No troop withdrawal from DRC - Kagame

Rwandan troops would remain in the DRC, Kagame told the nation in his New Year address. The Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) would stay there “for the foreseeable future”, because “their mission is not yet complete”, he was quoted as saying by the German news agency dpa. The reason was that the continued presence in the DRC of Interahamwe extremist Hutu militia and soldiers of the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR) represented “a threat to Rwandan security”, he said, according to a report on his speech broadcast by Rwandan radio, monitored by the BBC. Conversely, the result of the presence of the RPA in the DRC had been that security in Rwanda had improved “a great deal”, he said.

Earlier, the RPA chief of staff, Maj-Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa, briefed foreign diplomats in Kigali on the situation in the DRC. According to a report by Rwandan radio on 29 December, he said that following attacks by the combined forces of the DRC armed forces and forces of the ex-FAR, Forces pour la defence de la democratie (FDD - of Burundi) and Mayi-Mayi tribal militia, all supported by Zimbabwean forces in Katanga Province, the RPA had attacked in “self-defence”, recapturing Pepa, Pweto and other positions in the area. Referring during the same meeting to the situation in eastern DRC, Nyamwasa said that over the past six months there, Interahamwe and ex-FAR members had been surrendering to the RPA, “after losing the support of residents, and Rwandan residents in particular”.