(10 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kigali, Rwanda – 9 January 2025
1. Wide of Rwandan President Paul Kagame walking into press conference room
2. Wide of journalists
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda:
"If DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) government is not encouraged to take its own responsibility for its people and its country and everybody joins them to blame others for their problems, how do you expect Congo to address these problems that affect all of us?"
4. Journalists filming
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda:
"These leaders of M23 and the majority of their fighters came from Uganda where they had been as refugees who ran away as a result of solving the problem of 2012/ 2013 when these people (rebels) moved to Uganda and others came here. I remember first, the specific number, those who came here were between 500 and 600, whom we disarmed and gave back arms to the government of DRC at the time."
6. Various of journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda:
"But these (rebels who surrendered in Rwanda) are not the ones who started the fighting. If you want to see where these people are, most of them are still here. The fighting was started by the main group that was in and from Uganda. So how did it become Rwanda’s problem? Honestly! What is the basis and for how long do we explain this? Up to what point?"
8. Journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda:
"This problem is not insurmountable, it can be addressed. It can end, it should have ended in actual fact long ago. But you can not end it by manipulation, you can not end it by playing games."
10. Various of journalists
STORYLINE:
Rwandan President Paul Kagame urged Congolese authorities Thursday to negotiate with a violent rebel group that has seized key towns in eastern Congo in recent days, widening its control over the region which borders Rwanda.
M23 is the most prominent of the more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the Congolese border with Rwanda where more than 1 million people were displaced by fighting last year.
Last month it captured the towns of Katale and Masisi, the latter located 80 kilometers (49 miles) west of the regional capital, Goma, a strategic entry point into the Congolese interior.
Kagame told reporters in the Rwandan capital of Kigali that failure to talk directly to M23 rebels means an unwillingness to find a political solution to the conflict.
"This problem is not insurmountable, it can be addressed. It can end, it should have ended in actual fact long ago. But you can not end it by manipulation, you can not end it by playing games," said Kagame.
Congo accuses Rwanda of backing M23 and has repeatedly rejected Kagame’s advice to negotiate with the rebels.
United Nations experts estimate there are up to 4,000 Rwandan forces in Congo.
AP video by Adeline Umutoni
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