems. What is happening is an ethnic war that has been brewing for a long time, denying people’s rights and then attacking Rwanda,” Kagame added.
The summit comes at a critical time as tensions between Rwanda and the DRC threaten to escalate further, with the M23 rebel occupation of Goma adding new urgency to diplomatic efforts.
