12.12.08 Financial Times Transcript: Paul Kagame interview

FT: Do you think Europe has lost its capacity to understand the dynamics at play in this conflict?

PK:
I think European countries have lost the capacity to understand but
that is also linked with their own failures and guilt about being
associated with the causes of all these problems that have evolved.
They are always in it but they want to explain it away, because they
want to maintain the higher ground, because they are the ones that can
bring the solutions. Yet there is always this reminder on the ground
that you are either the cause or closely associated with the problems
we have here for so many years. In grappling with that they really end
up messing up more than even trying to make a good contribution.

But
the way I am talking about this injustice and the whole hopelessness of
it, in the Congo. This CNDP, and this Laurent Nkunda is a product of
injustices and bad governance in the Congo itself. People outside there
think this is a Rwandese from Rwanda, who came across the border…

FT: and that you sent him?

PK:
This is what some of them say…. He has issues and maybe people need to
listen and find where he is wrong and where he is right and address it.
But they dismiss it straight away without even listening to his case.
Another thing that has created him other than what I have just said,
injustices and mismanagement and bad governance in the Congo, is the
Interahamwe (responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda) who are in
the Congo. He is using rightly saying that these people are killing his
own people and they cannot live safely there and that even he himself
and all those fighters cannot live safely in Congo because the
government of Congo of President Joseph Kabila actually uses the
Interahamwe in his forces.

FT:
Was there not an opportunity lost to deal with this issue lost during
the 2006 election, before this cycle of violence restarted?

PK:
Absolutely. I have witnessed this and I have said this. And it was
Kabila who lost the opportunity. You know before the elections and
after we were talking, we were communicating about all these problems
and he was seeking our help. And unfortunately he also used us and I
have told him this. Because it was like “please help me, let me go
through this election.” And he was saying help me because in way we
were linked with the other group, the challenger RCD (Rally of
Congolese Democrats). And we said look we are really interested in
peace in Congo.

FT: So he requested your assistance in security terms during the elections?

PK:
Yes he did, in all ways. And even in a way politically to try and
temper the RCD to work together so they don’t cause problems. We
actually got involved and tried to help. For the very reason that we
understood that stability in the Congo would actually translate
directly into stability for us in the long term. Much as we have been
able to create security in our own country we know in the long term we
need to have a stable environment in the region. And we did that
unreservedly. In the end this guy (Kabila) after being elected, he
changed completely – even the whole discussion, the whole approach and
everything.

He said he actually said he wanted to solve the
problem of Nkunda and others politically. And we agreed along with
everybody, the South Africans and others. And then all of a sudden he
said I want to solve this problem militarily.

I think there is
hypocrisy when they say the rebels have broken the ceasefire. They know
it is the government that has been attacking them. Even when Kabila has
publicly said he is going to resolve the problem militarily. He told
us. He told everybody. Why do I have to go guessing who has started the
fighting?

FT:
There does seem to be evidence of cooperation between Nkunda’s forces
and people in Rwanda for example through recruitment, and we have heard
testimony that active Rwandan soldiers are fighting with him…and the
fact that he is able to use your territory and even senior people in
his movement use Rwanda to meet diplomats and journalists. This all
gives the impression Rwanda reserved its relations with Nkunda in the
aftermath of the elections as a kind of plan b?

PK:
People should not exaggerate things. First of all it is not true that
diplomats have been meeting Nkunda in Rwanda. That’s not true.

FT:
Someone I spoke to directly on the weekend saw his deputy commander
crossing over the border into Rwanda without any trouble.

PK:
That is a different issue. Somebody might have seen him or might not
have seen him. But it is different from saying that somebody came and
met NKunda in Kigali or Rwanda. You can see the story is changing.

FT: But there is a whole pattern of evidence emerging that suggests a relationship between Rwanda and Nkunda.

PK:
The kind of relationship has not been denied. Let me tell you the kind
of relationship: when he keeps being referred to as Tutsi, and
Munyarwanda and so forth, that is true. It is also true he has
relatives. It is a long story. Even say with Uganda. Uganda in the
south western district of Kisoro, they have hundreds of thousands of
their citizens who are of Rwandese background. And people in Rwanda
have relatives across in that part. You find brothers, cousins, aunties
and so forth. By this, it doesn’t make these people in Kisoro less
Ugandan. No. They are as much Ugandan as anybody else.

