Global Policy Forum

By Barbara Crossette

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda accused the government of Congo today of failing to carry out its commitments to end a long regional war, and said the Congolese and their Zimbabwean allies are continuing to arm former Rwandan soldiers involved in mass killings in 1994.

Mr. Kagame, speaking in an interview while in New York to attend a General Assembly special session on AIDS, drew a much more dismal picture of the Congolese situation than did a delegation of Security Council members who toured the region last month. He indicated that Rwanda would go no further in withdrawing troops or ending support for Congolese rebels who also hold territory until the other side made significant moves.

After their trip, the Council delegates said that on the whole they were impressed with the cooperative spirit they sensed from Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, the son of Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated in January.

Mr. Kagame said today that the Security Council was grasping at straws. "For a desperate world that had been looking for a solution to the problems of the Congo without having to sweat for it, it was very easy for them to move forward and agree with him," Mr. Kagame said of the younger Mr. Kabila.

Before the Security Council delegation left the region, Rwanda was attacked by armed groups from Congo. Only days earlier, Mr. Kabila had told the visiting delegation that he would cut off aid to the Rwandan exile militia known as Interahamwe and former Rwandan soldiers known collectively as the Armed Forces of Rwanda (or by the French acronym Ex-FAR.)

A diplomat on that Security Council mission said today that the attacks may well have resulted from a sense among the exiles that they were losing their bases in Congo. The Council members said they had told Mr. Kabila that he had to go further and actually disarm the Rwandans, as they are pledged to do under a peace agreement signed in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1999.

Mr. Kagame said the Security Council was losing its impartiality in the eyes of Rwandans by not acting against Congo. He repeated his contention that Tutsi-led Rwandan troops are now in Congo only because their old enemies are still operating freely from there.

"It's one thing for governments, for countries, for members of the Security Council to say they have no forces to deploy to Rwanda to disarm these groups," Mr. Kagame said. "That's O.K. I have no problem with that. But it's another thing for the Security Council to continue to observe the government of Kabila and his allies continuing to supply arms and giving support to Ex-FAR and Interahamwe.

"Surely they can do something about this," he continued. "Why can't they use their own authority to say, `We can't accept that.' What does it cost them to raise their voice and threaten action. Surely this is something that is within their reach, without spending much in terms of money or even lives."

Mr. Kagame said it was coincidental that attacks on Rwanda resumed while the Security Council delegation was in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. The attacks had long been planned, he added, saying prisoners captured in recent weeks had confirmed this, and had also told the Rwandans they still had support from the Congo government in Kinshasa.

"The groups that carried out the attacks were taking advantage of the cease-fire," he said. "Some of their leaders still live in Kinshasa."