YouSaid · the spoken record

Nzongola-Ntalaja

lines on the record: 134
first: 2022-03-29
most recent: 2023-06-26
sittings or episodes: 9
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“First, we ask it to reaffirm the inviolability of the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; second, to support both the Nairobi and Luanda processes and the deployment of SADC; third, to sanction the ADF, the M-23, CODECO and all the other terrorist movements more robustly; fourth, to demand the acceleration of the withdrawal of the RDF troops covered by the M-23 from the areas under their occupation so that they can return to their real country of origin; fifth, to prevent impunity for the repeated attacks on camps for displaced persons and the massacres in Kishishe and Lala in Ituri and other places; sixth, to support the financing campaign for the Disarmament, Demobilization, Community Recovery and Stabilization Programme; and seventh, to adopt sanctions targeting the M-23, the RDF officers who have crossed the border, the Rwandan authorities concerned, the ADF, CODECO and their leaders.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“The $2.25 billion emergency humanitarian aid plan launched in Kinshasa to deal with the crisis has so far received very little funding. As for the partnership with MONUSCO and its withdrawal strategy, my Government is continuing a constructive dialogue with the Mission to reconfigure the transition plan. While we wait for the definitive outcome of those efforts and the Government’s official pronouncement on the matter, we must keep in mind on the one hand that MONUSCO’s exit is irreversible, and on the other that we must focus on the benchmarks for creating the minimum security conditions necessary for a successful withdrawal. Before concluding my statement, on behalf of my delegation I would like to make a number of requests of the Council.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Killing, raping, terrorizing and traumatizing the indigenous populations of the east and driving them off their land into insanitary camps for displaced persons in order to ensure their subsequent slow extermination — that is the sad reality on the ground in the east. It is not some fiction about an imaginary threat of the ethnic cleansing of the members of a particular group in the Congo. Fourthly, my Government demands a minimum of respect for the civilian populations of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the brave Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC) and their leadership, fighting with their lives to free my country from the aggression. The humanitarian situation is extremely worrisome.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Secondly, the actual sabotage of the Nairobi and Luanda processes is being jointly orchestrated by the M-23/RDF dyad. It is they that have not been respecting the Luanda agreement — not us. They are the ones that have not respected it. And no one can say that it is we who are sabotaging the negotiations process, because it is not true. It is they that are doing it, as the facts clearly demonstrate. The message and the final communiqué of the 3 June ICGLR meeting, which I just mentioned, revealed that reality. Thirdly, the statistics concerning the massacres committed and incited by the aggressors and their proxies in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, with 10 million people killed, provide ample and painful evidence of the threat of the erasure of the civilian Congolese population there.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“To this day no one can cite any serious operation carried out by the remnants of that organization against Rwanda. It continues to serve as a pretext for justifying a predatory agenda aimed at exploiting the natural resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and realizing Mr. Paul Kagame’s dreams of territorial expansion. The Council will recall his recent speech in Benin, during which he spoke of retaking the territories that the Kingdom of Rwanda had allegedly lost to the Congo, which is entirely false, as I said in my most recent statement to the Council (see S/PV.9307). Stop dreaming. Congolese land is sacrosanct. As President Tshisekedi has said, with the backing of his people, our country will not give up an inch of its national territory.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“In that context, the operationalization of the Disarmament, Demobilization, Community Recovery and Stabilization Programme warrants support, as it is one of the pillars of the peacebuilding process. We would like to take this opportunity to call on partners to step up funding for the Programme. Before concluding this part of our statement on regional dynamics, we would like to set the record straight with regard to some recent allegations. First, as my delegation has repeatedly said and demonstrated, the simple truth is that the Forces démocratiques de libération de Rwanda (FDLR) pose no real military or security threat to Rwanda. No one can tell me of a single incident in which the FDLR has attacked Rwanda over the past five or 10 years. We have no evidence of that.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“The Summit specifically reminded the M-23 of its obligation to withdraw from the areas under its occupation in the lead-up to its preliminary cantonment in Rumangabo before its relocation to Maniema. Two other major meetings are planned. Preparations began last Friday, 23 June, for the African Union quadripartite summit of the East African Community, the Economic Community of Central African States, the ICGLR and SADC, scheduled for 27 June in Luanda, on the security situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The meeting will cover coordination among all the forces deployed there to prevent any overlap of their peacekeeping efforts in the eastern part of the country. The Nairobi meeting on discussions on the cantonment of the M-23 is scheduled for 30 June.