IRIN Interview with Acting President Paul Kagame

The following is an interview conducted with Acting Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The wide-ranging interview, which deals with both foreign policy issues and domestic politics, took place on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the 1994 genocide. Q. The survivors of the genocide are becoming critical of the government saying they have had a raw deal in the political and economic life of the country. Do you think their demands are taking on political overtones? A. This is in the minds of very few people who want to build a constituency on the plight of some groups in our society. They overplay some of the problems for their own political benefit. This has happened in the past history of our country, but I think it is nothing extraordinary and unmanageable. In the last financial year, we spent 7.5 billion Rwanda francs [approximately US$ 24 million] on top of what they get like every Rwandese. We have really tried to help these people. PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS AND POLITICAL FUTURE Q. People say you like operating from the background. What has encouraged you to have a shot at the presidency? A. When I became vice-president it was not according to a well-worked plan. I had been a leader in our liberation struggle and it [the vice-presidency] simply came up as a result of the 1994 situation. Today, I am acting president just because the other president resigned. It was not planned. Again, I find myself in a situation where I am acting president. There is an on-going process to select a new president. It might be that I turn out to be the chosen president. I am always willing to serve my country in whatever capacity, be it out of circumstances or otherwise. Q. As chairman of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), do you think the resignation of president Pasteur Bizimungu was inevitable? Did internal contradictions within the RPF lead to his resignation? A. Yes, there were some problems. The RPF is built on an ideology where people must be modest in doing things. As Africans with all sorts of problems to overcome we have to behave and think in a certain way. For example, we believe that corruption must be fought. Along the path to achieve our goals, some people fall away. However, we always believe that with time people can rethink their positions and become part of the struggle again. Q. If you become president, what will be your goals? A. We shall continue with the current programme. Essentially, the goals would remain the same. These are: reconstruction, the reconciliation of our people who have been affected by all kinds of divisive politics, and the provision of security so that our people can live in peace internally and become part of the peace in our region. Q. What other options are available for those who have genuine political grievances against your government? A. It is a simple matter, we are saying those who have responsibilities in the genocide should be handled by the justice system and those who have no case to answer should go to their villages and live a normal life. Q. Have you integrated any members of the former Rwandan government army into your forces? A. We have so far integrated nearly 15,000 members of the ex-Rwandan government army and [they] are holding different areas of responsibility in the force. In fact, some of them are the ones in different units fighting in the Congo. The integration has been extremely successful, I think most people do not know this, including some of our neighbours who have shown a lot of ignorance about what goes on here. Some of the ex-FAR [Forces Armees Rwandaises] had expertise in different areas and we used this as a yardstick for integrating them in the army. The door is open for those who had nothing to do with the 1994 events. Q. Do you think the political parties sharing the transition administration with the RPF are up to the job of preparing the political future of the country? Do they share the agenda of the RPF? A. I think the political parties in Rwanda have been doing well, given their background. They are inputting to our programmes. There is common ground on major issues like security, justice, reconciliation and economic development. We might disagree on small details, but that is not a problem. Indeed, that is politics. Q. Is the RPF preparing for a future as a political force? A. I think the future of the RPF is good, we have made our contribution to the liberation of our country. We might make mistakes, but we have a mechanism for sitting down and correcting them. I think this capacity to reexamine ourselves is good political culture and will help us consolidate as we go along. But our consolidation politically is not at the expense of other people. It is about reaching common ground with other people. Q. Do you think Rwanda needs a new constitution? A. Yes, absolutely. We have to work on putting in place a new constitution. In the past, individuals used to sit down and write constitutions based on their personal dreams. We intend to put in place a legal and constitutional commission, which is provided for in the Arusha agreement. This commission will go around the country collecting views. The commission will also travel to other countries both in the region and outside to get ideas about constitution making. Certainly it is a question of views and ideas and then writing a draft constitution. If there is a need, there will be a referendum to endorse the outcome. JUSTICE - THE LEGACY OF THE GENOCIDE Q. Justice is another major challenge to your government. Do you have any creative ideas how justice will be administered in a transparent manner? A. Justice is another problem area we have been dealing with it for the last six years and we have managed to stabilize the situation. But we still have a big problem on our hands, with over 100,000 in our prisons on genocide allegations. We have been improvising by looking at different ways to deal with the situation. We created categories of