Kagame “eager” to withdraw troops from DRC

President Paul Kagame on Friday said that the UN had “no excuse” for delaying the deployment of peacekeepers to the DRC to help implement the Lusaka ceasefire agreement, news agencies reported. “Just because there was a problem in Sierra Leone, or before that in Somalia, does not justify [the UN] running away from its responsibility,” Kagame told Reuters in Mauritius at the end of the heads of state summit of the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA). Kagame said he would withdraw Rwandan troops from the DRC if the peacekeepers were in place to police the agreement. “We are eager to get out of Congo,” he said. Meanwhile, Kagame rejected accusations that the Rwandan army had carried out human rights atrocities against civilians in the DRC. “These accusations have no basis, no proof,” he told Reuters.