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Regarding the Luanda agreement of November 2022, which some speakers have mentioned, it has so far not been abided by. The M-23 continues to occupy vast swathes of territory in the Congo and to kill people without any response from the forces capable of preventing them from doing so. At the regional level, political, security and diplomatic efforts continue to solidify around the Nairobi and Luanda processes and the announcement of the deployment of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The tenth Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), held on 3 June, reaffirmed the importance of implementing the Luanda joint road map, adopted in November 2022 and modified in Addis Ababa in February 2023.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Suggesting that the Democratic Republic of the Congo negotiate with such entities is almost indecent. Our partners should stop thinking that what is happening in our country is merely a Congolese issue. In one way or another, if we do not act collectively to eliminate those groups and address the root causes of the conflict directly, we will all pay the price of the developments in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Council should not forget that the conflict that has ravaged the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo for more than 25 years and has led to more than 10 million deaths did not originate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was exported and subsequently transplanted into Congolese soil. Returning to the subject of the M-23/RDF movement, it is fickle. It has never respected agreements.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Moreover, terrorist groups are operating in the forests and protected areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which they exploit and scour. In doing so, they are playing an active role in deforestation and therefore in reducing the capacity of the Congolese forests, which are essential to the survival of humankind in the face of the challenges of climate change. Lastly, it is possible that in their quest for funding, the terrorist groups that are illegally exploiting our mineral resources may one day gain access to the abundant strategic and dangerous materials such as uranium that are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For those three reasons, we ask the Council to join the Democratic Republic of the Congo in condemning and unequivocally sanctioning these hostile armed and terrorist groups with a firmer hand.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“With regard to the security situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, my delegation would again like to draw the Council’s attention to the activism and growing threats from the Rwanda proxy Mouvement du 23 mars (M-23)/Rwanda Defence Force (RDF), the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terrorists affiliated to Da’esh and the Coopérative pour le développement du Congo (CODECO). In addition to the massacres and multiple violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law that they inflict on civilians on a daily basis, those terrorist groups are increasingly targeting camps for displaced persons. That is unacceptable. Violating the integrity of those camps is a crime against humanity.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Furthermore, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), which completed the voter registration process on 25 April, will deploy from 26 June to 10 July to places such as Kwamouth to register people who had not been registered because of the conflict. We also hope that people in the territories of Masisi and Rutshuru will be registered in the coming months. As I said, those areas had not been put on the electoral rolls because of insecurity. CENI will continue its untiring work in accordance with my Government’s expressed desire for transparent, inclusive and credible elections.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, Assistant Secretary- General for Africa in the Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations. I would like to make some comments on the issues mentioned in the report and the various concerns raised by the members of the Council. The political situation in my country, as the report highlights, has been mainly preoccupied with the continuation of the electoral process and the regional and international efforts to resolve the crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. With regard to the elections, it should be noted that on 15 June His Excellency President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo put into effect legislation on the distribution of seats for the elections.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nzongola-Ntalaja (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (spoke in French): At the outset, I would like to congratulate you, Madam President, on your country’s presidency of the Security Council for the month of June, and to thank you for convening today’s meeting on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I also thank Secretary-General António Guterres for his commitment to the cause of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And I want to warmly greet all the Council members here today, including the three representatives of the African continent in this organ. My delegation has taken note of the report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), about which we were just briefed by Ms.”
