Membe: Kikwete won’t apologise to Rwanda
By Samuel Kamndaya
The Citizen Reporter
The Citizen Reporter
IN SUMMARY
The proposal was made in good
faith, Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister Bernard Membe
told Parliament yesterday.
She urged President Kikwete to
retract his comments. She told RFI that she did not expect President Kikwete to
suggest that Rwanda
negotiate with “known terrorists” since he had served as a Foreign Affairs
minister and knows the FDLR background.
She added that Mr Kikwete could
be just another sympathiser for the group whose ideology is still being fought
in Rwanda and
worldwide. The chairman of Rwanda ’s
Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Gideon Kayinamura, is also on
record as having categorically stated that suggesting negotiations with the
FDLR militias was a big insult to Rwandans.
Rwandans living in the US
have also petitioned President Barack Obama not to listen to such positions and
continue with support to Rwanda
and the region to bring FDLR criminals to justice.
The US
government has already reinstated a $5 million prize on the FDLR rebel leaders,
like Sylvestre Mudacumura and labelled the group as a terrorist movement in the
region.
But winding up the debate for his
ministry’s budget in the National Assembly yesterday, Mr Membe said Mr Kikwete
had no ill-intention in the proposal he made during the 21st African Union
Summit on May 26.
According to him, it was high
time Rwanda
considered the fact that peace was made with enemies and that negotiations
could only be made with enemies and not friends.
Mr Membe also told the National
Assembly that the government would consider taking to DRC eight journalists to
cover the country’s peacekeeper forces in the Eastern side of the country.
“Our forces in DRC are doing a
wonderful job and have been received with jubilation and we hope they will keep
the spirit alive by demonstrating our values and hospitality,” he said.
Mr Membe, however, noted that
there was propaganda aimed at mudslinging Tanzanian forces and thus plans were
underway to send reporters under army guidance to report their activities.
“We will soon send eight
reporters to DRC where they will document activities by our forces which are
already there of peace restoration in the eastern part of the country,” he
said.
A total of 1,283 soldiers will be
sent to Congo
from Tanzania
to form the UN Force Intervention Brigade made up of 3,069 soldiers.
posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 10:03 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home