PRESS RELEASE

Brussels, August 6, 1998

THE NEW PHASE FOR GENERAL KAGAME'S WAR OF CONQUEST

The Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda (RDR) firmly condemn the new aggression of the rwandan army against the Democratic Republic of Congo. The RDR has been among the rare voices in the world to denounce and condemn the rwandan army aggression against the ex-Zaire and the massacres of Hutu refugees, an invasion disguised under the fallacious Banyamulenge rebellion in October 1996.

Since October 1996, the Kigali's regime propaganda machinery has denied any implication of the rwandan army during the first war until July 1997 when General Paul Kagame praised himself to journalists from the Washington Post to have planned the rwandan invasion of ex-Zaire and supplied armed troops which conducted the war operations since the beginning to the end, from Bukavu to Kinshasa. What General Paul Kagame has not yet confessed publicly however is the genocide against Hutu refugees he planned and executed, a genocide which cost the life of more than 200,000 human beings. That genocide, which is well documented by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry and by many humanitarian and human rights organizations , remain unpunished because of the support General Kagame gets from his allies and protectors. These last ones seem to forget that the crime of genocide is imprescriptible and that, soon or later, Kagame and his death squads will be brought to justice.

Now, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)'s regime and its propaganda machine are using the same old story by denying again any implication of the rwandan army in the new war that its troops are now conducting following just the same scenario as in October 1996.

The RDR demands the international community to condemn vigorously the new invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo by the rwandan army. It is high time for the international community to acknowledge the true nature of this criminal regime which has no other project than to buy all kinds of weaponry and machine guns it uses in the extermination of one section of the rwandan population and in wars of aggression against sovereign states members of the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity. General Kagame has not yet understood that the time of past century's rwandan kings' territorial conquests, like those of king Rwabugiri, are totally old-fashioned.

The RDR demands the United Nations Security Council to impose an arms embargo and economic sanctions against the RPF's warmonger regime which is a permanent danger for peace in the African Great Lakes region and to take a firm resolution to bring to justice all war criminals responsible of genocide against Hutu refugees in ex-Zaire and all crimes against humanity committed in Rwanda and in the region because the impunity for war criminals now on power is a key factor of wars and instability in the entire African Great Lakes region.

It is urgent for the United Nations to revive its initiative for a regional conference on peace, security and development, a conference in which all actors, without any exclusion, would meet to find long lasting political solutions to conflicts in the African Great Lakes region because these conflicts will never be solved by the force of arms whatever the arms suppliers, the quantities of arms sold and their destruction power.

For the RDR

François Nzabahimana

Chairman

Pour un peuple réconcilié dans un Etat de droit; For reconcilied people in a rule of law
Duharanire ubwiyunge bw'abanyarwanda mu gihugu cyubahiriza amategeko

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