Democratisation process underway - Kagame

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said the country’s new constitution, which is currently being drafted, will be comprehensive and will take into account the “peculiarities of our situation”. In a recent interview with a group of Tanzanian journalists, made available to IRIN by presidential spokesman Nicholas Shalita, Kagame stressed the democratisation process was underway as evidenced by two phases of local elections. He said that before the third phase - parliamentary and presidential elections - the process of drafting the constitution would have to be completed. This would mark the end of the transitional period slated for the end of 2003. “While democratising, we are at the same time decentralising power to these newly democratised levels of local government,” Kagame added. He said voting for parties had been ruled out because this could result in “divisive politics”. “To allow [individuals] to call upon the sentiments of their parties at this time when we have not yet laid down the rules of the game, would be detrimental to the security we have worked so hard to create in the country,” he stated. Asked about Rwanda’s relations with the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, he replied: “We shall not be onlookers and we shall always demand that the ICTR does its job properly”. “We have every right to get involved and participate in whatever manner is allowed by law in that process,” Kagame stated. He also called for “less politicisation” of the Arusha process. On integrating members of the ex-Forces rwandaises armees (ex-FAR) into the army, he said it was a question of “weighing risks”. “We have discovered there are more risks in us leaving them out, than including them,” he said. “When they are in the army, they are answerable to the institution they are serving...But if one is in Congo, he is not answerable to any institution and instead he makes the whole institution go into Congo to pursue him.” He recalled that the current armed forces had integrated more than 15,000 soldiers from the former army. He dismissed the concept that people were fleeing the country, saying the category of people leaving these days was very specific. “They are only a handful and they are politicians,” he said. “These are people who believe that they do not fit in the political environment depending on their own perception or understanding of the situation.” “If you want to become the president, you must first be inside Rwanda,” he added.