In Pretoria this week an angry Paul Kagame thundered at the international community for not trying to understand the root causes of the genocide in his country a decade ago, and for failing to respond to new threats by the Hutu perpetrators.
The Rwandan president made particular reference to the United Nations, the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and former colonial power, France.
Kagame was speaking in an exclusive interview with the Mail & Guardian shortly after a meeting with President Thabo Mbeki. The presidents spoke at length about the simmering instability in the Great Lakes region, with Kagame explaining why Rwandan troops were massed on the borders with Burundi and the DRC.
After denying this earlier in the week, Rwandan authorities admitted they had deployed troops to counter a threat from former genocidaires hiding in these countries.
Kagame said they had turned back attacks from these exFar interahamwe elements responsible for the 1994 killing of at least 800 000 Tutsis in just 10 weeks. He warned that he would continue to do this if the UN peacekeepers (Monuc) and the DRC transitional forces did not curb the rebels operating in the DRC.
However, he denied that Rwandan troops had pursued the genocidaires back into the DRC.
Kagame’s Tutsi rebels ended the 1994 genocide by taking over Rwanda. In doing so, they drove the perpetrators into neighbouring countries. Pursuing them, Rwandan forces almost took control of the DRC and contributed to the instability that led to more than three million deaths in that country in five years of civil war.
In 2002 South Africa brokered a fragile and complex peace in the DRC. Key to this was the withdrawal of 30 000 Rwandan troops from that country. Relations between Rwanda and the DRC remain frosty, despite efforts to build a ministerial forum.
Kagame said he did not meet DRC President Joseph Kabila and Burundian leader Domitien Ndayizeye, who were fellow guests at Mbeki’s inauguration.
”We are supposed to have an agreement with the DRC, they are supposed to see to our concerns,” he said. ”But now we have satellite pictures showing the exFar interahamwe receiving arms in the DRC.
”The UN and Monuc are not doing much about this. The transitional government in Kinshasa hasn’t done anything about it. We want to see them do something. If no one does anything we have to deal with the matter ourselves.
”There will be consequences for letting exFar interahamwe attack us. We will defend our country.”
Kagame said there had not been an adequate response from the international community to the commemoration of the genocide.
”We want to establish the root cause of the genocide and [the international community] are part of it.
”They therefore have no good reason to address it. That is the only conclusion we can come to. France is very much at the centre of the problem we currently have.”