Africa-Press – Rwanda. President Paul Kagame has reiterated Rwanda’s commitment to self-reliance and national sovereignty, noting that the country cannot depend on the shifting interests of external powers.
Speaking to senior editors and international correspondents during a media interaction marking the 31st anniversary of Rwanda’s Liberation, Kagame addressed the country’s progress in building independence and resilience.
“For Rwanda, I can account for everything that you ask me. What I can’t account for is what others have been doing,” the Head of State said, responding to a question on how close the country has come to achieving the kind of self reliance it envisioned in the past.
“Rwanda has constantly been changing. But those powerful countries, and how they see us, or other African countries, has really not changed. It’s the same story. They still don’t care. Not only don’t they care, but they actually want to stop us from caring for ourselves. That’s the biggest problem.”
Kagame pointed to the situation, early this year, just before the AFC/M23 rebels captured swathes of territory in eastern DR Congo, including the biggest cities of Goma and Bukavu, and the huge numbers of armaments and fighters the Congolese government coalition had assembled to overrun Rwanda, to paint a clear picture of what he was saying.
“Just before the fall of Goma, Bukavu and other parts, what had been assembled by government and those they call their allies…even in terms of mobilising the support of other countries to support that, you would not believe it! What happened, happened, and, you saw it. It was Rwanda saying ‘it won’t happen here again.’”
‘An act of survival’
In January, residents of Rubavu District who braved days of shelling from the neighboring DR Congo told The New Times that the shelling on Rwandan territory by the Congolese army coalition would have claimed more lives than it did had it not been for the resolve of the country’s security organs to shield the population.
In the days leading up to the seizure of Goma by the AFC/M23 rebels, the DR Congo-backed genocidal FDLR militia – a UN and US-sanctioned terror group founded by remnants of the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda – had moved dangerously too close to the Rwandan border and, together with their allies, were shelling into Rwanda.
The RDF repelled their advance.
Kagame said: “That doesn’t just come anyhow. You have to have made progress on many fronts to be able to stand for yourself and respond to all the things that are brought your way to destroy you. I think that story may speak for itself, for many years.
“If we hadn’t been building the unity of purpose, the strength to preserve ourselves and live, Rwanda would be living on the whims of others.”
“This Rwanda cannot live on the whims of others. No! It happened once [during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi]. It will not happen again. Once was too many times. For the second one, someone else will pay for it. They will be the ones to go! They will be the ones to perish. Not Rwanda, again. I have repeated this. It is not bragging. It is an act of survival.
“We don’t owe our living to anyone. Never, will it happen again.”
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