2023-06-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9358 (2023) · source
“Those three entities have thus clearly asked the Security Council, given the progress achieved and the challenges and other threats that I mentioned previously, to completely waive the notification obligation on weapons established by resolution 2648 (2022), adopted on 29 July 2022. The Democratic Republic of the Congo endorses the recommendations of the three aforementioned bodies. On the basis of its experience with the famous notification clause, the Democratic Republic of the Congo hopes that this obligation, which weighs on the brotherly country of the Central African Republic, will finally be lifted in order to strengthen the security forces of the Central African Republic as they face those multiple threats.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“Before concluding, allow me to present a few of my Government’s requests to the Council: first, increased Council support for national and regional peace and cooperation efforts, such as the Luanda process and the Peace Agreement; and secondly, advocacy for financing the DDRR process and humanitarian response plan for the Central African Republic; thirdly, recognition of the recommendations of the 1116th meeting of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, held on 31 October 2022, and the final communiqué of the twenty-second regular session of the conference of Heads of State of ECCAS. Those two decisions were confirmed by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“Secondly, the impact of the crisis in the Sudan on the Central African Republic, in particular with regard to the movements of armed combatants, and the problem of the ever-increasing number of refugees, which exacerbates the humanitarian situation, are all subjects of concern.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“Those bilateral platforms will further improve coordination efforts between the Central African Republic and its neighbours in the fight against common security threats. The realities I have just described cannot, however, sidestep the challenges and other remaining concerns, including the following. First, there is the rise of certain refractory armed groups, which are well-equipped and receive external training, which is a cause for concern. The final report of the Panel of Experts on the Central African Republic (see S/2023/360) highlighted in this respect the Janjaweed of Darfur, the Misseriya militia of the Sudan and a number of rebels from neighbouring countries of the Central African Republic.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“In addition, the letter dated 15 May 2023 from Secretary-General addressed to the Security Council (S/2023/356) also highlighted further progress on the goals defined in the statement by the President of the Security Council of 9 April 2019 (S/PRST/2019/3). These are the measures taken by the Central African Republic for more effective arms and ammunition management, the operationalization of the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons and the start of security sector reform, among others. At the diplomatic level, steps have been taken to reactivate several joint commissions between the Central African Republic and its neighbours, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“I therefore have duty of solidarity in two ways: first, nationally and secondly, regionally, as a member of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region. Allow me to welcome the progress made in the Central African Republic in implementing the process of joint ownership of the joint road map of the Luanda process and the Political Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in the Central African Republic. To date, at least nine armed groups out of a total of 14 signatories to the Political Agreement have been dissolved in the Central African Republic. This momentum can be maintained by strengthening the disarmament, demobilization, repatriation and reintegration (DDRR) process and by sustaining its financing.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“Bankole Adeoye, African Union Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security; Her Excellency Ms. Esmeralda Mendoza, Secretary of State for External Relations of Angola; Ms. Sima Sami Bahous, Executive Director of UN-Women, and the civil society representative from the Central African Republic, Mr. Rhosyns Ngatondang. I would also like to thank the Secretary- General, His Excellency Mr. António Guterres, for his commitment to the cause of Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo follows with interest developments in the Central African Republic, a neighbouring country with which it shares more or less 1,577 km of border. That which affects the Central African Republic can affect the north-western and northern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nzongola-Ntalaja (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (spoke in French): At the outset, I would like to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for the month of June, and thank you, Sir, for organizing this meeting on the situation in the Central African Republic. I would also like to thank the other officials and dignitaries at this meeting, beginning with Her Excellency Ms. Sylvie Baipo Temon, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Francophonie and Central Africans Abroad of the Central African Republic; Her Excellency Ms. Valentine Rugwabiza, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Central African Republic and Head of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA); His Excellency Mr.”
2023-06-20 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9352 (2023) · source
“These statements, which the Council must condemn and proscribe, reveal expansionist impulses that exacerbate tensions in the region. As a reminder, the inviolability of borders was a key principle affirmed by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now the African Union, on 21 July 1964, at the second OAU summit, in Cairo, Egypt. The Democratic Republic of the Congo will defend every inch of its territory. We will not negotiate with terrorists.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“Kabarebe recently said that they will continue to fight until they get their land, which is in the Congo, back. All of that is contrary to history and jurisprudence. Historians of Rwanda, among them my former professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Mr. Jan Vansina, a Belgian, and the Congolese historian, Mr. Isidore Ndaywel, have shown in the scholarship that no king of pre-colonial Rwanda had succeeded in conquering even a small piece of the present Congo. But Mr. Kagame, who comes from a royal family, would like to do what his ancestors had failed to accomplish. We also want to draw the attention of Council members to recent dangerous statements calling for the redrawing of borders in the Great Lakes.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“That is not the first time that Rwandan leaders have propagated those lies. Pasteur Bizimungu was the third President of Rwanda, but he wielded no power because he was a member of the marginalized Hutu ethnic group, thousands of whom were massacred in our country in 1994. The 2010 mapping report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights states that what happened in the Congo can legally be considered a genocide. That is not my opinion. That is what is in the mapping report in the archives of the United Nations, something that no one really wants to publicize. After Mr. Kagame and Mr. Bizimungu came the strongman James Kabarebe, whom Kagame had appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Congolese army from May 1997 to July 1998. Mr.