The Rwandan government have reacted strongly to the American Department of State communique released on Saturday February 17, 2024.
Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a press release the next day and indicated that the US statement “offered a deeply biased vision of the reality, in flagrant contradiction with the spirit of the confidence-building process initiated by the Director of American National Intelligence in November 2023, creating a constructive framework for a de-escalation of the situation”.
Vincent Biruta, head of Rwandan diplomacy, expressed Rwanda’s desire to seek clarification from the American government to determine whether this declaration marks a turning point in its policy or simply comes from a lack of internal coordination.
Among the points that irritated the Rwandan authorities was on the designation of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR): “It was the American Department of State which added the FDLR – then known as ALIR (also known as Interahamwe and ex-FAR) – to its list of terrorist organizations under the Patriot Act, following the assassination and rape of eight Western tourists in Bwindi, Uganda, including two Americans,” Biruta recalled.
He also added that; “Qualifying this genocidal and terrorist organization as a simple ‘armed group’ designated as a ‘negative force’ by regional organizations and the government of the DRC is a shocking and cynical act of realpolitik, calling into question the capacity of States -United to serve as a credible mediator in the Great Lakes region.”
