Friday, September 27, 2013

Kikwete, Kagame attend UN meeting on Great Lakes peace




 
By The Citizen Reporter
In Summary
  • Rwanda has been fighting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDRL) that it accuses of being responsible for the 1994 Genocide.

New York. President Jakaya Kikwete and his Rwandan counterpart attended a UN-organised conference on finding lasting peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Regional Oversight Mechanism of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the region meeting sought to review developments in the implementation of the Great Lakes peace accord.

The two leaders, who recently fell out over Rwandan and Ugandan rebels operating from the DRC, were also joined by other leaders from the region including President Joseph Kabila and Yoweri Museveni of the DRC and Uganda respectively.

Tanzania and Rwanda fell-out in May after President Kikwete advised during the first UN Conference on Great Lakes region in Addis Ababa that the latter along with Uganda should negotiate with rebel groups fighting the two countries from the DRC.

Rwanda has been fighting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDRL) that it accuses of being responsible for the 1994 Genocide.

President Kagame has vowed never to negotiate with the FDRL rebels, and he, therefore, never took kindly President Kikwete’s suggestion. In his speech, on Monday in New York, President Kikwete mobilised fellow leaders to do whatever it takes to make sure peace returns to DRC because it was the “right of the Congolese to live in peace, the right to live without wars.”
“It is imperative that every nation fulfils what we committed ourselves to do to end the Congo crisis. Congolese have suffered for so long. It is time the war ended so that our fellow human beings could start living in peace,” President Kikwete told the second UN Conference on the Congo crisis officiated by UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon and attended by the chairperson of the Southern African Development Corporation (Sadc) and Malawian President Joyce Banda.

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