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“Another accusation made by Rwandans is that the Congolese complain only when they are responsible for their problems. We are apparently incapable of analysing the reasons for the underlying causes of our shortcomings. But the reasons for the root causes of the Congolese crisis emanate from Rwanda, not the Congo. Let me conclude by commenting on four root causes that are entirely Rwandan-made. They are the plundering of the Congo’s resources, as the representative of Albania rightly underscored earlier, militarism, ethnic hatred and expansionism. With regard to the militarism, ethnic hatred and expansionism of President Kagame, during his recent press conference in Cotonou, in Benin, Mr. Kagame revealed his expansionist tendencies by saying that parts of Congo and Uganda belonged to Rwanda before colonization.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“They carry out aggressions against the Democratic Republic of the Congo and take a well-organized approach to cheerfully plundering our natural resources, which is one of the major causes of the crisis that we are going through in our country today. We often hear from Rwandans loyal to Paul Kagame’s dictatorial regime that the Congolese threaten the lives of Rwandans through their collaboration with the FDLR and ethnic hatred for Kinyarwanda speakers. So far, we have seen no credible examples of xenophobic violence comparable to that of other countries. We have not seen that. Even Ms. Alice Nderitu, who was cited here today, made her statement before her visit to the Congo. She then went to the Congo, and, when she came back, she doubled down on what she said. But so far there has been no proof.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“I want to point out that the remaining FDLR elements, whose leadership was eliminated by the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the operations I just mentioned, no longer constitute a military threat capable of attacking Rwanda. They have not made the smallest incursion into Rwanda for years. That was not the case in 1994 and 1995, but, to date, we have seen nothing of the sort. The remnants of the FDLR no longer pose a military threat to Rwanda. They are rather a source of socioeconomic insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that benefits Rwanda. Rwanda has the most to gain by the presence of the remaining FDLR elements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because it gives them a pretext for justifying incursions into our country.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“Contrary to the false accusations that the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is collaborating with and supporting the FDLR, I would like to cite five major robust unilateral and joint operations that the FARDC and the Rwandan Defence Forces conducted against the FDLR between January 2009 and February 2022. They are, first, Operation Umoja Wetu, from 20 January to 25 February 2009; secondly, Operation Kimia II and subsequently Amani Leo, from March 2009 to 2012; thirdly, the voluntary disarmament programme; fourthly, an operation that was conducted from January 2015 to December 2018; and, fifthly, the joint FARDC-RDF operations.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“My delegation calls on the members of the Council to join the Democratic Republic of the Congo in holding accountable the perpetrators of those atrocities. As President Tshisekedi Tshilombo of the Democratic Republic of the Congo underscored pursuant to our Parliament’s decision, my delegation reiterates that the elements of the armed groups will never be integrated into the Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC). We will not negotiate with the M-23. There is no country that we know of today that negotiates with terrorists. Rwanda has never negotiated with the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR). Why then are we asked to negotiate with the M-23? Let me clarify a point raised concerning the FDLR in the report before us.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“We urge for the preliminary cantonment of M-23 elements in the group’s camp in Kiwanja before its relocation to Maniema, which accords with the joint Luanda-Nairobi road map adopted at the mini-summit held in Luanda on 23 November 2022, as well as with the views of the African Union Peace and Security Council and the Security Council. The plan to canton the M-23 members on Congolese territory far from Rwanda is crucial if we are to genuinely disarm those terrorists so as to prevent massacres such as those that took place in Kishishe from 22 November to 1 December 2022. Kishishe was fully under the occupation of the M-23 terrorists, supported by troops of the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF).”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“The Special Envoy announced a workshop in Durban that will provide a framework for charting the future. My delegation appreciates the initiative, but like my colleague from Burundi, we would like to remind those interested in taking part that the mechanism was conceived more than 10 years ago and that much has changed since. We therefore need to revisit it. My Government’s immediate major concern is focused on stabilizing the security situation by disarming the M-23 and other major foreign and foreign- influenced local terrorist groups, such as the Allied Democratic Forces-Medina wa Tawhid wal Muwahdeen, the Coopérative pour le développement du Congo and the Résistance pour un État de droit au Burundi.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“My delegation has taken note of the report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region (S/2023/237), dated 30 March, which Ambassador Huang Xia presented to us. Let me make a few comments on the issues raised in the report. Rwanda, which operates with the Mouvement du 23 mars (M-23), as if it were necessary to remind anyone, is one of the signatory countries to the Addis Ababa Framework Agreement. On 6 May in Bujumbura, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is reaching the end of its term as Chair of the regional mechanism since February 2013, will hand over the chairmanship to Burundi. We hope that under Burundi’s chairmanship it will be able to do its work effectively.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“Mr. Nzongola-Ntalaja (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (spoke in French): At the outset, I would like to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your presidency of the Security Council for the month of April and thank you, Sir, for organizing this meeting on the situation in the Great Lakes region. I would also like to thank the Secretary-General, His Excellency Mr. António Guterres, for his commitment to my country’s cause. I extend my thanks to all Security Council members without forgetting to mention the three representatives of the African continent within this body. I also welcome the Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission, His Excellency Ambassador Ivan Šimonović, and the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Great Lakes Region, Mr. Huang Xia. I had a good talk with him on Monday, and he is doing excellent work in our region.”
