By \\DW
Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
President Felix Tshisekedi was in Germany to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He spoke with DW exclusively about the ongoing Congo-Rwanda standoff, his country’s first female prime minister and German infrastructure.
During the interview President Tshisekedi was asked questions about Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame. He is an excerpt of his answers.
Today in Eastern Congo, we are witnessing the insurgency of the M23 movement, which according to multiple statements by your government is supported by Rwanda. Do you plan to meet Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in the days to come?
It’s not just our government that has said so, but there are UN reports that attest to it and today, no one is hiding from it, apart from Kagame himself. And what’s more, I wonder if he himself doesn’t recognize it. So, it’s clear. We’re being attacked by Rwanda, which is disguising this aggression by means of M23, making it look like they are Congolese making demands, when it’s not true. It’s a pretext, a reason to attack and plunder the DRC, and of course, to try to mask all this with fallacious pretexts…
Does that mean you’re still prepared, as agreed, to meet Paul Kagame?
I’ve always said I’d never meet the M23 because, as I said, it’s an empty shell fabricated to justify the aggression against my country, the DRC. But the real aggressor is Paul Kagame. And I want to meet him, not to beg him or to negotiate anything with him. It’s to ask him and tell him clearly, eye to eye, that he’s a criminal, that enough is enough now that his little game is known to everyone.
It’s enough what he’s done to my country and my people, and it’s time for him to leave the territory, the soil of my country. That’s what I want to get from him. But we have to say it to his face because when you communicate through the press, sometimes it may not have the same effect…READ MORE
