Much of the international community believes that Rwanda backs the M23 rebels, who claimed to capture the city of Goma in eastern Congo last week. UN experts believe that an estimated 3,000 – 4,000 Rwandan soldiers are supervising and supporting M23 fighters in the east of the DRC, outnumbering the rebel group\u2019s forces in the country. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Kagame said, despite the fact that he is commander-in-chief of the Rwandan Defence Force. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many things I don\u2019t know. But if you want to ask me, is there a problem in Congo that concerns Rwanda? And that Rwanda would do anything to protect itself? I\u2019d say 100%,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n
Madowo told Kagame that comparisons have been made between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who backed local separatist forces to try and invade Donbas, an eastern region of Ukraine, in 2014. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be so many stories,\u201d Kagame said of the comparison, adding that he can\u2019t \u201cstop people from saying whatever they want to say.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI may be called anything – what can I do about it?\u201d he asked. \u201cWe have to do what we have to do\u2026 we have to make sure we survive any storm that blows across our country.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kagame called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), one of the largest foreign armed groups operating in the DRC, an \u201cexistential threat\u201d to Rwanda. He alleged that the group was fully integrated into the Congolese armed forces, suggesting that other governments in the region also support the rebel group. <\/p>\n
Kagame repeatedly insisted that Rwanda will do \u201cwhatever it takes\u201d to protect itself, without giving much information about what this entails. <\/p>\n
\u201cNobody,\u201d including the United Nations or the international community \u201cis going to do it for us,\u201d the leader said. <\/p>\n
When asked again if he was sending troops to the DRC, Kigame said that Rwanda will do \u201canything to protect itself,\u201d telling Madowo to \u201cread whatever you want to read from what I\u2019m telling you.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Much of the international community believes that Rwanda backs the M23 rebels, who claimed to capture the city of Goma in eastern Congo last week. UN experts believe that an estimated 3,000 – 4,000 Rwandan soldiers are supervising and supporting M23 fighters in the east of the DRC, outnumbering the rebel group\u2019s forces in the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}