responsibilities for the genocide. This has helped us to be able to focus on the main authors of the genocide and handle the lower categories in different ways. Then we have also come up with another improvisation known as Gacaca, which means that people will be taken to their home communes to be tried in public assisted by the justice system here. This will probably see many cases tried at the same time and being tried in a manner there that is likely to result in many of them being forgiven or given small sentences to serve the community. A legal basis has been created for the Gacaca process and the donors are supportive given other available alternatives. If we had to go by the normal standards of applying justice, we might take centuries dealing with the problem. Donors are on board and have promised to put in resources so that we can proceed with this process. DOWNING OF HABYARIMANA'S PLANE AND UN RELATIONS Q. Your name has been cited in a memo, implicating you as having masterminded the shooting-down of [former Hutu President Juvenal] Habyarimana's plane. Is this true? Do you have any clues about what happened to the plane? A. We are told reliably that some people at the United Nations are very worried about the [former Swedish premier Ingvar] Carlsson report, which puts a lot of responsibility, in terms of the failures in Rwanda before, during and after the genocide on the UN. I understand some of them have now devised ways of trying to intimidate some of us to keep quiet about these failures. The UN should know what happened. They are the ones who were in charge of the situation before the genocide and should not try to push responsibility elsewhere. We are getting more details about this network of people at the UN involved in this smear campaign, we are going to expose them when the time comes. The situation has not been clear when it comes to the downing of Habyarimana's plane. It is stupid for some people to say that the genocide was as a result of the downing of Habyarimana's aircraft. Such people do not know the history of Rwanda. Genocide started in 1959. It was continued in the following years - 1963, 1967, 1973. Of course, we had killings in the 1990's when our struggle was on. If you remember, in 1993 we had to halt the negotiation process in Arusha because there were killings in the north and demand that the government should stop them. Towards the conclusion of the Arusha peace process, one colonel close to Habyarimana openly told people that he was going to Rwanda to plan an apocalypse. What is happening today is an attempt by some people to revise history by distorting facts. About Habyarimana's death, I think the issue should be handled separately from the genocide because at that time there were all sorts of forces in charge of the city and neighbouring areas, which included the United Nations force, the Belgium contingent under the UN, the then-government forces. At the time, we [the RPF] had a force at a site near town which had no relationship with the place where the aircraft was brought down. RELATIONS WITH UGANDA AND DRC Q. Why has the relationship with Uganda, a close ally of Rwanda, remained tense since the fighting in Kisangani last year despite meetings between the top leadership of both countries? A. I really do not fully understand the whole problem because as you said there have been problems before, during and after Kisangani. We have tried to lay them out on the table with our Ugandan brothers. We have had serious discussions on how to overcome this kind of situation. But serious shortcomings keep coming in the way of that process. We are very concerned and we think our partners in this process have to put in a lot in terms of effort to put this history behind us and focus more on the importance of the relationship between the two countries. Q. Do you think a complete fallout with Uganda would strengthen the position of [DRC President Laurent-Desire] Kabila and his allies and offset the military balance in the region? A. Continued problems between the two allies, Uganda and Rwanda, would result in all sorts of negative things, including the strengthening of our enemies. My advice to everyone involved in this war is to work for the implementation of the Lusaka agreement. I do not think there is likely to be any serious changes on the ground. What people did not achieve when there was serious fighting, they should not think that they will achieve now. It would be a very wasteful exercise for anybody to think they can take advantage of the ceasefire to change the situation on the ground. So it will be costly for people who try to operate outside Lusaka. Let's implement the agreement and stop wasting time. Q. Do you subscribe to the view that a deal between you and Kabila will end the war in Congo? A. The problems in Congo are not between me and Kabila. If that were the case, it would be the simplest thing to deal with. The problem is much wider than that and it involves different sections of the Congolese population, it affects different neighbouring countries and countries far from the Congo border. Q. There are credible reports indicating that ethnic hatred aimed at the Tutsi in Congo is on the rise. Do think this will result in mass killings? A. I do not think this hatred has just been created. It has been in that part of Congo for some years. It has been sustained by people who exploit it for political ends. We should fight this hatred politically. Where there is use of arms, we have to face it with use of arms. Q. Do you think people like the Banyamulenge are threatened with extermination? A. Yes, they are in danger. They are in danger because of the unresolved problems in DRC and because there is fighting going on. Q. Do you think the UN plan to deploy 5,500 troops and observers n the DRC is enough? A. It is nowhere near enough, but one should say it is a good gesture. But even this gesture has yet to materialise. It is far early to talk of serious involvement by the international community, which we thought would come in the form of prompt UN involvement.