It
happens with other tribes for example along the border with Kenya. The
Bagisu have the same relationship across in Uganda. That is why you had
people like Moody Awori, in Kenya, vice president in Kenya, and Agry
Awori in Uganda as a minister. They are cousins. They are brothers.

In
the same way, this Nkunda has relatives in Rwanda. We have explained
this to everybody. Some of them are religious people, some are pastors,
others reverends. These are people who have lived in Rwanda and have
lived in Congo conveniently – they keep crossing the border. I have
never said, and I don’t think anyone in Rwanda would say, that there is
no relationship between the people across in the Congo and the people
in Rwanda because this speaks for itself. Now, there could be
collaboration in the sense of money being sent or different things
happening. But there is nothing like for example state support to these
rebels in terms of giving them weapons, in terms of training them and
so on and so forth. We have told people the officials who have come to
see us. At one point we discovered some members of our own army had
actually deserted and we didn’t know where they had gone. They were
across. What did we discover? These very fellows are relatives of these
boys across.

We don’t necessarily sing about this. But we have
told people. I am surprised sometimes when they accuse us when we are
the ones who gave these people this information, when we are the ones
who have voluntarily said “we have a problem.” We have some of our
people who have actually deserted, who are listed as deserters. If they
come back we will arrest them and take them to court.

FT: There are other patterns emerging of financial support that comes through Rwanda as a conduit.

PK: That is possible. But not Rwanda giving them money.

FT: But could you not do more to secure the border. You have a pretty effective army – we have all seen that.

PK:
We could. But let me ask you something else. Why have countries in
Europe failed to tame these genociders in Europe who mobilize money and
send it to genociders in the Congo. The very German country that
arrested Rose Kabuye (President Kagame’s protocole chief), has the
leader of the FDLR (Hutu militias) living there. One time they arrested
him.

FT: And he is someone who was directly implicated in the genocide?

PK:
He was. They are living in Germany, in Brussels, in France, there are
some who were living in London. Thankfully we have been working with
the justice department in London and they have been apprehended. But
they had lived there for years.

It goes back to the same thing.
People bring the whole burden and put it on our shoulders but they
should be cleaning up something about this problem, and they are not
doing it, the bigger part. Doing what you are suggesting is possible.
Even if we may not succeed entirely we may try to do something. But the
first question I am asking myself, is this the problem? Should I even
be bothering myself with stopping money flowing to these people before
anybody even tells me his understanding of what these people are
complaining about as injustices.

FT: So
there needs to be a real political process to get to the root of these
issues? And none of the processes we have seen so far were adequate?

PK:
No. Absolutely. It is very hypocritical. Somebody prefers to accuse
Rwanda that we are not stopping the money going through Rwanda to the
rebels. But the government of Congo, in Europe who harbour these
genociders I am talking about have not made any effort despite that we
have pointed this out for the last ten years. The same people turn
around to say Rwandan territory is being used.

But they haven’t
found me sending money to them, they haven’t found money from
government going to them. It is just these people through their
relations sending money to these people as for example we did in our
struggle. Can it be compared? And we can only do it if we put facts on
the ground clearly. That this group in the Congo for whatever they are
fighting that people need to understand, whether it is a just cause or
not, that has not been identified. But there is what has been
identified that these genociders are living in the Congo benefiting
from government of Congo directly. They are benefiting from people
living in Europe. We have given names, we have given evidence.

FT: But you haven’t published the list,

PK: We have published this since ten years.

FT: Not the list of people in the FDLR who were allegedly implicated directly in the genocide….

PK:
Sometimes people come and we give them names. Then nothing happens.
After two years they come back and they say have you ever given names?
And we go and pull back these same names, and then they go another two
years. It is really ridiculous, honestly.

FT:
Can I go back to the identity and relationships across the borders that
we were talking about? Did you not yourself create the confusion about
this the day in 1996 that you first ordered your troops across the
border, you reinforced the confusion about the national identity of the
Banyarwanda in Eastern Congo.

PK:
I did not cause any confusion. First of all the prejudice was already
there before me even under Mobutu, for a long time. But the reason for
crossing our border was clear – the main one was for our problem with
the Interahamwe that were there. It had nothing to do with the
Congolese per se. And when that was said that was going to happen
that’s when the government of Congo started targeting Banyamulenge. It
would be unfair to put that on our shoulders.