2023-04-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9307 (2023) · source
“There should be targeted sanctions against Rwanda, Rwanda Defence Force officers and those who have committed violations and crimes for the aggression and support for the terrorist M-23 movement.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“It should continue to exert and maintain strong pressure on Rwanda, its forces and the M-23 until they have fully and unconditionally withdrawn from the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There was a documented attack and the Charter of the United Nations was violated; the report of the Group of Experts is clear. The Democratic Republic of Congo asks those Council members who continue to hesitate to render justice to condemn Rwanda without ambiguity. The Democratic Republic of the Congo demands that Rwanda compensate the Congolese population for the damage done in terms of loss of human life — 10,000 people is the figure we have — and in terms of the families torn apart and the people displaced from their homes.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“For that reason, the Democratic Republic of Congo requests the Security Council to take the following actions. It should take into account the recommendations contained in the memorandum of 10 March addressed to it by the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It should work to transform MONUSCO into a genuine peacemaking force, revitalize the Force Intervention Brigade by strengthening its equipment and logistics and support the Luanda and Nairobi processes. It should strengthen the sanctions against the ADF/ Madina Tawheed wal Muwahedeen, CODECO and the M-23 terrorists and their leaders. It should demand that all armed groups, without exception, lay down their arms and join the Disarmament, Demobilization, Community Recovery and Stabilization Programme, and it should provide more support to that Programme.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“In order to achieve its main objective of looting the strategic mineral resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda needs to keep the FDLR alive as a necessary pretext for invading our country and continuing to loot our resources such as coltan and gold, as well as other mineral, animal and forestry resources. While it is correct that the Democratic Republic of the Congo needs to strengthen its State to better protect its borders and its people, the Security Council has the responsibility to maintain peace and security all over the world and to do everything possible to ensure that the States Members of the United Nations respect international law, including the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all Member States.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“It is our enemy, because it is there to exploit our mineral resources. That is why it is engaged in mafia activities with those who want to buy our minerals, especially our strategic minerals. They are raping women and exploiting our country’s territory as if it were their own. And that essentially is why the FDLR is not our friend, contrary to what many people seem to think. What they should be asking is why the Rwanda Defence Force did not eliminate the FDLR. In reality, the Rwandan regime has in fact succeeded in eliminating the FDLR as a military threat.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“The second time was during Uganda’s five-year occupation of North Kivu, which lasted from August 1998 to 2003, after which the Sun City Agreement was signed in South Africa. At the time Rwanda had control of North Kivu through the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, a structure backed by Rwanda, just as the M-23 is today. The third such occasion, as indicated in the 10 March memorandum to the Security Council from the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was during a joint patrol with the FARDC under Joseph Kabila’s regime when Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were working together to combat the FDLR. In fact, in the memorandum, Council members can read that the FARDC did kill two major FDLR leaders. The FDLR is therefore not our friend.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“As I have already explained to the Council, Rwanda has been at liberty to eliminate the group on several occasions. The first was between September 1996 and July 1997, when Commander James Kaberebe was the leader of the Rwandan expeditionary force deployed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and later, when he was Chief of Staff of the Congolese army — meaning that he, a Rwandan officer, was the leader of the Congolese army. That decision — to put a Rwandan at the head of the Congolese army — was made by Laurent Kabila’s friends Presidents Kagame and Museveni. So if he was in charge of the security of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for an entire year, why did he not eradicate the FDLR?”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“Moreover, we should ask who is more hateful — is it someone who spends most of their time demonizing Rwandophones or someone who kills and maims innocent men, women and children, or who rapes women and girls before finally maiming or killing them? Or is it someone who uses improvised explosive devices to kill people who have done them no harm? Those who keep saying that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is mired in ethnic hate need to ask themselves that question. As for the group of former genocides who make up the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), it is clear that many of them are already too old to pose a real threat to Rwanda’s territory. The young people who succeeded their parents and uncles and are haunted by Rwanda limit themselves to mafia- style activities, like the other rebel groups in the region.