AU Chairman, President Kagame to take Congo’s issue at heart

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00:00 I was going to take issue with being asked the question about Congo,

00:09 because I'm asked many times about Congo.

00:12 But this time I won't take issue because I answered it as the chairman of the African Union.

00:19 Yes.

00:20 Otherwise...

00:21 As Rwanda, as African Union, that's great.

00:24 So everybody knows here, this is African Union position.

00:29 Otherwise, I think it has been unfair many times for people to ask us about Congo as Rwanda,

00:38 or as the president of Rwanda.

00:40 So this helps me.

00:41 One, for those who may blame Rwanda for what has happened in Congo over the years,

00:52 well, I don't have any objection to people having their opinion,

01:00 but Rwanda got involved with Congo for sure because of a reason.

01:10 In fact, Congo came to Rwanda first, before Rwanda went to Congo.

01:16 When Mobutu, then president of Zaire, intervened in our country in 1990

01:27 in support of Javier Arima, the president of the country.

01:31 So it is Congo which came here first, before we went there,

01:38 and because of our people had gone there, who were still crossing the border, coming back.

01:47 They had committed genocide here, they crossed to Congo, they got support of Congo,

01:52 then they were coming back and turning to...

01:56 So that's what really created the dynamic in which we got involved.

02:02 So I think the rest about Zaire and Mobutu is history,

02:08 but we can now come to this particular problem.

02:13 Even if you say president Rola Kabira, who was there before,

02:20 the president, one with his son and so on, that we got involved.

02:26 We got involved with him in support of a situation that would help us deal with the problem

02:34 that was originating from Congo at that time, as I have just explained.

02:39 So that's how we got involved.

02:41 But having said that, many months or years that followed,

02:46 we got involved, it was over the same problem.

02:49 But I think that ended long ago.

02:54 Which means Congo was left to its own people, its leaders,

03:01 to sort out whatever problems they had.

03:03 So you talked about Congo being poor, infrastructure lacking, this and that.

03:10 Of course, one thing you did not mention is the worth of the country itself.

03:18 The worth for such a huge, wealthy country to be so poor

03:27 is characteristic of a problem relating to Africa

03:34 and how we need to go about resolving many issues or problems Africa faces.

03:44 And then comes that problem which you talked about in terms of leadership.

03:49 Leaders of Africa, wherever they are, leaders shouldn't just be presidents or prime ministers,

03:56 but these are very important leaders, even others at different levels.

04:03 The fact that we cannot manage our wealth to deal with our poverty is a defining issue.

04:14 As far as I'm concerned or Africa as I know it is concerned,

04:19 we should be a better place than where we are today,

04:25 even the leaders we have, whether they are young or old, men or women, and so on and so forth.

04:33 And the history which some people referred to earlier,

04:37 we have to look back in history to know how good Africa was or should have been.

04:46 But with this time we have to change and then look into the future and say,

04:51 "Well, Africa needs to be like this in the future, learning our lessons we have learned

04:57 and looking at the rest of the world the way it is."

05:01 And we ask the question, "Why should Africa not be like the many places developed as they are?"

05:10 So, currently we have a situation where there is supposed to be a transition, so to speak.

05:20 It's not me who created it, I'm just talking about what is there.

05:26 That's African union.

05:27 Absolutely.

05:29 So, I think there is elections coming up or supposed to be coming up.

05:38 The contestation is about whether that is going to happen and when it is happening,

05:44 there are disputes about is the current leadership staying, is it stepping aside,

05:52 and there is a lot of friction going on within and then from outside.

06:03 It's a big problem that people are trying to look at and address.

06:09 So, from the African perspective or African union perspective, what is intended is to say,

06:20 one, I think there have been efforts to bring the Congolese different groups together

06:25 to agree how to move forward.

06:27 I think they have secured some kind of agreement as to how they move forward.

06:34 Now, the problem has shifted to being, is this agreement going to be implemented?

06:42 Because there are signs that people have reasons to be doubtful.

06:51 So, what African union wants is to pursue that route where the internal situation,

07:02 their leaders continue to talk and if they need support of neighbors

07:08 or international community has already been engaged through the UN,

07:14 which has presence there by the way, it has been having peacekeeping force there

07:21 for close to a decade and a half, yes, close to 20,000.

07:30 If you ask me what they have done in 15 years, I'm not very sure,

07:35 but it's not their problem, it's our problem still.

07:39 Yes, that people can come and live with us trying to address the problem

07:45 and we end up with more problems than we had before they came.

07:50 That's not their problem, it's ours.

07:56 Yes, so it's a big problem we don't know how it is going to be addressed,

08:01 but I guess as we discussed maybe the leaders of Congo are listening,

08:06 they should be figuring out what they need to do and also maybe let people know

08:12 where they can help to resolve that problem because Congo's problems

08:16 are not just Congo's problems, they affect us as well as neighbors.

08:20 Congo has nine neighbors, each one of us is affected by what happens in the Congo,

08:28 there's no question about that.

08:30 Some more than others, but everybody's affected.

08:33 So that's why naturally neighbors have legitimacy to do something

08:40 or say something about it and if we can figure out as neighbors

08:45 how to help the transition in the Congo to happen without affecting us

08:51 or affecting them so badly, then that's what we should be working on.

08:56 [Music]

09:02 you

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