DRC: the Rwandan ambassador returns to the controversy triggered by his remarks
A road winding the side of a hill in South Kivu.
Monusco / Force
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Vincent Karega speaks about the controversy he is at the origin of in the DRC.
Several movements and personalities from Congolese civil society and opposition have been calling for his resignation for weeks, following a tweet deemed denial about the massacre in Kasika, a village in South Kivu, in 1998.
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This controversy
has highlighted the pressing need for justice expressed by the Congolese over the numerous crimes committed by various actors in the country, especially in the East, since the mid-1990s. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Mukwege, calls for the creation of an international judicial structure to try these crimes.
For his part, Vincent Karega does not wish to return to the content of his tweet, but on the subject of justice.
On cooperation from Rwanda, the ambassador assures us that the question is not topical: "
The structure does not exist, we do not know it, we do not know what it is about, so why explain to the non-existent,
replies the Ambassador to
Florence Morice
of the Africa service
.
If there is a platform in which we must cooperate with the DRC, it is bilateral, it is the regional and the United Nations, it is not all social media, the opinions of a Nobel Prize or of a civil society with which we deal.
"
Regarding the question of Rwanda's role in the crimes committed in eastern DRC, the ambassador replied: “
Where does it arise
?
What is the structure that asks the question and what exactly is it
?
"
He ended by recalling that Rwanda had already responded to
the 2010 UN report
on the issue.
“
Rwanda already responded to the
Mapping Report
a long time ago,
ten years ago.
If the United Nations comes back to us with
1,000 more questions, if they are worth the trouble, Rwanda will answer or may decide not to
[answer]
according to our interests or our own problems.
"
►Also read: Report - DRC: 22 years after the massacre, return to Kasika where the wounds of the mass graves remain alive
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Reportage
DRC: 22 years after the massacre, return to Kasika where the wounds of the mass graves remain alive
DRC: controversy after a tweet from the Rwandan ambassador on the Kasika massacre