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“The demagogues who appear from time to time on social networks are listened to by a minority of the population only, while the majority rejects such divisive statements. While intercommunal violence may occur from time to time in disputes over land or access to waterways, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has not seen episodes of deadly violence based on xenophobia and ethnic hatred since 1994. The Congolese people, who are made up of 450 ethnic groups, are not divided into majorities and minorities competing for hegemony. It is a fact that intermarriage has become common in urban areas and that discrimination on the basis of ethnicity is far less prevalent today than it was during the colonial regime, whose foundation was divide-and-rule.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“As the host country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo also hopes that by the 2023 deadline the Council can transform MONUSCO from a peacekeeping into a peacemaking force, or at the very least, into a support force for the Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC). In that context, my Government calls for the reactivation of the Force Intervention Brigade. Before I conclude, I would like to clarify two points about which my country is often unfairly attacked. The first is the allegations about ethnic hate speech directed at Rwandophone people. The position of the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congolese authorities, our civil society and the major Christian churches, including both Catholic and Protestant, are clear and unambiguous. They do not tolerate such speech and condemn it regularly.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“MONUSCO remains an important partner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My Government is currently engaged in a constructive dialogue with the Mission on redefining the transition plan. The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s vision for its future partnership with MONUSCO will involve revisiting and adjusting the plan. I ask the Council to take full account of my Government’s deep and relevant concerns, detailed in the memorandum transmitted to Council members on 10 March during their visit to Kinshasa. I continue to believe firmly that those elements will go a long way to ensuring the clarity and transparency of MONUSCO’s actions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“That speaks volumes about the fickleness of the movement and its clearly identifiable sponsor. The Council must be vigilant, and the multifaceted bilateral and multilateral pressure must not stop until the group surrenders completely and the troops of the Rwanda Defence Force withdraw fully from the territory of our country that they have invaded. What is there to say about the intolerable humanitarian situation of internally displaced persons, which is largely the result of the militancy of armed groups? During their visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo the members of the Council had the opportunity to see that reality with their own eyes. The 2023–2024 emergency humanitarian aid plan launched in Kinshasa in an attempt to curb the crisis needs more funding to ensure its implementation.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“Concerning the security situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, it clearly continues to be dominated by the militant activities of the terrorists of the Da’esh-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the Coopérative pour le développement du Congo (CODECO) and the Mouvement du 23 mars (M-23), a proxy of Rwanda. The unforgivable massacres carried out daily by those negative forces against the women, young people and children of the Democratic Republic of the Congo must stop. As Pope Francis said, the forgotten genocide that is openly taking place in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo must stop. To return to the M-23 — which is so easily confused with the Rwandan army — despite some indications of its withdrawal, we want to draw the Council’s attention to the number of ceasefires that it has already violated.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“In short, the fourth round of Nairobi process consultations will serve to help those armed groups that have responded to the call to lay down their arms to begin demobilization and join the Disarmament, Demobilization, Community Recovery and Stabilization Programme. The efforts that my Government is undertaking with its own funds to operationalize that structure deserve to be supported. We are taking advantage of that platform to launch an appeal to partners for a greater mobilization of funds as a prelude to the more efficient implementation of such a key institution.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“Moreover, in that spirit of constructive partnership and at the request of the Head of State, President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, the Government launched an appeal to the European Union and other partners, encouraging them to deploy observers during the elections. That request for support in election observation at this stage of the process could also contribute to the resolution of a number of upstream challenges. At the regional level, political, security and diplomatic efforts are being centred around the Nairobi and Luanda processes. As for the Nairobi process, the preparations for the fourth phase have gone well, so that it could be launched in early May this year.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source
“Allow me to make a few comments on the issues raised in that report and the various concerns raised by the members of the Council. The political situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as highlighted in the report, is dominated by the ongoing registration process leading up to the 2023 elections and the regional and international efforts to reverse the spiral of insecurity in the east of the country. With regard to the elections, it is important to emphasize that the registration operations, which began on 24 December 2022, will continue both within the national territory and abroad, in particular in France, Belgium, Canada, the United States and South Africa. I would like to reiterate my Government’s commitment to the holding of credible, transparent and inclusive elections.”
2023-03-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9298 (2023) · source