FT: But you would recognize it is a problem now?

PK:
It is a problem now. It has been a problem for a long time. But the way
it is being handled. The way it is being mentioned, by the
international community especially is not helpful. Instead it increases
these prejudices.

FT:
But doesn’t the presence of a very strong fighting force, under Nkunda,
predominately from one ethnic group, does that not enflame ethnic
tensions in the region?

PK:
Yes I believe it can lead to that sure. Probably that it is one of the
things we would address or tell those people we don’t accept because of
where we come from. I know precisely that. I would agree. But that is
beside the other point, that what they are there for needs to be
addressed as well as how they are there and how they exist or what they
portray about themselves.

FT:
You have known president Kabila for a long time, and your chief of army
staff has worked with him, you have a pretty good measure of the man.
Do you think under his leadership it is possible to resolve these
issues.

PK: It is
difficult. Let me share with you our discussion in Nairobi with
regional leaders. I told the leaders who were there, and the UN
secretary general, I told them wait a minute – I said do we really
understand this problem in the same way, because we might be sitting
here looking for a solution to a problem which we look at so
differently. So can we first do a job to get closer together in terms
of understanding this problem. And so I attempted to tell them what I
think is the problem. I told them suppose in a country the first
problem and main problem is actually its leadership. I am saying this
in the presence of President Kabila, in fact I referred to him straight
away, as this man sitting with us. And I went ahead to elaborate and I
said I don’t like this hypocrisy, because you sit here and you are very
angry with these rebels. And I said no, fine, rebels blame them for
what they should be blamed for. There is plenty for which they should
be blamed for. But if you have a government that has either no ideology
or the wrong ideology, the ideology of extremism like the one that
destroyed my country.

FT: Is that really the problem? An ideology of extremism.

PK: It is a combination of all sorts of things.

FT:
If there is no hope under this leadership, then what can be done? Can
the situation be contained with peacekeepers, do you believe Nkunda
could go all the way to Kinshasa?

PK:
That is the question I was posing. The UN went to the Congo supposedly
to deliver a solution and I was asking them first of all do you
understand the problem?

Secondly, if you understand the problem
and you find it needs some hard answers, are you ready to provide these
hard answers? From what I know about you that is not the way you
approach it. Because you have failed to deal with the Interahamwe
problem, and now you say it is difficult to go around now in the bushes
hunting them down. So it seems you are not there to deal with the
issues the hard way they should be dealt with. You are just there
hoping that God can deliver solutions and you build on it.

FT: But you spent five year occupying eastern Congo and you also failed to deal with the problem of the Interahamwe.

PK:
Do you believe that? If I dealt with the problem 80 or 90 percent, then
I have really dealt with it. And probably if it hadn’t been the
international community which said you should get out and played the
card of intimidating us with all sorts of things and promises that they
would deal with the remaining part, maybe by now we would have resolved
it entirely. But of course we were not even the right people to go
there to resolve it. We only did it because there was no alternative,
because we are also conscious that it would in the end create another
problem. Once you are there in another country trying to deal with your
problem there which others have failed to deal with, it tends to give
rise to other problems. But I have no regrets about it. Because I think
we dealt with a substantial part of the problem and anyway there was
nobody else to deal with it, as we have seen and continue to see. There
are absolutely no regrets about it.

Therefore I have no
solution. I have no answer to other people’s problems. I can only
contribute something. But I cannot provide an answer for Congo. And
this is what I was reminding the meeting. I said no. First of all the
international community, and then the government of Congo should bear
the burden of this problem, not us. And even now when they have been
accusing Rwanda of all these things, really it is a way of explaining
away the blame that should be coming to them.

FT:
But isn’t part of the problem your creation. You have created the
impression in many people over the border that your real aim is to
create some Republic of the Volcanoes, that engulfs parts of Eastern
Congo.

PK: I don’t want
to believe people are so naïve that people are preoccupied by that.
Okay, let’s play devil’s advocate. Kagame has created a problem. How
about the other problems we have known that need to be dealt with? I
take the blame for creating problems, fine, hang me if you will. But
how about the problems we are having on our hands for the last 14
years. The Congo, the international community, everybody, $1.2bn spent
by MONUC every year. What is it addressing? Is it really Kagame
creating the problems that makes them fail? I will take the blame if I
have something to be blamed for, but everyone else should too?

FT:
But if there is a problem of leadership in the Congo, could you not
yourself be providing more leadership to address these issues?

PK: I wish I could. But how?

FT: But you can’t give up.

PK: I have not given up. That is why we have been having communication with the government of Kinshasa.

FT: Is that making headway?

PK:
We are trying. But again the problem remains, the solution does not
depend on us. We can only contribute to it. It really depends on the
Congolese themselves and I have no power to influence what the
Congolese do or don’t do.

FT: But do you foresee a situation where you might have to send your troops across the border again?

PK:
I don’t think so. The circumstances are totally different from what
they were ten years ago. We would handle the situation differently by
taking care of our borders unless something of a certain magnitude
happened which I don’t envisage. If there was any forced entry into
Rwanda by the ex-Far because they have been armed or something, we
would beat them and drive them back, no question. But that is not
likely to happen.

FT:
I am trying to imagine what a week like this is like for you. It seems
almost schizophrenic because here you are at an information technology
conference in Geneva, Frankfurt for another business conference a
couple of days ago. You have clearly made efforts to rebuild your
country but you are constantly flipped back into these darker events.

PK:
Yes. That should also help to explain some points that are usually
missed. If you visit Rwanda and you know the background and history and
you find the kind of progress we have made, why would be going to cause
troubles elsewhere. You see I could understand in those old days when
things were still chaotic, people could say these Rwandans wanted
everyone to become like them, to live in chaos. But look at the
developments in our country, doesn’t anybody think that we are doing
that with a view to sustain it. People think we now need peace more
than ever before, to protect our progress, our achievement, our
stability. So why would anyone think the same people doing these things
in their country are the same people creating chaos in the
neighbourhood, unless we are crazy.

FT: You will need to expand commercially beyond your borders…

PK:
But we cannot expand commercially in chaos so even for that reason
alone people should see we are also interested in peace. People should
not underestimate our understanding of that and even our intention to
achieve it if we can contribute. But when you find these and then the
crazy accusations against us they don’t match.

FT: But
if you look at the history of your movement right from its origins in
1979, the RPF created a strong fighting force that has achieved its
aims whenever it has used force. Some people suspect you still have
that ethos.

PK: You still
need to put up things and create some sense out of what we wanted to
achieve from our struggle in our country. What else can we be looking
for in this kind of situation. People must be able to read and
rationalize what they think we are trying to achieve other than
sustaining and continuing with what we are doing in our country. But
the question again, there is an old problem here, and people have
called it a pretext, but why isn’t even what they call a pretext
addressed? Why isn’t the question of Interahamwe addressed? We have
tried everything, until a certain limit that was imposed on us. That
goes to prove our intention and yet we still have a problem there.

FT: In many ways the problem is graver though for the Congolese.

PK: Absolutely. It is. But still we don’t need that problem ourselves.

FT: Have you been fielding a lot of calls from Washington London, Europe in recent weeks about this?

PK:
Not so many but as they come we only realise our situation in Rwanda
has changed but the thinking out there has not. Our thinking has
changed,. We are moving ahead, but they are still where they were 10,
14 years ago. And really it is unfair in many ways first of all to take
the whole load, the Congolese and International community should be
carrying and put it on Rwanda’s shoulders. It is not correct. It is not
just. It doesn’t make sense.

There is running away from the
problem, there are prejudices, the kind of confusion that has
bedevilled the history of that region.

FT:
Presumably you know Laurent Nkunda. Do you think with the right process
there can be a political solution, he can be brought on board?

PK:
People should not be obsessed with the name Laurent Nkunda. They should
probably look at what he stands for. In fact I was telling the
Congolese, I said, suppose Nkunda died a natural death or was killed in
battle. Do you think you will have killed the problem? I don’t think
so. You would still have the problem.

FT: One of the things that the Congolese need most is a strong army that conforms to certain regulations.

PK:
There are two things. If they could have a strong army that would help
them deal with some of these groups. Some defence and security
capabilities. That is one. But they should also have a political system
that works. For the governance of the country. They need to have both
ideally but at least they should have one! To lack both is terrible.